Dear (add the name of your MP)
Subject: Concern about Pension Schemes Bill and amendment NC22 Indexation of Pre-1997 pensions
This is my {first, second, third} letter to you about my concerns over the proposed changes to be introduced by the Pension Schemes Bill 2025.
I am a member of the Chevron UK Pensioners Association which is also working with the HPPA & Pre-97 Alliance to improve the position of pensioners like myself.
The purpose of this letter is to ask you to support an amendment that has been raised to the Pension Schemes Bill 2025. The amendment is NC22 – Indexation of pre-1997 pensions.
As you may be aware pensioners like myself who are in Defined Benefit pensions schemes and have service before 1997 are not treated fairly by many of the UK’s pension schemes that they get their pension from. This has been clearly recognised by the Pensions Regulator and the Department for Work and Pensions with the prime source giving rise to the failure being the Pensions Act 1995. This introduced a change to allow employers to be able to use their discretion when applying annual increases to the element of their pensioners pension that had accrued from pre-1997 service. Whilst my employer, Chevron, has not acted as badly as some (a number of schemes haven’t paid increases for over 20 years) there have still been many years when they decided not to pay an annual increase and consequently, my pension is a lot lower than I had every right to expect when I retired and unfortunately the use of this discretion is legal.
I had hoped that the promise of new legislation was going to be helpful to me, as the government has stated. However, I continue to be alarmed by Pension Schemes Bill 2025 which I and many others now believe is very unlikely to help me and may actually make my situation worse.
Comments by the Pensions Minister on 27 October again acknowledged the pre-1997 service problem but the Alliance and others believe his proposed solution via Bill 255 is at best unrealistic. The idea that excess scheme funds may be used to help pre-97 pensioners relies entirely on the relationship between the sponsoring company and the scheme trustee where the company has the majority of control and the trustee is compelled to act in the best interest of all pensioners equally. Real world experience over the past 25 years says that pensioners will again lose out.
I believe the Pensions Minister has also tried to suggest that the problem is over stated. However, analysis published last year by the Pensions Regulator found that whilst 83% of large firms on DB schemes provided discretionary benefits, this relates to a far wider range of discretionary benefits than just pre-1997 pension increases. The report also concluded that only 15% of Large schemes had provided discretionary pension increases for pre-1997 service in the last 3 years and 92% of Large schemes required both Trustee and Employer consent for discretionary benefits.
However, all may not yet be lost. A cross-party amendment has now been raised by Dame Nia Griffith, Tonia Antoniazzi, Elaine Stewart and Siân Berry which properly addresses the root cause of the problem. This amendment (NC22 raised on the 11th November 2025) introduces a new clause to the Pension Schemes Bill which would remove references to 6 April 1997 from section 51 of the Pensions Act 1995 in order to require that annual increases to pension payments in line with CPI and RPI apply to pensionable service both before and after 6 April 1997.
The amendment when implemented would give pensioners like myself confidence that our pre-1997 service pension would be increased in line with standard price indices and would resolve the uncertainty of the current “discretionary” element that we currently suffer under.
A further upside is that it is likely that part of these increases would be returned to the Government via income tax and spending in the domestic economy. This is unlike the Pensions Scheme surplus proposal where it is likely that for a large number of companies with non-UK ownership, the funds may end up anywhere but the UK.
No doubt the Pensions Minister will argue that a number of schemes would not have the required funds to meet this change but we believe this to be either unlikely or if required, capable of being met by increased employer scheme contributions. After all, as pensioners we contributed into our pension schemes for all the years, we were working including pre-1997 with the very reasonable expectation that we would then receive the pension that the company promised. Further when employers have refused discretionary increases, they will have already benefited by reductions in their scheme contributions and/or contribution holidays.
As such I would ask you to support me by supporting this amendment when it comes up for discussion. If the amendment fails then I believe the current problem will persist for years to come and is going to result in the continuation of falling living standards for many more pensioners who will continue to fail to get the pension they expected to receive in their retirement.
Respectfully,
Name ______________
Home address: —————————————-