Pension Schemes Bill

The Pension Schemes Bill has been reintroduced in Parliament following the general election.    Provisions relevant to money purchase schemes include a power to make regulations requiring trustees to make extra checks, such as requiring evidence of employment, before paying a transfer value in respect of a member. The Bill also provides for the establishment of a statutory framework for a "pensions dashboard" which will allow members to view details of all their pension arrangements by logging on to a single source.  Much of the detail regarding the pensions dashboards is left to regulations, but the bill does allow for regulations to require schemes to provide information for the pensions dashboard.

Many of the Bill's provisions are only relevant to defined benefit schemes, for example it provides for a significant extension to the Pensions Regulator's powers in relation to such schemes and creates a number of broad new criminal offences, eg acting without reasonable excuse in a way which detrimentally affects the likelihood of accrued scheme benefits being received.

For more information on the Bill's provisions, see our e-bulletin.

Civil partnerships extended to opposite sex couples

Regulations which came into force on 2 December 2019 have amended the law on civil partnerships to make such partnerships available to opposite sex couples as well as same sex couples.  The measure follows the Supreme Court judgment in Steinfeld v Secretary of State for International Development which held that it was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights to restrict the availability of civil partnerships to same sex couples only.  The regulations apply in England and Wales. A similar change to legislation in Northern Ireland was made with effect from 13 January 2020, and measures are underway to also change the law in Scotland.

Scheme trustees/providers should check their scheme rules to make sure that they will still operate as intended following the change.  They should also check member literature to make sure it is still accurate, for example to make sure that it does not suggest that civil partnerships are only relevant to same sex couples.