Equal treatment (Pensions) Definition

GLOSSARY

What does Equal treatment (Pensions) mean?

Principle requiring gender equality with respect to contributions and benefits.

View the related practice notes about Equal treatment (Pensions)

Sex discrimination for pension lawyers

The current position and how we got hereAs in other areas of discrimination law which apply to pension schemes, the law on sex discrimination has been heavily influenced by European law. In this area, three different strands of European law helped to develop UK law:•European case law—for guidance on whether EU judgments are binding on UK courts, see Practice Note: Assimilated law—Assimilated case law•European Directives—while the UK laws implementing directives form part of UK domestic law, the directives themselves do not•directly applicable Treaty provisions—the key Treaty provision in the context of sex discrimination was Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) on the right to equal pay, which used to have direct effect in the UK. This right to equal pay constituted retained EU law between IP completion day (11pm on 31 December 2020) and 31 December 2023 under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, s 4, so that it continued to have direct effect in the UK during that period. Section 4 itself...

Equalisation of guaranteed minimum pensions (GMPs)

What are guaranteed minimum pensions?Guaranteed minimum pensions (GMPs) arrived on the pension scene on 6 April 1978, at the same time as the State Earnings-Related Pension (SERPS) was introduced. The relevant legislation (then the Social Security Act 1975 and the Social Security Pensions Act 1975) provided that an employee’s employment could be contracted out of SERPS if certain conditions were satisfied. The conditions were in essence that the employee was a member of a pension scheme which would provide a pension of a guaranteed minimum amount. That guaranteed minimum pension was of course intended to be equal to the pension the employee would have received under SERPS. It was expected that in general the pension payable under the relevant scheme would be higher than the GMP.The attraction of contracting-out was that since the state would not be obliged to pay SERPS in addition to the member’s basic state pension (unless in any particular case the GMP was less than the SERPS entitlement would have been), a reduced level of national...

Discover our 6 Practice Notes on Equal treatment (Pensions)

61 Non-discrimination rule

(1) An occupational pension scheme must be taken to include a non-discrimination rule.(2) A non-discrimination rule is a provision by virtue of which a responsible person (A)—(a) must not discriminate against another person (B) in carrying out any of A's functions in relation to the scheme;(b) must not, in relation to the scheme, harass B;(c) must not, in relation to the scheme, victimise B.(3) The provisions of an occupational pension scheme have effect subject to the non-discrimination rule.(4) The following are responsible persons—(a) the trustees or managers of the scheme;(b) an

63 Communications

(1) In their application to communications the following provisions apply in relation to a disabled person who is a pension credit member of an occupational pension scheme as they apply in relation to a disabled person who is a deferred member or pensioner member of the scheme—(a) section 61;(b) section 120;(c) section 126;(d) paragraph 19 of Schedule 8 (and such other provisions of that Schedule as apply for the purposes of that paragraph).(2) Communications include—(a) the provision of information;(b) the operation of a dispute resolution procedure.

Equal treatment (Pensions) is referenced 2 in UK Parliament Acts

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