Pension Schemes Bill - LGPS amendments

We’ve been keeping a close eye on the Pension Schemes Bill as it’s made its way through Parliament the last few months, particularly given it’s the legislative vehicle for many of the government’s Fit for the Future reforms.  

There were a number of interesting LGPS developments during the House of Lords’ Report Stage. The Lords’ debated and passed three opposition and backbench amendments to the Bill relating to the LGPS sections, despite government opposition.

Amendments to the Bill 

The passing of the amendments is relatively unusual. Whilst the government does not have a majority in the House of Lords, often opposition and backbench amendments are just put forward to raise a point and to require government ministers to engage in discussion. What makes the situation here unusual is that the above amendments were ‘moved’ to a vote and the votes were then successful in getting through.

What does this mean in practice? 

It’s probably too early to say exactly. As the versions of the Bill passed by the Lords and by the Commons are different from each other, we will move to ‘ping-pong’ where the Bill bounces between the two Houses until both agree on the same version (although the Lords will often end up yielding to the Commons’ primacy after a few rounds). On 10 April 2026, the government confirmed its intent to oppose all the above amendments.  

What we do know though is that this will further delay the Bill receiving Royal Assent, and there is also the upcoming ‘prorogation’ of Parliament ahead of the King’s Speech on 13 May 2026 to contend with (prorogation being a term many of us won’t have heard since the 2019 Brexit negotiations). Usually, all Bills must conclude their passage through Parliament before prorogation takes place, although there are measures to allow the government to carry bills over into a new parliamentary session, subject to certain criteria being met. 

Impact on implementation dates

The government have recently reacted to the delays by writing to LGPS administering authorities confirming their intent is to lay their Fit for the Future regulations as soon as possible once the Pension Schemes Bill receives Royal Assent. They have also adjusted some of the key implementation dates, in particular: 

We would not expect regulations to be made now before the local elections on 7 May. In addition, 21 days must usually pass before made regulations come into force. This would all appear to suggest that the earliest scheme regulations could come into force would be 1 June, a date which would mean a 30 November deadline for the appointment of a senior LGPS officer and independent person. However, as we have seen, delays happen and it wouldn’t take much for the new deadlines to fall into 2027. The timing of the regulations will no doubt be something that LGPS funds across England and Wales will continue to be paying close attention to.