Why the Armed Forces should be up in arms!
General Secretary of the Forces Pension Society
...challenge these draconian and cruel rules, and take this once in a generation opportunity to dispense some much needed fairness...
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ou need to be aware of the future treatment of your wives and widows for the next 40
years, following the Government’s refusal to honour the Armed Forces Covenant and treat Armed Forces widows of the future with equality. In his report on the Covenant in December 2013, the Defence Secretary acknowledged that:
“There are unique barriers that spouses and partners face as a result of Service life that can hinder their employment, including frequent moves.”
So the Government already recognises the demands and turbulence of Service life uniquely militate against wives of Servicemen being able to accrue any sort of occupational pension or even the full state pension. After all, it is not unusual for Service families to move postings 15-20 times in the course of a career, often abroad.
And yet the great majority of current and retired Service wives and future widows face being stripped of their Service widow’s pension if they live with a man, or remarry.
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Most women affected by this are receiving pensions of less than £3,000 a year, yet in many cases they and their new partner cannot afford to do without it, and so they are forced into a life of solitude.
According to the Government’s own figures, the total cost of rectifying this injustice would be only £250K a year. Yet as long as it remains in law, the state may be spending much more than that monitoring, tracking down, and in some cases arresting and prosecuting women who decide to cohabit in secret.
The latest widows pensions schemes have been amended to remove this unfairness: the Government has already accepted our case. But it has so far refused to change the existing schemes due to the risk that it might ‘read across’ to the rest of the public sector. These schemes affect not only current Forces widows, but also most future widows until 2050!
Here is the recent testimony of one such widow.
“I was woken up by the MOD police knocking on my door. I had four officers in my house, one of them read me my rights and told me he was arresting me for two counts of fraud and one for money laundering. I was shocked to my core, as I really wasn’t aware that I had done anything out of place. I was taken by car to a police station where I was
Major General John Moore-Bick CBE DL
formally arrested, searched and booked in, then held in a cell. Once a duty solicitor arrived he told me why I was there.”
Are we prepared to let this to go on for 40 years more until the present generation of Servicemen and their wives, on the 1975 Armed Forces Pension Scheme, die out?
The Forces Pension Society, fully supported by the Families Federations and the Royal British Legion, are calling on MPs and to challenge these draconian and cruel rules. The introduction of the new Armed Forces Pension Scheme in 2015 provides a once in a generation opportunity to harmonise the rules and dispense some much-needed fairness. Service widows must be spared the choice between a lifetime of solitude and a dawn raid!
If you would like to know more and if you are interested in joining The Forces Pension Society, visit
www.forcespensionsociety.org
A member of The Covenant demands no less!
www.raf-ff.org.uk Envoy Summer 2014
Cobseo The Confederation of Service Charities
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