The British Transport (Compensation to Employees) Regulations 1970

Compensation payable to widow or dependants of a claimant

27.—(1) Payments in accordance with this regulation and regulations 28 and 29 shall be made to or for the benefit of the widow, child or other dependant or to the personal representatives of a person to whom this Part of these regulations applies.

(2) If the widow, child or other dependant of that person might, but for the loss or diminution of his pension rights have become entitled to a pension or, as the case may be, to a larger pension under his last relevant pension scheme, the widow, child or other dependant concerned shall be entitled to receive an annual sum equal to the prescribed proportion of any retirement compensation by way of annual amounts payable to the person under regulation 21, 22, 23 or 24 immediately before his death or, if he dies before becoming entitled to receive compensation under any of those regulations, the prescribed proportion of the compensation by way of annual amounts which he would have received under regulation 22 or, as the case may be, under that regulation as applies by regulation 24, had he become entitled thereto immediately before his death:

Provided that—

(i) where any retirement compensation has been surrendered under regulation 20(6) or compounded under regulation 35, any sum payable under this regulation shall be calculated as if such surrender or compounding had not taken place;

(ii) where the pension scheme provides for payment of the pension to any person on behalf of a child or other dependant, any annual sum payable as aforesaid to a child or other dependant shall be paid to that person on behalf of the child or dependant in the like manner and for the like period as is provided in the pension scheme;

(iii) in calculating the sum payable as aforesaid, it shall be assumed that the retirement compensation payable, or which would have been payable, to a person under regulation 21, 22, 23 or 24 had been such sum as would have been payable if the accrued pension or accrued incapacity pension had not been reduced by reason of the provisions of any Act relating to National Insurance;

(iv) where by virtue of a provision of the pension scheme, the annual pension which would have been paid to the widow, child or other dependant but for the loss or diminution of pension rights would not have exceeded, or would not have been less than, or would have been a specified amount, or an amount ascertainable when calculated in like manner as is provided in paragraph (5)(b), the aggregate of the annual sum payable under this regulation and any annual pension payable under the pension scheme to the widow, child or other dependant shall correspondingly not exceed, not be less than or shall be equal to that specified amount or, as the case may be, the amount ascertained when so calculated as aforesaid.

(3) Any annual sum payable to or for the benefit of a widow, child or other dependant under this regulation shall cease to be payable in any circumstances in which a corresponding pension under the pension scheme referred to in paragraph (2) would have ceased to be payable.

(4) Except where the compensation has been reduced under regulation 25, compensation payable under this regulation and regulation 28 shall in the aggregate be reduced by an amount the capital value whereof is equal to the amount of any pension contributions as defined in regulation 25(2) returned to the person in respect of whom the compensation is payable and either not paid to the compensating authority or repaid by the compensating authority to him, the compensation under each such regulation being reduced in proportion to the capital value of each amount.

(5) In this regulation “prescribed proportion” means —

(a) where provision is made in any last relevant pension scheme of a person to whom this Part of these regulations applies for the pension payable to his widow, child or other dependant to be of such annual amounts as will bear a certain proportion to that person's pension (whether that person's pension is payable to him under that same pension scheme or under another such scheme dealing exclusively with his pension), that certain proportion, and

(b) where no such provision is made, the proportion which the annual amounts of the pension to which the widow, child or other dependant of the person in question would have become entitled, in the circumstances mentioned in paragraph (6) , (such amounts being calculated in the manner specified in paragraph (7)), bears to the amount of that person's accrued pension or, as the case may be, accrued incapacity pension as assessed for the purpose of calculating his retirement compensation except that any reduction in the amount of such pension made by reason of the provisions of any Act relating to National Insurance shall, for the purpose of this sub-paragraph, be disregarded.

(6) The circumstances referred to in paragraph (5)(b) are that the person to whom this Part of these regulations applies had died immediately before the date on which he suffered the loss or diminution of the pension rights concerned, having then complied with any requirements of the pension scheme as to a minimum period of qualifying service or contribution and completed any additional contributory payments or payments in respect of added years which he was then in the course of making.

(7) The calculation referred to in paragraph (5)(b) shall be made on the basis of the method prescribed by the last relevant pension scheme of the person in question for the calculation of benefits for a widow, child or other dependant, but in making that calculation in a case where that person has attained the age of 40 years at the date when he suffered the loss or diminution of pension rights he shall be credited, unless he is a person who is entitled to retirement compensation under regulation 23, with such number of additional years of service or such period of contribution as was or may be properly credited to him under regulation 20(3) (subject to the provisions of paragraph (5) of regulation 22 if the person in question is entitled to compensation under that regulation) for the purpose of calculating the amount of his retirement compensation:

Provided always that in so crediting him as aforesaid, any number of years of service or period of contribution prescribed by the scheme to be taken into account as a limit in calculating any pension payable to the widow, child or other dependant shall not as a result be exceeded.