Draft Pension Schemes Act 2015 (Judicial Pensions) (Consequential Provision) Regulations 2017

Christina Rees Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 General Committees

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the Minister for his explanation of the statutory instrument and confirm that we will not oppose the motion today.

Plainly the Government must follow the decision of the Supreme Court in O’Brien v. Ministry of Justice. The Court appears to have taken a dim view of the Government’s stance that it should be able to deny part-time judges a pension, but given that the appellant had previously not succeeded, it is difficult to criticise the Government for engaging in litigation. It therefore fell to the Government to construct a scheme for fee-paid judges. Initially that was expected to be launched by 31 March 2016, then by 1 December 2016, and then it was announced that it would be in place by April 2017. Perhaps the Minister can explain the long delay? A news item on the Ministry’s website dated 6 August stated:

“It has become clear that drafting the regulations is proving more complex than was originally anticipated. The main reason for the delay is due to the complexity of drafting the parts of the regulations which will deal with AVCs”—

additional voluntary contributions. It continues:

“These parts of the regulations are also required to address both retrospective and future added benefits.”

However, the draft regulations before us today contain two very short sections. Is the Minister satisfied that the complexity has been overcome?

The regulations facilitate then the establishment of the pension scheme. The Court found that the lack of pension and other benefits was less favourable treatment of some judicial office holders compared with their salaried counterparts doing the same or similar work, and the new scheme was required to have effect from 7 April 2000—the date on which the UK ought to have implemented the part-time work directive. Earlier this month in another case, the Ministry of Justice and the Lord Chancellor were found to have discriminated against younger judges by requiring them to leave the judicial pension scheme in April 2015 but not doing the same for older judges. Is that likely to add any further delay to implementing the fee-paid scheme? Does the Minister intend to appeal that decision? He is no doubt aware that the case will be watched keenly by other public sector workers who have been subjected to transitional arrangements.