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Ministry of Defence

Answer

Sir Nicholas Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much financial assistance has been granted to British war (a) veterans and (b) widows living in Zimbabwe in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available; and what plans the Government have to provide further financial assistance. [195046] Mr. Caplin: Information is not available in the form requested. However, 40 pensions are currently in payment to former service personnel resident in Zimbabwe. We do not have readily available information for previous years or on the value of the pensions in payments and this could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Disabled veterans and the widows of veterans may be entitled to a war pension or an Armed Forces Pension Scheme (AFPS) pension if a disablement or death was caused by service. We do not have information available for the number or value of such AFPS pensions in payment. However, the information available relating to war pensions in payment to people resident in Zimbabwe is set out in the following tables. Table 1: The number of war pensions in payment with Zimbabwe as the recorded country of residence _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Type of pensioner Numbers as at end of March War disablement War widow 2000 90 20 2001 75 20 2002 60 20 2003 50 20 2004 40 20 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. All data have been rounded to the nearest five. 2. Figures exclude those cases with no recorded country of residence. 3. In each year, there were a small number (less than five) of entitled ongoing war disablement pensioners whose cases were dealt with manually rather than on the computerised payment systems. These are not included in the table. Table 2: Average weekly amount of pension entitlement for war pensioners with Zimbabwe as the recorded country of residence _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Average weekly amount as at Type of pensioner end of March War disablement War widow 2000 56.61 167.33 2001 54.24 168.62 2002 56.35 176.50 2003 58.56 180.24 2004 63.67 182.86 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. The average has been calculated using the mean of all weekly entitlement information for those war pensioners included in Table 1. 2. Amounts include both the basic war disablement or war widows' pension and additional allowances. In addition, records show that 18 payments of £10,000 each have been made under the Far East Prisoner of War and Civilian Internee Ex Gratia Payment Scheme to ex-servicemen or to the widows of servicemen living in Zimbabwe.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

195046; 426 c554-5W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Government assistance Pensions War pensions War widow(er)s Widowed people Zimbabwe Ex gratia payments Veterans

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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