Welcome to your weekly update from the A&O Shearman Pensions team, covering all the latest legal and regulatory developments in the world of workplace pensions.

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• Manifesto round-up
• Pensions equity group - Reducing the gender pension gap

Manifesto round-up

A review of manifesto commitments on pensions reveals some common themes, including the following:

• Implementation of the Mansion House reforms, ensuring that workplace pension schemes take advantage of consolidation and scale, to deliver better returns for UK savers and greater productive investment for UK PLC (the Conservatives and Labour).
• The Labour Party also promises a review of the pensions landscape to consider what further steps are needed to improve security in retirement and increase productive investment in the UK economy.
• On sustainability issues, Labour will mandate UK-regulated financial institutions (including banks, asset managers, pension funds and insurers) and FTSE 100 companies to develop and implement ‘credible transition plans that align with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement’. The Liberal Democrats would require pension funds to show that their portfolio investments are consistent with the Paris Agreement and would create new powers for regulators to act if investors are not managing climate risks properly. The Green Party proposes to require non-bank financial institutions, including UK pension funds, to remove fossil fuel assets from their investment portfolios by 2030.
• The Conservatives have announced a Triple Lock Plus: the State Pension and the tax-free allowance for pensioners will rise with the highest of inflation, earnings or 2.5% – so if an individual’s only income is State Pension, this will not trigger income tax. The Labour Party commits to retaining the triple lock.
• On pensions taxation, the Labour Party manifesto contains no comment on the abolition of the lifetime allowance (Labour has reportedly dropped its proposal to reverse this). The Conservatives would maintain the 25% tax free lump sum and tax relief on pension contributions at their marginal rate. The Green Party would provide pension tax relief at a flat rate of 20% instead of the marginal rate.
• On other issues, the Liberal Democrats commit to developing measures to end the gender pension gap in private pensions. They would also review rules to ensure that gig economy workers do not lose out on pensions. Their manifesto proposes a new ‘dependent contractor’ employment status (between employment and self-employment), with entitlements to basic workers’ rights.

Read the Conservative Party manifesto

Read the Green Party manifesto

Read the Labour Party manifesto

Read the Liberal Democrat manifesto

Pensions equity group - Reducing the gender pension gap

The Pensions Equity Group (PEG) has published a guide aimed at helping employers to identify and reduce the gender pensions gap. The guide ‘Mind the Gap: Reducing the gender pension gap’ provides suggestions for addressing the gender pensions gap within an organisation, including how to analyse the gap and the levers available to address it.

Read the report

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