GMP equalisation has long been the ‘elephant in the room’. Whether guaranteed minimum pensions should be equal for men and women, when the State pension they replace is not, is an issue that has, for one reason or another, remained unresolved in the 20 years since the Barber decision. That, however, looks set to change. Following Angela Eagle’s announcement in January of last year, the DWP is expecting, probably this autumn, to publish new draft legislation on the issue of GMP equalisation.
Archive for the ‘Political change’ Category
Equalisation of guaranteed minimum pensions: a blessing or a curse?
Wednesday, 24 August 2011Pension schemes in 2010: what kind of year has it been?
Thursday, 30 December 2010
It was Mark Twain who was forced to protest that the reports of his death had been exaggerated. Although the terminal decline of the final salary pension scheme has been solemnly predicted for some time, for those of us involved in pensions this year it has felt more like a high fever than a long goodbye.
Dear Government and the Courts: My Christmas pensions wish list
Tuesday, 21 December 2010Written your letter to Santa yet? I absolutely love the glitter and sparkliness of this time of year, complete with a bauble-tastic Christmas tree and my usual immoderate approach to tinsel. However the pensions industry is wrestling with the switch from RPI to CPI, the holes in the section 251 surplus regime and the treatment of Pensions Regulator orders against Nortel and Lehman Brothers, while guaranteed minimum pensions just won’t go away. So what should we be asking the DWP and HMRC for on the pensions front this year? Being a pensions lawyer to the core, my letter to Father Christmas has some unusual wishes…
RPI/CPI indexation for pensions – the ASB and the butterfly effect
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Chaos theory tells us that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe. That might be overstating the case a bit, but it won’t come as news to you that changing from the Retail Prices Index to the Consumer Prices Index as the measurement index for calculating revaluation of deferred pensions and increases to pensions in payment is going to be a bit of a mess. Däna Burstow posted some comments here recently on the potential for the change to create gaps even between different sections of a single pension scheme, based on the wording of scheme rules which were never drafted with this type of change in mind. (more…)
Lord Hutton, Steve Webb and Alan Rubenstein at the NAPF Conference 2010: What did we learn?
Friday, 8 October 2010
Well, the curtain is just about down on the 2010 NAPF Conference here in Liverpool. Along with the rest of the delegates, pensions partner Neil Bowden and I have seen the great and the good of the pensions world over the last few days and picked up some recurring themes along the way, both inside and outside the conference hall. The future of private sector pensions, the thorny question of pension indexation, and the regulatory hot potato of enhanced transfer values all featured.
