Chesterfield MP, Toby Perkins, has urged the Government to speed up the payment of compensation to War Widows who were forced to give up their pension.

Outdated pension rules forced War Widows to give up their pensions if they remarried or cohabited between 1973 and 2015. Pension rules for the surviving partners of military personnel killed in active service were changed in 2015, but were not backdated, leaving many War Widows thousands of pounds a year worse off.

This has been an issue that Toby has raised with the Ministry of Defence in 2020 and previously in 2014 and again 2016 once the rules were changed.

In his letter to the Government, Toby set out that “[there is a need] for a quick process; a lot of the ladies who may be successful in receiving the payment are in their 90s. The money will not go to their estate, so if the worst should happen before applications open and conclude in their favour, they will miss out.”

Likewise, Toby has raised concern around the taxation of the payment in his letter, outlining that “there are problems surrounding the payment being in one tax year. These include payments to pensioners in receipt of pension credits, council tax benefit, and housing benefit. [War Widows are] concerned that the payment would obstruct the receipt of other benefits which would be disastrous for such elderly ladies.”

Toby stated: “After their partners died in active service, many War Widows found themselves having to take up another battle; a battle to receive their pension. Now that a compensation payment to the Widows has finally been confirmed by the Treasury, we must ensure that it can be paid as quickly as possible, and without compromising any other financial support that the Widows may have.

After, a near decade-long campaign by the War Widows’ Association, which has many members in Chesterfield, the Government was forced to provide a lump sum payment of £87,500 to the affected widows. However, attention now turns to how the payment will be taxed and when it will be paid.

The Government has not laid out a timeline for when the payment will be paid, even though in the middle of a cost of living crisis, the Widows are some of the most affected individuals”.