Hopes have been dashed that the government might bring in a law to inflation-proof pensions earned before 1997.
The Pension Schemes Act, which became law at the end of April after the former Pension Schemes Bill cleared parliament, contained no protection for our pre-97 pensions.
Defined Benefit (DB) pension schemes like the Reuters Pension Fund (RPF) are not legally required to protect pre-97 pensions from inflation. Campaigners from other pension funds which pay no increase at all on these pensions had hoped the law would be changed to protect their pensioners from the impact of inflation.
In contrast, the RPF has almost always given some increase to these pensions, in recent years generally up to a maximum of 2.5% apart from some pensions where the law requires an increase capped at 5%.
Nevertheless, the Act does include enhanced powers for trustees and new rules to allow DB scheme surpluses to be distributed while maintaining member protections. However, the current surplus of the RPF is not sufficiently large for this change to affect members in the short term.