Pensions Weekly Update – 10 September 2025

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Here is our weekly summary of key legal and regulatory developments relevant to occupational pension schemes that you might have missed, with links for further information.

The Pension Schemes Bill continues to be scrutinised by the public bill committee of the House of Commons. The committee has a number of sittings scheduled until 23 October (although the committee may finish reviewing the bill early), after which the bill will return to the House of Commons for the report stage and third reading before making its way to the House of Lords. The committee is made up of 17 members of Parliament (11 Labour MPs including the pensions minister, three Conservative MPs, one Scottish National Party MP and two Liberal Democrat MPs). Chairs are Sir Christopher Chope, Emma Lewell, Esther McVey and Karl Turner. A compilation of committee sitting transcripts is available on the parliamentary website.
The trustees of many schemes are due to carry out their first Own Risk Assessment (ORA) in spring 2026. There is no standard way to conduct the ORA – trustees need to consider what is appropriate and proportionate for their scheme. How can trustees ensure that the ORA adds real value? Our new factsheet contains some useful tips.
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has published its occupational defined benefit (DB) scheme funding analysis 2025. This provides an overview of funding levels and recovery plans in DB and hybrid schemes in the UK. It is based on tranche 18 schemes with effective valuation dates from 22 September 2022 to 21 September 2023, inclusive. Over 62% of schemes in this tranche 18 reported a surplus on technical provisions (TPs), which represents a 35-percentage point increase between funding cycles. The mean average TP funding level was 104% for these tranche 18 schemes, compared to 89% in tranche 15 representing a 15-percentage point increase between funding cycles. The mean average recovery plan length for tranche 18 schemes that were in deficit was 4.4 years, compared to 6.3 years for tranche 15 schemes.
The Pensions Dashboards Programme has issued a blog post highlighting how state pension information will appear on pensions dashboards.
The chancellor has announced that the autumn budget will be delivered on 26 November 2025. With Torsten Bell reportedly assisting in the preparation of the budget, there may be some pensions tax changes on the horizon.
Pat McFadden has been appointed secretary of state for work and pensions, replacing Liz Kendall, following the government reshuffle last week.