§ 74. Dame Irene Wardasked the Minister of Defence how many widows of Regular officers have been paid arrears of pensions before the general agreement to pay from December, 1952; how many have been rejected; and what steps are being taken to ensure that widows know that they can receive arrears under exceptional circumstances.
§ Mr. Selwyn LloydIn my Answer to my hon. Friend's Question on this subject on 26th October, I explained that the Service Departments had reviewed claims under the widows' "ordinary" pension scheme in force before 1952, and that claims which satisfied the new conditions had then been accepted and arrears paid back to that date. The number of awards which have been thus made, on review, to widows of British Service officers is 1,058. I regret that it is not possible, without an unwarrantable expenditure of time and effort on the part of the Service Departments, to state the number which have been rejected.
As regards the last part of the Question, I explained to my hon. Friend in my letter to her of 25th July last the wide publicity which has been given to the new scheme published in Command Paper 8741.