On the go: Progress on the pension schemes bill has come to a halt following the government’s commitment to hurry through emergency health legislation to combat the effects of coronavirus.
Pensions Expert understands that the report stage and third reading of the pension schemes bill in the House of Lords has been delayed until after Easter due to health legislation taking precedence.
Baroness Ros Altmann said: “There is emergency NHS legislation going through parliament over the next couple of weeks.
“That means other legislation needs to be delayed to make room. There were no dates set for the report stage of the pension schemes bill so we will not have time to complete this before recess.”
The coronavirus outbreak was labelled a pandemic by the World Health Organization on Wednesday, as more than 100 countries have registered cases.
The pension schemes bill was reintroduced in the House of Lords on January 7 after the December general election delayed its debate in parliament.
It was expected to enter the House of Commons before Easter. The bill still needs to go through a report stage, line-by-line examination, and have its third reading in the Lords before it will enter the Commons.
It then has to pass through five further stages before all amendments are considered and it reaches Royal Assent and is made into law.
The bill includes long-awaited rules around pension dashboards, collective defined contribution schemes and new powers for the Pensions Regulator.
Since the beginning of this year the Lords have been debating the bill and have highlighted a number of issues, including the failure to implement the Department for Work and Pensions' own auto-enrolment review proposal to lower the starting age from 22 to 18 and a lack of detail on pension dashboards.
