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  • March 2016
03

MPs recommend allowing early retirement for women with reduced state pension

Open-access content 15th March 2016

The Work and Pensions Committee has proposed that the UK government allow women who are hit by a set of increases in state pension age to retire earlier with a slightly lower pension, according to an interim report published today.


The suggestion came after a series of parliamentary debates where the campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) demanded the government implement methods to ease women's transition into retirement.

WASPI claimed the government did not communicate with women properly about the rises of state pension age under the Pensions Acts 1995 and 2011.

The committee said other options, such as re-calculating all women's pensions for those born in the 1950s as if they had been born before 1950, would be "prohibitively expensive" and "could have damaging wider consequences".

Committee member John Glen said: "Lack of adequate notification of state pension age changes demands transitional arrangements, but implemented in an affordable way. This report recommends a possible way forward which the government should now explore."

The idea would involve allowing early retirement from a specific age and for a defined cohort of women, on an actuarially neutral basis, said the report. 

It added: "The actuarial reduction factor used should ensure that, on average, over the lifetimes of the pensioners concerned, there would be no additional pension costs to the exchequer."

However the committee said there would be issues that need to be addressed before the idea could be progressed, such as details and limits of eligibility. They also admitted there would be "some public spending" due to the unknown number of women who would take their state pension early.

In addition, the total fiscal impact would not be known until all the relevant pensions ceased to be paid. The MPs also believed this would lead to budgeting uncertainty and added the scheme would need to be "properly administered". 

Frank Field, chair of the committee, said: "This interim report opens up the debate, which I'm sure MPs from all sides will want to pursue. We will begin taking fuller evidence on the options as soon as possible."

The committee will be taking evidence, including a submission from the government actuary, and seeking a debate to explore the options further.

Owen Smith, shadow work and pensions secretary, has previously proposed allowing women who are affected by the age increase to retire early with a reduced pension as part of his six possible solutions to help mitigate the effects of the situation. 

Tamara Calvert, partner at DLA Piper, said offering a smaller amount at an earlier stage was common in defined benefit schemes and that the deal "should be possible" to operate as long as legislation is carefully drafted.

This article appeared in our March 2016 issue of The Actuary.
Click here to view this issue
Filed in:
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Topics:
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