Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee am 12:15 pm ar 27 Ionawr 2022.
Virendra Sharma
Llafur, Ealing, Southall
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 34 to 37 stand part.
Government amendments 15 to 17.
Clause 38 stand part.
Government amendments 33 and 35.
Simon Clarke
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury
I begin by briefly explaining the clauses that are being amended. Clause 33 defines terms such as “Chapter 1 scheme”, “Chapter 1 new scheme” and “Chapter 1 legacy scheme”, to ensure a consistent understanding and application by all readers.
Clause 34 defines “new scheme benefits”. Where a member has remediable service and they elect to received new scheme benefits, they are entitled to receive benefits that are the same as those that would have been payable in relation to that service had they been a member of the new scheme. Further, if a member elects to receive new scheme benefits, they will be paid from the legacy scheme.
Clause 35 defines “legacy scheme contributions” and “new scheme contributions”. Those terms are defined in relation to a member’s remediable service, and are relevant to clauses 15 to 17, which are concerned with the correction of overpaid and underpaid contributions.
Clause 36 defines “opted-out service”. An opted-out service is a service that would have been a remediable service under clause 1 but for the fact that the member chose to opt out of it being a pensionable service. The definition of “opted-out service” includes a service that would have been a remediable service but for the fact that the member opted to participate in a partnership pension account instead.
Clause 37 defines “scheme regulations”, and provides that it has the same meaning as set out in the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 and the Public Service Pensions Act (Northern Ireland) 2014.
Clause 38 sets out further definitions for various terms used in chapter 1.
The amendment in this group are principally minor technical changes to move certain definitions to chapter 4 so that they can have effect on the whole of part 1 of the Bill, and can therefore apply to all public service pension schemes. The changes are consequential to the introduction of several amendments relating to the remedy in local government, which I will describe further under chapter 3.
