Section 238 of the Pensions Act 2004 (c.35), as it will be when published*, provides that employers may be required to act so as to enable employees to have access to information and advice about pensions and saving for retirement. Contributing its own little carrot to this act, the Treasury has laid regulations (SI 2004/3087 The Income Tax (Exemption of Minor Benefits) (Amendment) Regulations 2004) exempting such guidance from an employee benefits tax charge providing it costs no more than £150 pa per employee. This is aimed at situations where the employer pays outside consultancy fees for seminars or for one-to-one sessions on financial advice for employees.

Meanwhile, we await with trepidation the release of draft Regs for consultation, commencing probably next week, we understand from the DWP. Around a hundred separate SIs are expected to be laid eventually under the Pensions Act. Aries will provide notification and comment, where appropriate, on these as they appear.

* Footnote

After a marathon journey which started on 11 February 2004 and involved negotiating over sixteen hundred amendments en route (most of them introduced by the Government), the Pensions Bill finally gained Royal Assent on 18 November 2004. On present indications from the House of Lords Bill Office, however, the Act is unlikely to be actually published before 3 December.

What happened at the death?

At Third Reading in the House of Lords on 15 November, an Opposition amendment to remove compulsion to take an annuity by age 75 (the subject of several failed Private Member's Bills in recent years) was passed by 198 votes to 143. In company with 671 other Lords amendments, this was taken back to the Commons for an afternoon's debate. It was overturned by the Government's substantial majority, although the Minister promised to fold it into the wider debate on "compulsion" which will emerge from the second report of the Pensions Commission next year.