The pressure on pensions intensified this week with the cut in the base rate to 0.25per cent, ratcheting up further the cost of pension scheme promises.
Final salary scheme deficits are already at £935billion and the latest push could see them pass the £1trillion mark.
Baroness Ros Altmann, pensions minister until last month, warned that the Bank of England’s monetary package could have “a damaging side-effect that can undermine companies” by raising further the costs of their pension schemes. “Ultimately, more employers may fail as pension deficits balloon,” she said. “That would mean pension scheme members enter the Pension Protection Fund and their benefits are not paid in full.”
Members of schemes run by struggling companies could see their right to transfer their fund restricted, if the government legislates to allow a reduction in their pension benefits, the work and pensions committee chairman has said.
Frank Field MP said MPs would look at “slowing down access to pension funds” as part of their examination of whether near-insolvent companies like British Steel should be allowed to reduce pension benefits.
The new freedom to take cash from a personal pension is prompting record numbers of inquiries about transfers out of final salary schemes.
The ultra-low gilt yields that have fuelled scheme deficits have also pushed up the transfer values many schemes are offering members thinking about departing, as The Herald reported last month.
James Baxter, founder of Tideway Investment Partners, said: “I think we will see a normalisation, less of a perception that this is a high-risk thing to do, and a recognition that transfer values at this level can put a family in a more secure position than not doing it. Some of the past stigma is disappearing.”
But Mr Baxter dismissed as “fanciful” a report suggesting that large numbers would rush to exit the schemes of distressed companies, taking advantage of generous pay-outs, if the government announced a future reduction in the inflation-linkage of their pension.
He said the transfer values offered to members of distressed schemes were already far less generous than in healthy schemes. “Any scheme heading towards the Pension Protection Fund is going to be offering a pretty discounted transfer in the first place.”
Mr Field has said a separate committee inquiry, into the intergenerational fairness of the pension system, is designed to “breathe new life into occupational schemes without selling their future”.
But Jon Hatchett, head of corporate consulting at Hymans Robertson in Glasgow, says: “Whilst this sounds well-intentioned to protect jobs, any changes would need to be very carefully thought through to prevent unscrupulous use. Routinely cutting pension benefits to facilitate business turnarounds must not be become the norm.”
Keith Gourlay, partner at Mercer in Glasgow, said a reduction of benefits was a possible outcome, and this could prompt some scheme members to request transfers.
He added: “ The problem of course is that this may jeopardise further the security of benefits for remaining members. The current legislative framework already allows for transfer values to be reduced under certain circumstances but existing legislation may have to be extended.
“Having said all of this, it is by no means inevitable that the law will be changed at all….. we need to await the outcome of the consultation.”
There could be a strictly-defined proviso allowing a scheme to adjust its ‘pension promise’ from a retail to a consumer price inflation basis, which although it sounds minor would slash schemes’ liabilities considerably.
Mike Kennedy, partner at Barnett Waddingham in Glasgow, commented: “Removing the inflation link would obviously further undermine confidence in the pensions system, but I would expect most members with decent DB (final salary) benefits to stick with the other guarantees.”
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