David Everett: The amendment is a well-thought through intervention
The government has tabled Pension Schemes Bill amendments to deal with issues arising from last year’s Virgin Media ruling.
Yesterday (1 September), the government published a list of amendments to the Pension Schemes Bill – clauses that include changes to address issues arising from last year's Virgin Media ruling, a judgment that had the potential to invalidate a wide range of scheme rule changes between 1997 and 2016 unless they had been accompanied by written actuarial confirmation.
The Pension Schemes Bill amendment follows a ministerial statement on 5 June where the government pledged to introduce legislation to deal with issues arising from the judgment.
It will provide for the retrospective validation of such alterations where certain conditions are met.
The amendment adds, however, that scheme alterations whose validity was in issue in legal proceedings commenced on or before 5 June 2025 – the date of the ministerial statement on the issue – would be outside the scope of remediation under the new rules.
LCP partner and head of pensions research David Everett said the amendment was a "well-thought through intervention" which should enable a comprehensive resolution to be achieved as well as enabling further legislation to be produced should the need arise.
He said: "The clauses providing for the new actuarial confirmation reflect the need for a pragmatic approach and as such are most welcome. However, the new test will not be a silver bullet in all cases and actuaries called upon by trustees to give the new confirmation will need to tread carefully.
"Trustees can take comfort that the government has not set any time limit within which alterations within scope need to be considered under this legislation. How and when trustees choose to address any Virgin Media issues can be driven by other considerations, but until they use this legislation, any Virgin Media benefit uncertainty will continue to exist within their scheme".
