Pensions Expert editor Nick Reeve wonders whether the Pension Schemes Bill’s Royal Assent is close or whether it might be subjected to some legislative ‘whiff-whaff’.
In April 2025, two Swedes – Fredrik Nilsson and Emil Ohlsson – set the world record for the longest ping-pong rally: 15 hours, 49 minutes, and 35 seconds.
It is unlikely that the Pension Schemes Bill will go back and forth between the House of Lords and House of Commons quite as many times as the ball did in that rally, but it is the stage we are approaching as this wide-ranging piece of legislation makes its way through parliament.
This week saw the last stage in the House of Lords, and MPs in the Commons will discuss peers’ amendments beginning on 15 April.
As we reported last week, the House of Lords has removed the mandation clause from the bill and inserted important additions to the scale test, as well as introducing new items such as a requirement to measure LGPS liabilities against private sector pricing options such as bulk annuities.
But does any of this matter? As we saw this week, the government has used its majority to simply sweep aside the Lords’ amendments to the salary sacrifice cap legislation (something Torsten Bell made clear would happen when Pensions Expert questioned him earlier this month).
And we’ve already heard the pensions minister promise to rein in the mandation clause after months of industry lobbying, so it is unlikely he will stomach it being removed altogether after just one House of Lords vote.
There is the potential for the bill to be passed back and forth between the houses, if there is substantial disagreement on its contents. But my sense is that there’s not much appetite for a big fight. If the new-look mandation clause mirrors the Mansion House Accord as we’ve been promised, and the scale test is given a bit more nuance, perhaps we will see the bill on the King’s desk before the end of April without the need for much further debate.
On the other hand, if peers do want to test the government’s mettle, we might be in for a bit of legislative ‘whiff-whaff’.
Nick Reeve is editor of Pensions Expert.
