Judging from the Pensions Minister’s statement we can be optimistic that the Government has listened to the concerns of the pensions industry about the complexity of the approach originally proposed by the Department for Work and Pensions on the new definition of “money purchase benefit”.
The Minister confirms that “schemes will not need to revisit past decisions in almost all cases”. This is welcome news indeed.
In my earlier blog, and in Squire Sanders’ consultation response, we expressed concern about a number of the DWP’s proposals – which would have led to a disproportionate amount of time investment from pension trustees. And, let’s face it, following the “radical liberalisation of the retirement savings market” announced in the Budget (amongst other things) trustees have enough decisions to make for the future without having to revisit the decisions that they made in the past!
We do not at present have the consultation response that will flesh out the Minister’s statement – but I now await this with interest (rather than with apprehension).
The new regulations are to come into force in July 2014. More to follow…
