Widows Pensions Under Common Law Arrangements

EDM number 1050 in 1995-96, proposed by Harry Barnes on 25/06/1996.

That this House fully recognises that people sustain permanent, profound and loving relationships within and without the formal institution of marriage; therefore condemns in the strongest possible terms the completely arcane and unfair bias in the social security system against those outside marriage who have been widowed and are denied widow's pension; believes that this grotesquely unfair bias is worsened by the fact that unmarried couples living together have each other's earnings taken into account in calculating eligibility to benefits when both partners are alive but not when one dies and that recognition of this anomaly often arises when the widows are at their utmost emotional and financial vulnerability, coping, for instance,with the oftern high costs of a funeral; and calls upon the Government to amend the Social Security (Widow's Benefit and Retirement Pensions) Regulations forthwith to bring matters in line with the more satisfactory common law arrangements which operate in Scotland.

This motion has been signed by a total of 35 MPs.