Government amendments to the Public Service Pensions Bill “do not go far enough” and should aim to “curtail sweeping new powers that would allow future UK governments to make unilateral and retrospective changes to accrued benefits in public sector pension changes,” according to the British Medical Association (BMA).

Amendments to the initial text of the bill state that the powers of future UK governments would be limited to only making ‘consequential’ changes or to achieve consistency. The government has also introduced a consent lock for any retrospective changes to pensions that have significant adverse effects on members.

The BMA has stated however that “although the government amendments signal some positive movements, those are not enough as changes can still be made retrospectively and they may not necessarily be only consequential".

Liberal democrat peer Lord Newby said that the amendments provided “an extremely strong form of protection against the unfair use of retrospective powers” and “would give scheme members a veto on any changes where they would be adversely affected”.

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