Well it definitely did Nick, I still have the letter I'll dig it out. Quote -
COPE agreement "This will be paid as part of your workplace or personal pension schemes. It will be paid by your workplace or personal pension schemes, in addition to your State Pension as above".
I remember it clearly as my wife who has spent most of her life being a full time Mum to our three youngsters and the rest doing work of a voluntary nature would have received very little State Pension. This being the case we bought years back when offered by DHSS, she now receives a full pension and me a reduced one much to my amusement
and that's £100 a month more she gets
The sum we had to consider to get her up to a full State Pension was 7k so we gambled that she had to live 5 years to recoup the outlay we joked at the time.
As most of my forward planning is based on protecting her into the future financially (if I conk out before her) this was a very good offer from DWP as unlike my private one's which will provide her with half of the sum we receive at present her State one remains unchanged.
