Pensions Bill Impact Assessment - The impact assessment has been revised to factor in changes since we published the draft Bill Impact Assessment in January. The Impact Assessment can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pensions-bill- impact-assessment Delegated Powers Memorandum - This identifies the provisions for delegated legislation in the Bill, explains the purpose of the powers, why they are left to delegated legislation and the parliamentary procedure selected for the exercise of these powers. The Delegated Powers Memorandum can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pensions-bill- delegated-powers-memorandum Response to the Work and Pensions Select Committee's report - Today, the Government has published its response to the Work and Pensions Select Committee's report of the pre- legislative scrutiny on Part 1 of the draft Pensions Bill. The Department would once again like to thank all of those who submitted written evidence to the Committee and those who gave Oral Evidence. The Government's response can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/part-1-of-the-draft-pensions-bill-resonse-to- select-committee-report Main changes to the Bill since publication in draft - There have been some changes to Part 1 of the Bill since it was published in draft in January 2013 and these are detailed in the Annex to the response to the Work and Pensions Committee report. The most significant changes are in response to recommendations from the Committee, to specify in the Bill both the implementation date for single tier and that the Minimum Qualifying Period for the single-tier pension will not exceed ten years. the introduction of a new statutory objective for the Pensions Regulator in relation to its functions under Part 3 of the Pensions Act 2004 (scheme funding), to minimise any adverse impact on the sustainable growth of an employer; a power to require pension levies to be paid in respect of past periods (for those schemes covered by a Crown guarantee, where an exemption from payment of the levies would give rise to incompatible state aid); and a number of additional amendments to the Pensions Act 2008 and the Pension Schemes Act 1993 in relation to automatic enrolment, designed to address technical issues and clarify existing powers ahead of the next major staging milestone for automatic enrolment in spring 2014: technical changes to transitional arrangements for hybrid schemes to ensure they operate as intended where a scheme offers both money-purchase benefits and defined benefits (as announced in December 2012); a power to make regulations to exclude specified groups of individuals from automatic enrolment where it is clear that automatically enrolling them would run counter to policy intent (e.g. people with enhanced or fixed tax protection); an amendment to section 16 of the Pensions Act 2008 to provide a broader power to prescribe, in regulations and statutory guidance, how any limitations imposed on charges in qualifying schemes would apply in practice. As announced this morning, we intend to publish a consultation this autumn and this amendment to the primary A number of additions have also been made to the Bill - The Bill and supporting products provide more information about the various measures but in brief these are: provision for a system of automatic transfers of small pension pots, details of which were set out in Automatic transfers: consolidating pension savings which was published on 23 April; a measure to withdraw short service refunds for people who leave a money purchase occupational pension scheme within two years;
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 425 of 519
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