WIDOWS' ENTITLEMENT TO ADDITIONAL PENSIONS

EDM number 424 in 1998-99, proposed by David Rendel on 15/03/1999.

That this House notes that widow's entitlement to an additional pension on the basis of her husband's SERPS contributions will be halved if her husband dies after 6th April 2000; further notes that the DSS leaflet on Retirement Pensions (NP45) was only amended to include this information in Spring 1996, 10 years after the changes were introduced by the previous Conservative administration, and that up to two million people may have been given misleading advice by the DSS as a result; is concerned that the DSS was still writing to enquirers as recently as the end of last year without telling them about the forthcoming halving of entitlement; notes the Government's action on pensions mis-selling, which placed the onus on private companies to contact all those who may have been affected and to advise them of their right to compensation; and calls on the Government to apply the same standards to itself in respect of SERPS entitlement.

This motion has been signed by a total of 52 MPs.