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Early day motion tabled by primary sponsor Stephen Doughty (Labour and Co-operative Party), on Wednesday, 11 March 2020, in the House of Commons. It is signed by 47 members in total.


War widows pensions

That this House honours and recognises the sacrifices that our veterans and their families make; notes the particular sacrifices that the partners of veterans make and the consequences for them of tragically losing a spouse or partner serving in the armed forces; notes the changes announced in 2014 which allowed war widows or widowers that lost their spouse or cohabiting partner in service in the armed forces before 6 April 2005, and had not remarried by 1 April 2015, to retain their war widow pension for life regardless of ongoing relationship status; notes however that this regrettably excluded war widows bereaved before 6 April 2005 that had already had to surrender their war widows pension upon remarrying or cohabiting; believes that this is unacceptable; notes that the only way this group of war widows could regain their pensions is by divorcing their current partners and remarrying them; agrees with the then Defence Secretary who said on 18 February 2019 that this was a burning injustice, Official Report, column 1187; and therefore supports the campaign of the War Widows Association to rectify this anomaly; and urges the Government to correct this injustice by providing equalisation and compensation for the small number of war widows unjustly affected.


Secondary information

Type
Early day motion
Reference
280 
Session
2019-21
Other sponsors
Julian Lewis
Mike Penning
Jim Shannon
Kirsten Oswald
Allan Dorans
Related items
Business of the House
Thursday, 19 March 2020
Proceeding contributions
House of Commons
Subjects
Pensions War widow(er)s Remarriage
Link
View this Early day motion on edm.parliament.uk