The government is on track to share the final Pensions Investment Review report in spring, Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has confirmed.

In a wide-ranging speech on the government’s plans to drive economic growth in the UK, Reeves confirmed that consultations on the reforms outlined in her inaugural Mansion House speech have now been completed, with the final report to be published in spring, in line with the previous timeline outlined by HM Treasury.

“In my Mansion House speech I announced a series of reforms to our pensions system, including the creation of larger consolidated funds, which have much greater capacity to invest in high-growth British companies at the scale we need them to,” she stated.

“The consultation on these reforms is already complete and the final report will be published in the spring.”

She also confirmed that the government is looking to “go further”, by introducing new flexibilities for well-funded DB pension schemes to release surplus funds where it is safe to do so, generating "even more investment into some of our fastest growing industries".

Reeves also reassured the industry that the government was aware of the need to "always protect the important role that pension funds play in the gilt market” as part of this.

This comes after some industry experts suggested that the DB surplus rule changes could potentially encourage DB schemes to dump gilts onto the market, forcing up the government’s borrowing cost going forwards.

However, industry experts are still awaiting the detail behind the proposals, with XPS Group senior consultant, arguing that "the key focus now shifts to how the government will implement this safely and effectively".

"In our view there are two key elements to this - first, a statutory override to provide the ability for surplus to be released subject to certain safeguards, and second, clear regulatory guidance to provide trustees with a blueprint for running DB schemes on to build and use surplus safely," he explained.

This was echoed by PwC head of pensions, Gareth Henty, who said: "If the government’s proposals are going to work, as well as tackling the fundamental issue of whether pension schemes’ trustees have the power to pay surplus assets to employers, they will need to tackle the more fundamental issues of why trustees should pursue these strategies.

“In particular, the proposals will need to think about how to address pension scheme trustees’ concerns that a strong funding position today could become a weak funding position tomorrow. The big question is whether, in pursuit of economic growth, the government or Pension Protection Fund (PPF) can underpin or provide any support for taking that risk”

---