Mr. Christopher Bowes:

We recap all of that in our submission as well. It is in section 2 of the submission, just at the start, but not the opening statement. It is contained in our full written submission.

Another idea put forward by the Department officials is that they do not want a scenario where a single death could give rise to two claims for a widow's or widower's pension. It has been the case for more than 20 years that if people die and they are married at the time of their death but they were previously married to someone else, and if their first spouse has not remarried or is not cohabiting with someone else, then that person could have an entitlement to a widow's or widower's pension similar to the spouse at the time of the death. There would be two entitlements but there is no indication that this has created any difficulties in administering the scheme. It seems quite arbitrary to pursue this policy whereby the Department is seeking to have a situation where death can only give rise to one claim.

Another issue that has been put forward-----