PLSA comments on TPR Covid-19 guidance and Government withdrawal of General Levy increase

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) comments on the latest TPR Covid-19 guidance for DB schemes and the Government’s withdrawal of the increase to the General Levy on Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes.

Nigel Peaple, Director of Policy & Research, PLSA said: “The Pensions Regulator is right to say the current regime is sufficiently flexible to enable a short term easement of deficit recovery payments. At this very difficult time, it is reasonable for trustees, after undertaking the due diligence and scrutiny specified in the Regulator’s guidance, to consider allowing the use of these flexibilities in the case of sponsoring employers that clearly cannot afford to pay them.

“We wholly agree with the Regulator that it is important that trustees do all they can to protect scheme members from the risk of being scammed after taking a DB transfer. It is very welcome that the Regulator has made it clear that if schemes need to suspend transfer valuations or payments to protect savers from scams, it will not take action against the scheme for the resulting breach of regulations.”

“We are very pleased that the Government has decided to not go ahead with a 10% increase in the levy in light of the hugely challenging economic situation. As we said in our response to Government on this issue last autumn, it is much better to do a review of the levy structure before introducing any increases. We believe any such review will be better informed if it is delayed until after the current crisis has passed.”

ENDS

Mark Smith, Senior PR Manager
 020 7601 1726 |  [email protected]k

Steven Kennedy, PR Manager
 020 7601 1737 | 07713 073024 | [email protected]