Towards the end of 2018, the High Court made a judgment on a case to do with Guaranteed Minimum Pensions (GMPs). It confirmed that pension schemes like ours, who have some members who have earned a GMP, will need to treat them differently.
We’ll need to make sure that any GMP benefits built up between 17 May 1990 and 6 April 1997 are equal between men and women. If you don’t have any GMP benefits built up between these dates, this judgment will not affect you.
Since then, the Department for Work and Pensions, HMRC and an industry working group have been producing guidance on how this will work in practice. There have also been further court judgments on how to deal with things that have happened in the past.
The Trustee and Company have worked together to understand the impact of these developments on the Scheme, but there are still areas that need to be made clear. It will be a complex process and it is likely to take a long time before we can update members who may be impacted.
We’ll keep this page updated as the situation and timing become clearer. If we have anything new to tell you we’ll let you know through our regular communications and if it’s important we’ll write to you separately. In the meantime, we’ve responded to some questions you may have.