New Pensions Bill in King's Speech

The King’s speech today for the opening of the new Parliament (following Rishi Sunak’s dissolution of Parliament before the General Election) was one of the longest since World War II and unveiled a near record 40 new Bills to be debated and made law by the new Labour government.

From nationalising the railways to giving the vote to 16-year-olds to National ID cards to a new Renters’ Rights Bill (replacing the Renters Reform Bill) with no-fault evictions banned and not un-reasonably preventing tenants having pets being reintroduced as well as banning rental bidding wars.  It was far ranging and of particular interest to us, an unexpected new Pensions Bill given Labour had suggested in its manifesto there will be a much wider ranging review of the Pensions area, so a Bill in this Parliament was unexpected.

The Pension Bill

This included nothing new and looks to be merely a continuation of what the previous Conservative Government was planning:

• Name and Shame underperforming funds to boost value for money.
• Consolidating small pension pots given people move jobs more frequently now and have many small of workplace pensions built up with different employers.
• All pension schemes being required to offer ‘at retirement’ options such as annuities and flexible drawdown given so many schemes now offer no options and leave you to shop around (which is not a bad thing to promote competition and shopping around for the best deal).
• There was no mention of expanding auto-enrolment into workplace pensions although we do expect the minimum age to qualify to be reduced and % contributions from both employer and employee to be increased.
• There was no mention of how they intend to force UK pension funds to invest more in the UK rather than overseas, but this is already in motion anyway.

Comment

Whilst unexpected, the new Pensions Bill is not all encompassing and is merely reinforcing plans of the previous government.  That said, Labour has committed to getting Bills moving faster through Parliament, so results may be seen sooner rather than later.