Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that police officers are not discriminated against within the new Police Pension Scheme.

The government is committed to ensuring good public service pension provision, but this has to be affordable and sustainable in the long term.

The main public sector pension schemes – including the police pension scheme – were reformed following the recommendations of the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission, resulting in the introduction of the 2015 schemes.

The government is taking steps to remove discrimination on the grounds associated with the transitional protection arrangements, identified by the courts during the McCloud and Sargeant litigation. Eligible members will be offered a choice of scheme benefits for the remedy period for those in scope of the remedy and, from 1 April 2022, when the remedy period ends, all those in service in main unfunded schemes will be members of the reformed pension schemes, ensuring equal treatment from that point on. The government believes this is the most appropriate and proportionate way of ending the age discrimination identified.

The 2015 police pension scheme and the other reformed schemes are some of the most valuable available in the UK: backed by the taxpayer; index-linked; and offering guaranteed benefits on retirement; comparing very favourably to the typical private sector scheme.