7 Days is a weekly round up of developments in pensions, normally published on Monday afternoons. We collate this information from key industry sources, such as the DWP, HMRC and TPR.

In this 7 Days

Government sets out its pensions plans in three new papers

The Government published its consultation responses to the Options for DB schemes and Unlocking the UK pensions market for growth consultations, along with the Pensions investment review – final report on 29 May 2025. Key points include:

  • DB options response – subject to “stringent funding safeguards”, the Government will press ahead with plans to give trustees power to pass a resolution amending their scheme rules to allow surplus extraction
  • unlocking the UK pensions market for growth – the Government will introduce provisions in the upcoming Pension Schemes Bill requiring DC providers and master trusts to have £25bn in assets under management in at least one large “megafund” default arrangement by 2030, subject to certain exceptions
  • pensions investment review – although the Government has “concluded that it is not necessary currently to mandate” baseline investment targets, it will include a reserve power in the Pension Schemes Bill.

See our recent Alert for further information.

TPR publishes statement of strategy consultation response

On 28 May 2025, TPR published its response to its consultation on the statement of strategy that trustees need to submit under the new DB funding regime. Key changes include:

  • schemes that meet TPR’s “low risk” criteria (including schemes that follow a Fast Track approach and would be in surplus on a low dependency funding basis after applying an immediate Fast Track stress test) will not have to provide any detailed information about the employer covenant
  • “small schemes” have now been defined as, broadly, those with 200 DB members or fewer, subject to certain exceptions, and the reduced information requirements for these schemes have been adjusted, and
  • the templates have been simplified to remove some of the information requirements, as well as much of the narrative explaining the legal requirements.

Alongside the response, TPR has also launched its new “Submit a scheme valuation” digital service, which trustees should use to complete and submit their statement of strategy.

HMRC publishes latest newsletter

HMRC published its latest pension schemes newsletter 170 on 29 May 2025, covering a range of topics. HMRC notes that there have been some errors in the reporting of lump sums and flags its updated guidance for correcting payroll errors. It also confirms that all pension scheme administrators of UK registered pension schemes will be required to be UK resident from 6 April 2026, and sets out the implications of this for affected administrators.