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Pension Applications (Time Limit)

Volume 387: debated on Wednesday 24 March 1943

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asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will withdraw paragraph 5, Army Council Instruction 733/41, so far as it imposes a time limit of three months within which a serving soldier, who has completed the qualifying period of service, may apply for his pension, as men are frequently not informed of the regulation and are thereby prevented from drawing a pension to which they feel they are entitled?

The intention of the regulation is not to deprive any of the soldiers concerned of the opportunity of electing to receive pension while serving, if they wish, but merely to ensure that the soldier does decide one way or the other within a reasonable time. The instruction referred to required that the provision should be brought to the notice of all soldiers likely to be affected, but if a soldier shows that his failure to claim was due to ignorance of the regulation or to other reasonable cause, the time limit is waived in his favour.