Updated 12 February 2013

The Pensions Act 2011

The Pensions Bill 2011 was introduced in the House of Lords on 12 January 2011. It received Royal Assent on 3 November 2011 and became law under the Pensions Act 2011.

The Act puts into law changes to the State Pension age timetable. From April 2016, women's State Pension age will rise faster than originally planned, equalising with men's at 65 by November 2018. Between December 2018 and October 2020, men and women's State Pension ages will be increased from 65 to 66.

The Act also:

• implements workplace pension reform measures from the Making Automatic Enrolment Work Review; and
• allows contributions to be taken towards the cost of providing personal pension benefits to current judicial pensions scheme members.

• The Pensions Act 2011 (legislation.gov.uk)
• State Pension age timetable (78KB)

You can find details of the Act’s passage through Parliament on the Parliament website.

When the Pensions Bill 2011 was introduced to Parliament, we published a number of supporting documents. We updated the impact assessment when the Bill received Royal Assent.

• Pensions Act 2011 Summary of impacts (148KB) (updated 21 November 2011)
• Pensions Act 2011 – Impacts – Annex A: State Pension Age (396KB) (updated 21 November 2011)
• Pensions Act 2011 – Impacts – Annex B: Workplace Pension Reform (498KB) (updated 21 November 2011)
• Pensions Bill 2011 – Impacts – Annex C: Move to CPI (143KB) (updated 12 July 2011)
• Pensions Bill 2011 – Impacts – Annex D: Pension Protection Measures (135KB)
• Pensions Bill 2011 – Impacts – Annex E1: Judicial Pensions (90KB)
• Pensions Bill 2011 – Impacts – Annex E2: Equality Impact Assessment Initial Screening – Relevance to Equality Duties (55KB)
• Pensions Bill 2011 – Impacts – Annex F: Other Pension Bill Measures (51KB) (updated 21 November 2011)
• Pensions Bill 2011 – Delegated powers memorandum (171KB)

Pensions Bill fact sheets

On 17 October 2011, we published two fact sheets to explain the background to two amendments to the Bill introduced by the Government.

• Pension Bill 2011 fact sheet 1 – Government amendment to Clause 1 of Pensions Bill 2011 (53KB)
• Pension Bill 2011 fact sheet 2 – Government amendments to the definition of “money purchase benefit” (25KB)

Pensions Act 2011 fact sheets

This section contains some of the factsheets the Department published in relation to the 2011 Act.