Protected early pension age – 2006 and 2010 protections

Some members have the right to take benefits before minimum pension age. Here we review the three categories of members with these rights, along with the conditions affecting them.

Why do we have protected early pension ages?

On 6 April 2010, the normal minimum pension age increased from 50 to 55. Ordinarily, there are only three occasions when benefits may be taken earlier than these ages – ill health retirement, serious ill health retirement (both of which are covered in our article When can retirement benefits be taken?) and where an individual has a protected pension age.

We’ll look at the three categories of members with the right to take benefits before minimum pension age, along with the conditions affecting them.

Where the conditions are met, the protected pension age applies to all benefits the member can take under the scheme, including benefits without an unqualified right (covered below), new benefits introduced after 5 April 2006 and any benefits in respect of a transfer into the registered pension scheme. 

Members with a right to take benefits before normal minimum pension age

The three categories of members with the right to take benefits before minimum pension age are:

• Members with a right to take benefits from age 50 under a retirement benefit scheme or S32 arrangement (Category 1).

• Members with a prescribed occupation and a right to take benefits before age 50 under a retirement annuity contract or personal pension (Category 2).

• Members with the right to take benefits before age 50 under an occupational pension scheme (Category 3).

These categories don’t include: 

• free-standing additional voluntary contributions (where members could choose to fund to a proposed early retirement date), and

• personal pensions and stakeholder policies with retirement ages from 50, where the policyholder doesn’t have a prescribed occupation.

These members aren’t normally* eligible for a protected pension age.

*some FSAVC scheme rules may have an unqualified right to take benefits early depending on the interaction with the normal retirement date of the main scheme. 

Reduced allowances

Any member protecting their pension age under categories 2 and 3 above may have reduced allowances. This is because they were entitled to take benefits before age 50, and it’s also why this condition doesn’t apply to members protecting their pension age under category 1, as their entitlement only started at age 50.

Those members in category 2 or 3 who are also members of a prescribed scheme will not have reduced allowances.

Benefits from certain pension schemes may be paid without the member being subject to a reduced lump sum allowance. These schemes are:

• the Armed Forces Pension Scheme
• the British Transport Police Force Superannuation Fund,
• the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme,
• the Firemen’s Pension Scheme (Northern Ireland)
• the Gurkha Pension Scheme,
• the Police Pension Scheme,
• the Police Service of Northern Ireland Pension Scheme,
• the Police Service of Northern Ireland Full Time Reserve Pension Scheme
• a scheme established solely to receive additional voluntary pension contributions from members of a scheme listed above.

The Registered Pension Schemes (Prescribed Schemes and Occupations) Regulations 2005 – SI 2005/3451

Where the reduction applies, the individual's allowances will be reduced by 2.5% for each complete year between the date the RBCE occurs and the date the person reaches age 55. If the member has an individual lifetime allowance, due to primary protection for instance, then the reduction applies to the lifetime allowance after the enhancement factor has been applied.

Taking the benefits

When someone with a protected pension age takes their benefits, they must become entitled to all the benefits under the scheme on the same day. This condition also applies if there has been a block transfer (see below). The receiving scheme must be able to crystallise all uncrystallised rights on the same day to allow the protected pension age to apply.

If this person dies within six months of payment of the tax-free cash (pension commencement lump sum) but before becoming entitled to the pension, then this condition will still be met.

Where a person has at least two of:

• scheme pension under defined benefit arrangement

• scheme pension under money purchase arrangement

• a lifetime annuity

under the same scheme, then the condition will only be met if the person becomes entitled to all benefits within a six-month period, starting with the entitlement to the first pension. If the person becomes entitled to at least one type of pension and dies within six months, then the condition would be met as long as the scheme administrator believed the person had been entitled to all pensions under the scheme within the six-month period.

There is no requirement for benefits to be taken at the protected pension age, just that (if taken before normal minimum pension age) they must all be taken on the same day. If benefits are delayed, any reduced allowances would be calculated at the actual crystallisation date (ie not at the protected pension age).

It should be noted that these rules apply at a scheme level and not an arrangement level. Depending on the category of protected pension age, a scheme may be designed so that it contains some benefits payable to a person before the normal minimum pension age (because they qualify for protection) and some benefits payable to that person only after having reached normal minimum pension age.

If all benefits are not crystallised, payments from the partially crystallised benefits would be unauthorised member payments (UP) and taxed as such. To avoid any UP, the client cannot phase retirement benefits in the existing scheme between their protected early pension age and the normal minimum pension age. Once the member reaches normal minimum pension age, the option to phase retirement is available (as the member is then not relying on their protected early pension age to take their benefits).

See Finance Act 2004 Schedule 36 Paragraphs 22(7)(a) & 23(7)
Articles 42 & 43 The Taxation of Pension Schemes (Transitional Provisions) Order 2006 – SI 2006/572 and Pensions Tax Manual PTM062200 

Loss of protection

The protected pension age could be lost in certain circumstances:

• where the member is employed by certain persons after taking benefits, or

• if the benefits are transferred out of the scheme, except if part of a block transfer.

Where the member is employed by certain people after taking benefits

For category 1 members (protected early pension age from age 50), this restriction applies only where:

1. entitlement to benefits arises after 6 April 2010 and
2. the member is employed by any one of the following employers after becoming entitled to the benefits and
3. the member does not meet any one of four re-employment conditions.

The employers are:

• an employer who employed the individual in the six months before the benefit entitlement arose and who was also a sponsoring employer in the scheme under which benefit entitlement arose in that six month period

• any person connected with the employer described in the previous point (not necessarily a sponsoring employer), or

• any sponsoring employer in the pension scheme under which benefit entitlement arose that is connected with the individual.

'Connected' is defined in s993 to 995 Income Tax Act 2007 and further guidance can be found in PTM027000

The re-employment conditions are:

• where the individual was recalled by the Armed Forces

• where there was a break in employment of at least six months

• where there was a break in employment of at least one month and benefits may be abated (public service pension schemes), or

• where there was a break of at least one month and the employment is materially different (duties / responsibilities, not a change in hours).

If any of the four re-employment conditions apply, protection won’t be lost.

For category 2 or 3 members (protected early pension age before age 50), protection is only lost if they are employed by a sponsoring employer in the scheme under which benefit entitlement arose and the- individual is 'connected' (see above) to that sponsoring employer.

See Finance Act 2004 Schedule 36 Para 22(7)(b) & 22(7B) -(7J)
Pension Taxation Manual PTM062230

Where the benefits are transferred out of the scheme 

A protected pension age is only retained if the transfer is part of a block transfer.

Block transfers

Pensions not in payment 

In respect of protected pension age, protection will remain in the event of a block transfer. A transfer is a block transfer if: 

• it involves the transfer in a single transaction of all the sums and assets held for the purposes of (or representing accrued rights under), the arrangements under the transferring pension scheme, which relate to the member and at least one other member of that pension scheme, and

• either the member was not a member of the receiving pension scheme before the transfer, or they have been a member of that pension scheme for no longer than such period as is prescribed by regulations made by the Board of Inland Revenue (12 months).

Pensions in payment 

Since 6 April 2015, for pensions in payment the definition of block transfers for protected pension ages is where there is a recognised transfer from one registered pension scheme ("the old scheme") to another registered pension scheme ("the new scheme"), and there is a transfer in a single transaction of all accrued (vested) rights which relate to the member. This does not have to happen on the same day, as there could be administrative reasons preventing this. In other words, there’s no requirement for a ‘buddy’.

See Finance Act 2004 Schedule 36 paragraphs 21-23AA protected pension age is only retained if the transfer is part of a block transfer.

Transfer, reorganisation and winding up of schemes

The Pension Schemes (Transfer, Re-organisation and Winding Up) (Transitional Provisions) Order 2006 provides for protection of low normal retirement ages on both TUPE transfers and the reorganisation of a sponsoring employer’s pension schemes between 10 December 2003 and 5 April 2006, providing strict conditions are met. These regulations also provide for protection due to scheme wind-up, where benefits are secured under deferred annuities, whether the wind-up commenced before or from 6 April 2006.

See Articles 13-16 The Pension Schemes (Transfers, Reorganisations and Winding Up) (Transitional Provisions) Order 2006 - SI 2006/573