Service Widows (Pensions) (Hansard, 10 February 1986)

§ Mr. Lee

On(a), the cost of paying a forces family pension to all widows of post retirement marriage irrespective of their date of marriage is now estimated at around £13 million a year. This is only a broad indication of the additional order of costs drawn from the current cost of widows pensions and general population statistics on the age of marriage. On (b, without specific data on the marriages of service men after retirement, which is not available, it is not possible to estimate the cost of the award of pensions in this category. Of course such a change, if implemented would have to apply throughout the whole of the public service, and not only to the armed forces, which would naturally greatly add to the cost. The Government have no plans to introduce pensions for the widows of those service men and others who retired before 6 April 1978 and married after retirement.

384W

Revised grants-in-aid for 1986–87 should be announced after completion of the consultations with the parliamentary committees. They would differ somewhat from the provision to be initially in the Supply Estimates, due partly to the changed treatment of receipts and revotes, and partly to my intention to allocate virtually the whole of the available resources to increases in the institutions' baselines. I would however reserve the right in future years to allocate part of the available total selectively in response to any special needs, as appropriate. The provision which I propose for 1986–87 on the existing direct vote basis is summarised below and is within the arts and libraries programme total given in the Public Expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 9702). Within the sum of £57.8 million for 1986–87, about £8.2 million is being devoted to purchase grants for which the basic provision (excluding revotes) continues at the cash levels established in 1985–86: and some £49.6 million for other net running costs, compared with £48.1 million in 1985–86.