Forces Widows Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill

A Bill to provide for the equal treatment of forces widows’ pensions in respect of retirement from military service for the periods before 1973 and between 1973 and 2005; and for connected purposes.

Until 1973, the widow of a retired serviceman was entitled to a pension equal to one third of the pension their spouse had earned. In 1973, a number of improvements to the Armed Forces Pension Scheme were introduced, one of which was to increase the service widow’s pensions to half the spouse’s rate of pension. However, this improvement applied only to that part of the spouse’s pension earned by service on or after 31 March 1973.

The Bill would provide for armed forces pensions to be paid to surviving spouses and civil partners of deceased armed forces personnel who retired from service: (a) before 31 March 1973 and (b) between 31 March 1973 and 6 April 2005to be calculated and paid on the same basis.