To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what data would be required to enable a reliable assessment to be made of the cost of extending payment of Civil Service widows' pensions to the widows of post-retirement marriages of civil servants who retired before April 1978;(2) if he will estimate the numbers of surviving retired male civil servants who retired before 6 April 1978.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave him on 9 January 1990, at column 575. I regret that the information requested could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost.