Widow's entitlement to husband's GMP

xylophone

As the widow writing to Steve Webb indicated, she lost her spouse (and a huge chunk of his workplace pension).

But (from link)

However, the other side of this coin is that there is a company pension scheme which still has a legal duty to match your share of the state pension your late husband would have built up had he not been contracted out.

If you compare your state pension at the start of the year with your state pension now plus the pension the company scheme is paying, you should find that the combined amount is significantly higher. In essence, part of your state pension is now being paid by your late husband’s employer.

BearerOfLoss

Do you know where the "essence" you refer to is legislated?

BearerOfLoss

PS My point is that my negative ASP dies with me, unless there is legislation which keeps it alive.

xylophone

PS My point is that my negative ASP dies with me, unless there is legislation which keeps it alive.

No, because the element of your occupational pension which represents your GMP  does not die with you.

Your widow has the right to inherit a proportion of this and in the same way inherits a proportion of the COD (negative or positive).

See the calculation to which I linked in my previous and

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8635/CBP-8635.pdf

21. Widows and other survivors who inherit pensions also have the inherited pensions set against their entitlement to additional pension [...] The GMPs for both the pensions to which a widow is personally entitled directly and those to which she is entitled by inheritance are to be deducted from the maximum entitlement of the widow under section 52. In other words, the widow’s maximum entitlement is calculated before, not after, any additional pension is deducted. This may mean that the widow’s total additional pension is limited by the “prescribed maximum” before the occupational pensions are offset.26

The rationale is that the contracted-out occupational pensions were funded through reduced NI contributions:

Those rules reflect the receipt by her of a widow’s pension from her late husband’s occupational pension scheme as well as receipt of her own occupational pension scheme. Parliament has provided that both should be taken into account as both were contracted- out schemes for which lower levels of national insurance contribution were payable.27

BearerOfLoss

Thanks again xylophone. That is impressive, but I do not know what enactment contains the section 52 referred to and I do not believe that (in my widow's circumstances) it will have the legal effect stated by the tribunal. But I would be grateful to be convinced of my error.
"My error" may be to regard my widow as simply being entitled in private law to X% of my works pension in the year of my death (which is exactly what the scheme says).
I do not believe that there is legislation which, in public law, expressly deems my widow also to inherit X% of my negative GMP. Nor do I believe that there is legislation that merges my widow's earned ASP with my negative GMP (in relation to which she is in no sense an earner or former earner). Any decent legislator would keep such apples separate from such rancid pears. "The rationale" above by the tribunal does not convince in my widow's context.
As regards the third paragraph of the quotation, I accept that my widow will probably never become entitled to a "widow's ASP" with reference to my negative GMP, unless the present high inflation perpetuates or worsens.
So she will be dependent on my former employer for discretionary increases in her widow's private sector pension, but should not lose her own earned ASP.
Any further comments or research references gratefully received.

xylophone

Any further comments or research references gratefully received.

I typed

inheriting Contracted out deduction legislation

into Google and it came up with 

FoI Blog Site What do they know
Please provide a copy of the OLD State Pension rules and regulations that apply ... If a widow or civil partner's inherited contracted-out deduction exceeds ...

This was part of the reply

Second, the inherited contracted-out deduction may exceed the inheritable SERPS if the late spouse or civil partner had been a member of a defined-benefit scheme which they had left before scheme pension age, and the method of revaluing their contracted-out scheme benefits resulted in it increasing by more than their additional State Pension. In such a case the inherited contracted-out deduction will “eat into” the surviving spouse’s/civil partner’s gross “own” and inherited additional State Pension, resulting in them receiving less additional pension than they were getting before. In this situation, although the additional State Pension will be less than before, the person should still be better off overall, as they will have inherited half of their partner’s contracted-out scheme benefits. (This is less likely to occur where the widow/surviving civil partner inherits a higher percentage of their deceased partner’s SERPS.) 

The above is set out in the following legislation: 

The Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, section 52 : this provides that where a person would be entitled to both a Category A state pension (a state pension based on their own NI contributions) and a Category B state pension based on their late spouse or civil partner’s contributions, and their Category A pension falls short of the relevant maximum, it must be increased to make up that shortfall. 

Does the above help?

BearerOfLoss

Thanks again. Barbara Castle MP will be turning in her grave.