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Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will confine his remarks to the amendment.

Mr. Gummer: You are perfectly right, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure that Ministers will be pleased to get back to the amendment, which they find easier. It is easier not to help the poor than to take the measures that should be taken. Perhaps, however, they will allow me to suggest that this would be a good moment for them to show that they understand that the armed forces do something that no one else does. Accepting the amendment would be a way of recognising that.

Mr. Breed: There are only a few occasions when primary legislation deals with long-standing grievances that people have waited a long time for us to address. Many people will be watching closely the debates in this and the other place on this legacy matter.

As other speakers have noted, there seem to be three main reasons that the Government feel unable to support the amendment: expense, retrospectivity and read-across. All three have been adequately addressed and if the Government had the will, they could in fact undertake that relatively modest additional expenditure. It has nothing to do with the overall cost, the retrospective principle or the fact that the provision could be read across into other sectors. At the end of the day, the Government are the Government and they can will things to happen if they believe it right.

If the Government do not act, it is because they do not consider it right to do so. Such a rebuff will resound in
 
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many homes after this debate and others that succeed it during the passage of the Bill.

The Government are fond of targeting their resources and the amendment would give them a good opportunity to employ that principle by targeting those aged over 70, who may be the most needy in these circumstances. As has been said, many of those people would feel not that they were being given special treatment, but simply that they were being treated equally and with justice. That uniquely disadvantaged group will inevitably grow smaller each year. If the Government feel, at this late stage, unable to support a genuine attempt to reach a reasonable compromise, it is because they do not actually believe that it will affect real people—they are real people, as the examples we have heard demonstrate—and we can come to only one conclusion.

Mr. Caplin: I very much appreciate the debate that we have held on post-retirement marriage. People are affected by the issues, as the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) said and I accept that, at present, the Government have not been able to agree to this particular measure. However, both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) might have reflected on the changes that we have made during the past few months, during our debates on these issues.

In particular, we agreed, in the Lords, to a measure to allow war widows whose husbands' service ended before 1973—when the improved occupational pension schemes were introduced—to retain their pension on remarriage. That was a valuable and important amendment and shows our commitment to an important group of pensioners. It does not breach the retrospective rule. It has a cost, however. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) was baiting me a little about cost, but that relatively small amendment will cost the Government £20 million. None the less, I think it is worth doing and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and other Ministers accept that. There is always a cost, however, and we cannot exclude such considerations. That provision was especially significant for the War Widows Association and it demonstrates the Government's desire to consider the issues when we can do so.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: Perhaps I can just put on the record that we do indeed welcome the change that the Government have made. It is a welcome sign of flexibility. If the Minister would just move a little further forward, we could all agree and go home.

Mr. Caplin: Let us not get too carried away. I want to place on record one or two comments about the Lords amendment No. 2 and the three amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Aldershot. He recognises that this matter does not require primary legislation and has nothing to do with the pension scheme. Hon. Members on both sides of the House accept that, and I accept that particularly the Forces Pension Society has used the Bill to promote the legacy issues. I do not deny that; nor do I disagree with it. It is a perfectly reasonable campaign approach.

If the House were to accept Lords amendment No. 2, pensions would be provided to widows and widowers who married their service spouse in retirement and who
 
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did not benefit from the introduction of pensions for post-retirement marriages in the 1970s. That would affect all widows whose husbands had service before 6 April 1978, and all widowers whose service wives had service before 1 October 1987.

In moving his amendment, Lord Freyberg limited his concession to marriages before the age of 60, arguing that members of other public service schemes who were similarly affected before 1978 could, unlike servicemen and women, have expected their careers to last until the age of 60 and so would not, up to that age, have been marrying post retirement. The Government do not accept the thrust of that argument. The basic rules apply equally to all public service schemes, and early retirement is not unique to the armed forces. Other public servants who have had to give up their careers before the age of 60 were equally unable to marry after leaving service and pass on their benefits to their widows for any service before April 1978.

3.30 pm

Mr. Gummer: Most people in the public service who give up work before the age of 60 would consider themselves unusual—that is not what happens normally—but the fact is that the nature of service life is such that people do so as a matter of normal activity. Therefore, such a read-across is not fair. Surely, it is possible to make a special arrangement for those in the armed forces because of the nature of their jobs and their prospects after the age of 40. Unless we are to have a large number of people in the infantry at the age of 59, that seems to be a likely continuum.

Mr. Caplin: Perhaps I can come to the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes, but we cannot avoid the read-across to wider Government issues. I certainly want to say a bit about that in a moment, although I do not think that my explanation will satisfy him.

We are also considering the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Aldershot. I did not respond when he was trying to bait me to rise from my seat because, quite simply, those amendments came across my desk first thing this morning. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I had another engagement this morning, which I was very pleased to carry out, at St. Paul's cathedral. So I have not had time to study the proposals in detail. Last week, however, I had a constructive meeting with Lord Freyberg, and I indicated to him that we may be able to build on that meeting in future, once the Bill has received Royal Assent. I hope that, when that occurs, we can perhaps look at some of the other issues.

I need to deal with the read-across to public service generally, because it is important.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: I will not detain the House long. It is extremely encouraging that the Minister has had that meeting, but I suspect that the other place and, indeed, those hon. Members who feel strongly about the issue will need a little more than hearing that there is a willingness to discuss the proposals. Will the Minister
 
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give a firmer undertaking that either Lord Freyberg's proposals on post-retirement marriages or my more limited proposals would be acceptable?

Mr. Caplin: I have gone as far as I intend to go today in respect of my conversation with Lord Freyberg, and the hon. Gentleman will have to make his decisions accordingly.

I want to deal with the costs, which have obviously entered our debate—the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall referred to them. The total cost to the Government of retrospective action would be significant, which is why successive Governments have decided that whatever the merits of the case, change was simply unaffordable. As the hon. Member for Aldershot knows, it is estimated that the Ministry of Defence would have to pay a one-off lump sum of £50 million to cover past service costs. The Government Actuary estimates that the cost of the read-across to all public service schemes would be £500 million. The unmarried partner aspect of the Lords amendment would add substantially to that cost, but we have been unable to estimate how much because of the lack of data on unmarried partner numbers in the past.

I understand why Members of both Houses would want to support the Lords amendment, but I do not think that they have given proper regard to the cost implications that the changes would create. The question of affordability is important, and irrespective of the merits of the measure, it would not be viable to implement it without paying any regard to other parts of the public service. We have put together a good package of pension and compensation benefits for our armed forces, so I hope that the question of post-retirement marriages will not prevent the Bill from receiving Royal Assent during this Session so that we can begin the important transition process to the new scheme in time for April 2005.

It might be useful for me to deal with the question of retrospection because it often comes up during our debates on pensions. It is true that successive Governments have maintained the principle that there should be no retrospection in pension policy. I pray in aid the Defence Committee because its report recognised:

"it would hardly be reasonable of the Government to avoid making better provisions for future pensioners so that previous pensioners do not feel aggrieved".

That is the overall point behind our debate on post-retirement marriages, and I hope that the House accepts that I understand the nature of the situation. During my discussions with Lord Freyberg and the Forces Pension Society, I indicated that we are prepared to continue to consider the matter.

I hope that the hon. Member for Aldershot will resist the temptation to press his amendment to a Division because if he does so, my hon. Friends and I will vote against him. I hope that the House will join me in disagreeing with Lords amendment No. 2 because that provision on pension legacy is not needed, as we proved to some extent in the House of Lords when we made a slight change to the system, which will cost £20 million.
 
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