The upcoming General Election puts planned pension reforms in jeopardy, as the current Pension Schemes Bill will go no further with parliament set to be dissolved.

Yesterday, 29 October, parliament voted in favour of holding a General Election on 12 December. This means that Pension Minister Guy Opperman’s recently launched Pension Schemes Bill “will go no further” at present. However, as Opperman has said that the reforms set out in the bill have cross-party support, there is hope that a new government will move forward with them.

“The General Election means that the present government’s ensions bill will go no further. But most of the measures, such as support for a pensions dashboard, collective DC pensions and stronger regulator powers have broad cross party support. This means that a new government, of any complexion, is likely to bring forward pretty much the same legislation, albeit much delayed," Royal London director of policy, Steve Webb, said.

“If we were to have a change of government, the main differences would be that a Labour government would be less keen on multiple pension dashboards and would prefer a single one hosted by a public body. A Labour pensions bill might also include other measures such as changes to automatic enrolment and state pension measures such as financial support for the ‘WASPI’ campaign.

“The delay to the legislation means that the legal framework for the pensions dashboard will be further delayed, but industry needs to crack on in the mean time with getting systems and data in place ready to go live as soon as possible”.

This morning the Work and Pensions Select Committee was meant to be holding a meeting to discuss the contents of the bill with industry experts, however, with an upcoming election, a decision was made to cancel the meeting.

The bill was set to create a legislative framework for the introduction of a pensions dashboard, strengthen The Pensions Regulator’s (TPR) powers to take action against irresponsible employers and establish a framework for collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes.

LCP partner David Everett said the issues in the bill will “confront the post-election government whatever its hue”.

“The Pensions Regulator will still need its powers to be strengthened in order to effectively tackle issues of concern, and it will still need to deliver a modified approach to DB funding to better regulate DB schemes and to reflect the increasing maturity within the DB landscape. Royal Mail will still be seeking legislation to enable their collective money purchase scheme proposals to come to fruition.

“Even if Mr Johnson is returned to No. 10 we don’t know whether the bill will be resurrected and if so, by when. And if he isn’t, then at the very least there is likely to be a long delay whilst the work on the bill is reviewed by the incoming administration.

“No matter how you look at it, this December’s General Election has delivered yet another hiatus for occupational pensions policy delivering further uncertainty for trustees, scheme sponsors and members. But perhaps when the bill returns at some point in 2020 the opportunity can be taken to plug some of the obvious gaps in it – such as laying down an appropriate regulatory regime within which the nascent DB consolidation market should operate.”

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