§ Mr. FlightTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will take steps to provide financial assistance to women formerly employed in the Civil Service who lost their pension entitlement as a result of being paid lump-sum gratuities from their accumulated pension contributions at their time of leaving; and if he will make a statement. [22106]
§ Dr. David ClarkI have no plans to change the rules that applied to women who resigned their established appointments before 1 June 1972 on marriage and received a gratuity.
Until civil service pension arrangements were changed in 1972, the general rule was that anybody who resigned from an established, that is, a pensionable post, before reaching age 50 automatically lost all eligibility for superannuation benefits in respect of their pre-resignation service. That eligibility could not be restored even if the person concerned subsequently returned to the service and became established and pensionable again.
The arrangements for marriage gratuities for women who married while serving in an established post were an exception to this general rule. A women who received a marriage gratuity and who later returned to pensionable service in the civil service had opportunity, subject to the time limits which applied, to refund the gratuity and count her earlier service for the purpose of any superannuation award for which she subsequently became eligible.
Any change in these arrangements would on fairness grounds also have to extend to former civil servants who resigned for other reasons from their established appointments before 1972 and who did not qualify for pension benefits. It is rarely, if ever, possible to make retrospective changes in pension arrangements.