Compensation at last for remarried war widows denied pensions
WAR widows who remarried will be given a one-off payment of almost £90,000 to compensate for years of loss of income, the Goverment announced yesterday.
Officials said that widows of military personnel who had their pensions stopped would be eligible for £87,500 as part of a scheme to support those whose spouse’s death was attributable to service.
It comes after years of fighting by the War Widows Association on behalf of widows who were denied their right to a lifelong pension because they remarried between 1973 and 2015. Changes to the pension scheme meant that from April 2015, all those who qualified for the pension would receive it for life. However, the changes were not applied retrospectively.
As part of a campaign by The Daily Telegraph to reimburse the widows affected by this change, of which there are thought to be around 200, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, urged the Government to “put right” what he deemed a “very great wrong”. The Archbishop said in 2021 that the widows had been left in “a cruel and unjustifiable situation” after finding love again.
Judy Shepherd, 72, and Jenny Morris, 75, became friends in their 20s after both their husbands, who were RAF pilots, were killed while flying together in a mid-air collision over Wettenhall, a village near Crewe.
They said that to learn they would be awarded the money felt uplifting, although both acknowledged it was not the amount they were owed.
Mrs Shepherd, of Northamptonshire, who is owed 45 years’ worth of pension but will receive around a quarter of that sum, said: “Because of our ages I felt we were all dropping off at the end and some just wouldn’t get any payment.
“We shouldn’t have had to do this, to fight to get something that should have been automatic. We have been discriminated against.”
She added: “Our husbands gave their lives and I’m sure they thought we were going to be looked after in a considerate manner, so to have our rug taken out from under us has been very hard.”
She said it had taken years of lobbying MPS and numerous meetings to achieve a settlement and that at times it felt like everything was “floundering and getting nowhere”.
Her thoughts were echoed by Mrs Morris, who said that the money would be welcomed as a safety net for ill health. “They were never going to give the pension back so to get a reasonable lump sum is really nice,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned it’s a bonus because I never thought it would happen.”
However, she cautioned that it would not be until the money was in her bank account that she would truly believe it had happened. “Sacrifices were made,” Mrs Morris said. “My husband had been killed and it was just an added thing. After 18 years on my own I found happiness again and then that was taken away. I think for everybody it’ll be very nice, especially at this stage in life.” Moira Kane, chairman of the War Widows Association, said that while the payment would be welcomed it was not what they had been campaigning for.
She said: “We were campaigning for the reinstatement of a pension which we haven’t got. However, some of these ladies are getting quite elderly so I think the majority will be happy to receive a lump sum.” Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said: “We are enormously grateful for the sacrifice made by our war widows for our country.
“This recognition payment, something I have fought hard for in Government for the past two years, is an important step towards continuing to honour our commitment to supporting them in every way we can.”
The application window for the payment will open later this year and will remain open for two years with support for applicants provided by the Veterans UK Call Centre. There will also be welfare support available through the Veterans Welfare Service.