Plans for relaxing long-established rules on the way DB pension fund surpluses can be used are due to be announced this spring, the UK Treasury said at end-January, and details will be set out in a reply to a consultation on the “Options for Defined Benefit Schemes ” launched by the previous government.The Treasury also said that trustees and sponsoring employers could use such pension fund surpluses to ” increase the productivity of their businesses through higher wages or by paying more to scheme members.” So far, there does not appear to have been mention of how, if at all, members will have any influence or say, in how the surpluses might be used.According to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the aim is to ” introduce new flexibilities for well-funded defined benefit schemes to release surplus funds where it is safe to do so, generating even more investment ” for some of the UK’s

In a recent House of Commons debate on private pensions schemes, Alistair Carmichael, MP for the Shetlands and the Orkneys, criticised some major employers in the UK for failing to pay their pensioners discretionary inflationary increases for their pre-1997 service. Carmichael, whose constituency includes companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon, delivered an eloquent and fervent speech, saying there was “a fundamental point of fairness at stake”, condemning such organisations who would have encouraged their staff to sign up to the company pension scheme, with the latter’s expectation of receiving annual increases in line with inflation during retirement.  The MP maintained that pensions “are simply deferred income, with our being paid later, after we have stopped working, for the service we have done.”  He went on to say that the corporates “don’t seem to understand that they are the inheritors of businesses built by others and that those others are

Dear XXXXXX                   Date  MP for XXXXXXXXXXXXX I write to seek your support for our campaign to achieve fair annual cost of living increases for elderly pensioners whose incomes are hugely impacted by inflation. These are the thousands of members of UK defined benefit (DB) company pension schemes who receive no or only limited cost of living increases on their pensions earned before 1997.  You will be aware of the debate on DB schemes in Parliament on 17 January and the evidence submitted by pensioner action groups to the Works and Pensions Committee last October. The predicament of BP, HP and other pensioners highlighted on both occasions resonates with the parlous situation faced for many years by members of the two Reuters UK final salary pension schemes.  I am a member of the Reuters Pension Review Group (PRG), formed by Reuters DB pensioners

From: Ministerial Correspondence, Caxton House, Tothill Street, LONDON SW1H 9DA www.dwp.gov.uk  ministers@dwp.gov.uk  Our Ref: TO2024/12322 19 February 2024 Dear Ms Dean, Thank you for your email of 9 February to the Minister for Pensions about the Reuters Pension Scheme. Government Ministers receive a large volume of correspondence and they are unable to reply personally on every occasion. I have been asked to respond. You will understand that neither Ministers nor their officials can comment on an individual case or scheme, however, it might help if I explain why there can be differences in the treatment of benefits earned before and after 1997 and between schemes. Before April 1997, there was no statutory requirement on defined benefit schemes to increase pensions once in payment, apart from any Guaranteed Minimum Pension element (paid in place of the additional State Pension) earned between April 1988 and April 1997 which must be increased by