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Forces Widows' Pensions (Equality of Treatment) Bill

Yes, "natural causes" is better terminology than "normal circumstances". The war award widow received from 1 September 1971 a total income equivalent to a full forces family pension plus a basic war award pension, instead of a full forces pension plus state widows pension. That is important. In the debate over war widows pension, we sometimes forget that people are in receipt of other benefits from other pensions that the state provides. I think that that provides considerable help to those individuals. The basic war award in 1979 exceeded the standard widows pension by about £6 a week. No doubt the right hon. Member for East Hampshire will be able to tell me what £6 was worth and what it could buy in 1979. The hon. Member for West Chelmsford is obviously too young to know what that could buy in 1979—I am flattering him, as usual. A supplementary adjustment was also necessary for the widows of long-serving and mainly high-ranking officers who qualified before 1954 for a war award, but who also had as an alternative the right to an ordinary pension. The Grigg formula from the Grigg committee and the improved state pension resulted in their being worse off financially—another example of the unintended consequence of changes. Approval was given for a supplement to be paid by the Ministry of Defence equivalent to the amount by which the forces pension would have exceeded the war award.