Campaign 300 was so named after the successful ‘Pension For Life’ campaign which concluded in 2015. It was then realised that about 300 widow/ers who had been forced to forfeit their war widow/ers’ pension when they remarried or cohabitated, were not covered by this new legislation.
The Trustees have been fighting for these widow/ers to have their pension restored, from the date of application for reinstatement. There has never been any question of having payments backdated to the date from which they were surrendered. The campaign was backed in the House of Commons by Dr Julian Lewis and in the House of Lords by our President and Vice Presidents. The great injustice was that, if these widow/ers (and it is predominantly widows) were to divorce their current husband or spouse, they would be entitled to have their pension restored. There would then be nothing to stop them remarrying and keeping that pension; even if they remarried the same person! Which is an entirely ridiculous situation!
Throughout the campaign the Treasury has refused to discuss restoring the pension, arguing that it would set an unacceptable principle to other public sector pensions. Our arguments that the Armed Forces are implicitly unique in their commitment fell on deaf ears. Whilst we continued to press for reinstatement, the MOD decided to look at a proposal put forward by Ben Wallace, a previous Secretary of State for Defence which would give each of these widow/ers an ex-gratia payment; ie a one off payment.
The Trustees dismissed an initial suggestion of the amount that might be paid as being paltry, and the Trustees were concerned that the matter had stalled when in May – with only 24 hours notice to the Chair – the MOD announced a one off payment of £87,500. There was alarm when the first details suggested that this reflected a payment of £70,000 – topped up to £87,500 to reflect a 20% tax liability.
The Association and it’s supporters were outraged at this as the Pension is not subject to income tax and the calculation of 20% tax – would effectively make the payment means tested, with some only receiving just over 50% of the £70,000. In September the MOD announced that there would be no liability for tax, but the publication of the application form brought another shock.Again the Association had had no prior sight of the form before its release – but were appalled to discover that the payment would only be available to the those who had not only surrendered their War Widow/ers’ Pension but were not receiving the AFPS 75 Attributable Pension. Effectively anyone who remarried between the change in legislation in 2000 and 2015 were excluded.
This meant that by June 2024 of just over 300 applications only approx 2/3 had been successful.
Following her appointment at the AGM in March, our new Chair Mrs Chris Dzuiba has continued to press the MOD – especially on their assertion that he Association had known all along that this exclusion would be applied. Finally, in June 2024 the MOD acknowledged that the Association had not been aware of this exclusion, until the release of the application form.
The approach of the General Election stalled discussions until the end of the summer when Mrs Dzuiba was able to meet the new Minister for Veterans, Alastair Cairns (Birmingham Selly Oak Alistair Carns). Obviously, the new government has much on its plate but we will continue to press the injustice of this decision and seek a reversal.
The penalty of surrendering pensions on remarriage or cohabitation was recognised to be inherently unfair with the introduction of the new schemes AFPS 05 and AFPS 15 and AFCS, and the changes made to the AFPS 75 and War Pension Scheme in 2000 and 2015, respectively. It is, therefore, a gross injustice that approx 50 widow/ers have had their applications for the Widows’ Recognition Payment rejected, and are excluded from receiving this payment simply because they remarried between 2000 and 2015. Even if a few ladies did not apply on seeing the exclusion clause on the application form, 50 claims rejected total only £4,375,000.
We will continue to update this page when we receive information through official channels, in the meantime, these links might prove useful:
House of Commons Library: RESEARCH BRIEFING Published 16th June 2023: Deaths attributable to service before and after 6th April 2005
House of Commons Library: BRIEFING PAPER Number 568, 7 April 2021 War Widows’ Pensions
Forces Net: War Widows urge Government to reassess pension scheme
National Army Museum: Supporting the families of the fallen
Click here for the link to general information from the Government on War Widow(er) Pensions.
