Good morning folks,

The season of political party conferences is well underway; the Labour conference ends on Wednesday and the Conservative conference begins 30th September and ends 3rd October 2018.

Please take a few minutes to contact your MP via email or phone call and ask them to put forward our campaign arguments as detailed below; you never can tell when an opportunity to talk about our campaign will present itself.

A short meaningful conversation is better than no conversation at all.

Our arguments:

“We are campaigning for parity with the RUC widows in Northern Ireland and lifelong pensions for all police widows.

The major consideration for the Government and the Treasury is of course the cost.

A response to a Freedom of Information request initially indicated that the cost of lifelong pensions for all widows overshadowed by the regulations of the 1987 Police Pension Scheme would be £50m - £10m for current widows and £40m for future police widows.

During an Adjournment Debate Madeleine Moon asked for clarification of the estimate of £50m. The Government and its Actuary's Department reassessed the cost and Brandon Lewis the then Policing Minister described the original estimate as, “....highly uncertain....an approximate figure at the end range of the possible costs for removing cessation on future remarriages.....” The estimate was then increased to around £144m.

1/ We would like to request a breakdown of the figures used and methodology employed to arrive at this wide range of estimations.

Change for the majority of the 22,000 police widows currently in receipt of a pension would be 'cost-neutral' for - if the regulations remain the same - an average of a mere 32 widows will remarry each year and the remainder will continue to receive their pensions as they have always done.

This rate of remarriage was described in 2012 by the Government's Actuary Department as having an, “... immaterial impact..."upon the 2015 scheme members' standard contribution rates.

Research carried out by our campaign team leads us to believe that there are sound economic arguments to suggest that lifelong pensions for all police widows would actually result in savings rather than a cost to the taxpayer.

Loneliness has been described as a modern day epidemic; there is now a minister for loneliness and the work of the Jo Cox Commission continued in her memory.

It is not right to make police widows choose between the financial security of their pension and the loneliness that goes with it or remarriage and potential poverty. This is the reality for many thousands of police widows living under the shadow of the 1987 regulations.

2/ Please consider these words from Benita Maginnes a police widow of 24 years. “I have often thought of suicide as a way out of the solitude and I could have another 20 years yet.....”

In 2015 Theresa May said, “....we will reform the scheme to ensure that widows, widowers and civil partners of police officers who have died on duty do not have to choose between solitude and financial security....”

In the context of Benita's and Mrs May's comments, solitude is synonymous with loneliness and isolation.

Our argument for potential savings associated with lifelong pensions is supported by analysis carried out by Social Finance based upon know costs for treating patients within the NHS; a not for profit organisation working in partnership with government, the social sector and the financial community – Social Finance says that effective intervention to reduce isolation among a cohort of 1,000 older people could produce a gross cost saving to the NHS of over £1m a year.

For every widow allowed to remarry or cohabit without financial penalty there would be by default a husband or partner also protected from the illness and disease associated with loneliness and isolation thus increasing the potential savings to the NHS.

According to the Hutton report the withdrawal of police widows' pensions forcing some of them into poverty - could result in reliance upon state benefits and that would in fact be a further burden upon the taxpayer; the short term savings made through the withdrawal of pensions being outweighed by long term costs.

The case for allowing police widows to marry or move on with a partner is therefore a strong one.

We understand that the Government is concerned about the implications of the changes upon the rest of the public service sector; however, Hutton stressed, “....the need to recognise the unique nature of the work of the uniformed services (the armed forces, police and firefighters) undertake...”

We would like the Government to grant a 'Discretionary Risk Concession' thereby ring-fencing police, fire service and the remaining armed forces widows' pensions from the rest of the public service sector thus avoiding the implications and impact referred to by Mike Penning when he was Policing Minister.

It is my belief as a tax payer that no Government should seek to profit from the withdrawal of a small and immaterial number of police widows' pensions thereby condemning 22,000 widows to a life of loneliness and isolation as part of that process.

5/ Having heard a summary of our argument for parity with Northern Ireland will you consider making further amendments to the 1987 Police Pension Regulations allowing all police widows to receive their pension for life, thus reducing the long term cost to the NHS and the state benefits system?”

Naturally BREXIT will be the overriding concern for MPs at this time, but domestic campaigns should not be allowed to be 'kicked into the long grass' as a result of a preoccupation with our departure from the EU.

There will be life beyond BREXIT and we must keep our campaign on the political agenda in order to make life better for thousands of police widows.

Best wishes as always,

Cathryn

P.S. My email if you need to contact me is CathrynHall@outlook.com