A new statutory objective for the Pensions Regulator (TPR) to consider the long-term affordability of deficit recovery plans to sponsoring employers would help to “rebalance scales” between member security and supporting the wider economy according to NAPF chairman Mark Hyde Harrison.

Speaking at the Occupational Pensions Defence Union’s (OPDU) annual meeting yesterday, Hyde Harrison said that the regulator “would have to take into account the best interests of the employer”.

He added that the statutory objective “should be about more than just the strict affordability and consideration of what happens just before the point of insolvency and the way that companies can be restructured, but instead focus on what is in the best interests of the scheme in terms of a strong company helping to support a strong pension”.

TPR chairman Michael O’Higgins played down the effects of a new statutory objective however. “I am not saying that it wouldn’t have some effect, I am saying that it is not far removed from what the TPR does at present.”

He did however state that “a new statutory objective would increase the number of reasons that we might be brought to a judicial review” and therefore “internal proceedings would have to be examined”.

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