Headlines like this are a bit shouty and the event I went to yesterday afternoon was not shouty at all. In fact it was very good.

A privilege and a thankyou

I am not a client of “Hogan Lovells” and grew up know Lovell White Durant and before that “King”. I amused myself by honing in on their offices in Holborn only to discover they have moved to the other side of the bridge over Farringdon Road. I have known then for Duncan Buchanan but he is retired and the pension partners seem very female (a good thing IMO).

It was a privilege to hear to hear a string of presentations that gave the legal exactitude behind the issues I blog about.

First half – taxation

It is difficult to kick off with a talk on how to get VAT back by the employer on pension scheme investment costs. We have had presentations at Pension PlayPen and elsewhere about “VAT grouping, contractual supply and paymaster arrangements” but this was the first time I understood the actions that employers are taking now. Thanks to Suzanne Hill.

IHT was a complex subject which has just got more complex with the pension angle. HMRC guidance is still to come and there’s plenty of consultation from SPP and others but there was certainty that where we are now is not far from where we will be , despite the subject likely to get a kicking in the House of Lords before going into final legislation. Thanks to Jill Clucas.

Thankfully , we did not get speculation on the budget in November though I am sure that HL have their thoughts!

Second half- Pension Bill

We had a wide ranging view of the bill which included a miscellaneous round up of other “key measures“. This final session, I remember fondly for dealing with “alienation of forfeiture of occupational pension schemes”, important dispute for lawyers! More pertinent for an ageing audience, Jade Rigby had a session on Terminal Illness (never far from an OAP’s mind). We had a run through the PPF Levy which is going.  Pension Dashboards and Automatic Enrolment got an airing- most of which was about improvements in data management. Well done Jade from stopping us falling to sleep after over two hours solid!

Katie Banks had given us an overview of the Roadmap and when we could get what. There seems to be no turn-off in HL’s Pension Policy Crossroads for CDC but there was a heavy duty session from Amol Chalisgaonkar who was the sole male presenter (and a good one nonetheless!).

Did Harold McMillan ever say that ?  “Events…” surely!

Amol concentrated on Superfunds which I enjoyed, especially as he promoted the Pension Superfund which I worked on and is now being wound up (Pension SuperHaven as it became). My personal view is that superfunds are a healthy ground for lawyers to make money, but not good value for money for those who pay the legal bills. We will struggle to see the secondary  legal work from the DWP completed before 2029, this is the DWP and Treasury’s little tragedy, it is a bigger tragedy for pension schemes that want to carry on but with a little help.

Strangely, and here I had my only question of this event, there was no mention of CDC or of the need for protection of decumulation defaults from running out on those getting paid by their DC pot – before the saver did. As Torsten Bell told a pension conference yesterday

“What we have done is get people back into pensions savings, but what we have not done is to build a pensions system.”

“We have basically built a system of savings pots, but we’ve told people we’ve built a system of pensions, and if we don’t sort that mismatch, people will start asking: ‘What is this system and why are you asking this much of me?'”

“If you look around the world, this leads to two outcomes, either you under consume in the early years, or you’re very poor in your later years if left to your own devices.”

Beth Shehan admitted in questions that not talking about DC pensions might be a bit of an omission, it is impossible to cover everything but making pensions from DC pensions seems to me a big part of the Pension Bill. The dismissal of a default benefit pension scheme to a DBPS (please not that acronym) was one thing, but to dismiss a DBPS to “drawdown and annuity” is caving into the ABI! Savers need support when they become spenders!

There was a long and involved session on Virgin Media and one on DB scheme surpluses. Thanks to Charlotte Yeates. We are into the weeds here of whether to run on, buy in and whether buy in can lead to buy-out. Thankfully we did not discuss this can of worms other than to say , it looks to be getting happily sorted,

There was also more  optimism  on Consolidation of Schemes and Small pots and I found myself furiously taking notes throughout – so thanks to all!

Is pensions policy at a crossroads?

Behind the headlines in the Pension Bill will be a lot of secondary legislation and that will need to poured over line by line by HL and the other legal eagles who do this work. I am quite sure that it is a pensions policy but whether this is the deciding crossroads which sets us to our destination without further junctions, I doubt.

Every Government wants to leave its mark on pension legislation and this one will leave a Pension Commission for the next one. As I keep saying, we need to digest the dish we’ve been served before checking out the menu of tomorrow’s meals.

Thankfully we seem to be getting where we need to be on Virgin Media and VAT on investment costs. The first readings of the Pension Bill have been smooth and while we yet to have the reading in the Lords and the ping pong between Lords and Commons, the chances of getting a Bill becoming Act in 2026 look good. But I think we thought that for Guy Opperman’s Bill in 2018 – that took three years (suffering a Covid delay).

Let’s hope that Bell’s Bill has better luck!