Changes to the normal minimum pension age (NMPA) are set to come into effect from 2028.
The Treasury has closed the opportunity for people to transfer to a pension scheme that would offer pension age protection ahead of its planned minimum pension age hike.
Originally, it planned to introduce a protection regime for those who had unqualified right to access their pensions before age 57 on 11 February 2021.
People would have had until 5 April 2023 to transfer to a scheme with an unqualified right and retain a lower normal minimum pension age (NMPA).
This worried pension commentators who criticised the complexity and warned it would lead to decades of confusion.
But the Government introduced a draught clause into the Finance Bill 2021 / 22 that reduced the time to transfer to 3 November 2021, without prior notice.
In a statement published on Thursday 4 November 2021, economic secretary to the Treasury, John Glen, said: “Ordinarily this change to a Finance Bill clause would have been announced at Autumn Budget 2021.”
“On this occasion, giving prior notice of the shorter window ahead of its closure on 3 November 2021, could have led to unnecessary turbulence in the pensions market and led to some consumer detriment.”
“Some pensioner savers could could find themselves with poorer outcomes (or even be the victim of a pension scam) if they were rushed by rogue advisers to make a quick transfer in the short time period before the window closed.”
The Pensions Dashboard is set to go live in 2023, and will aim to give savers an easy way to assess the state of their retirement savings.
What is the NMPA?
The NMPA is the earliest point at which you can draw private pensions without receiving tax penalties. this is different to the state pension age, which is currently 66 for both men and women.
It is not currently possible to receive any state pension before age 66.