Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reviewing the adequacy of support available to pensioners in schemes with differing indexation arrangements.

The Government has no plans to retrospectively change defined benefit pension scheme rules to align what are highly variable indexation arrangements.

Our reforms will however introduce greater flexibility for more trustees to share surplus with employers, deliver better outcomes for members and benefit the wider economy. Trustees will be able to require that employers approve discretionary indexation for members as part of any agreement to release surplus funds to the employer.

The Pension Regulator already sets out that trustees should consider the situation of those members who would benefit from a discretionary increase and whether the scheme has a history of making such awards. The Regulator will be producing further guidance on surplus sharing once the legislation is in place.