Increase in Pension age from 2028

gil13

Quick question, will the increase in pension age from 55-57 start at the beginning of 2028 or from new tax year in April 2028? This is obviously of interest to those with birthdays in 1973 Jan-Apr. I don't seem to be able to find an answer on this.

dunstonh

The proposed 10 year linking to state pension age did not appear in the pensions act in the end.

gil13

Oh okay, so 55 remains the age at which all can access private/company pensions? ...until the next minister decides something different !!

Paul_Herring

gil13 wrote: »

Oh okay, so 55 remains the age at which all can access private/company pensions? ...until the next minister decides something different !!

Indeed. It was mooted in Jul '14 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/10982177/Age-40-No-access-to-pension-until-58.html) but was omiited from the Act (or axed as the papers would tell it) around Feb '15 (http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2967477/Pension-age-increase-axed.html)

hugheskevi

Under the Coalition govt back in July 2014, HM Treasury announced in a response to a consultation that minimum pension age would be linked to state pension age minus 10 years. It was stated in the consultation response that the change would be legislated for in the next Parliament (so all the press articles about legislation being dropped were completely incorrect - it was never intended to be in the act), and legislation still has not happened.

The consultation response stated that the change would apply from when the State Pension age reached 67 in 2028. However, the lack of legislation means many details are left unanswered. The key outstanding questions are:

• Does the current government (which being a Conservative majority is a completely different government to that which made the decision to increase minimum pension age) intend to enact the policy change announced in the Coalition consultation response? As well as being a completely different government there are now many different priorities.
• If the change is legislated for, will the shorter time to the change taking effect mean the change is put back to give people adequate notice to change their plans?
• Will the increase be a cliff-edge in 2028, or will the increase be tapered in, eg, starting in 2024, aligning with state pension age in 2026 and then tracking with the state pension age increase to 67 by 2028. In the original consultation is was stated "The transition to this age will need to begin before 2028 and the government will provide further detail on this in its summary of responses to this consultation" However, there was no mention of this in the consultation response.
• Will protection be given, as it was when minimum pension age last increased in 2010, for those with existing pension arrangements at a particular date?