The Occupational Pension Schemes (Preservation of Benefit) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2026

Explanatory note

Reproduced verbatim from the instrument as published on legislation.gov.uk (Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0). The note is prepared by the responsible government department and is not part of the instrument itself.

These Regulations amend the Occupational Pension Schemes (Preservation of Benefit) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1991 (“ the 1991 Regulations ”).

Regulation 12 of the 1991 Regulations sets out the conditions under which an occupational pension scheme may, instead of providing short service benefit (see section 67(1) and (2) of the Pension Schemes (Northern Ireland) Act 1993), provide for a member’s accrued rights to be transferred to another scheme without the member’s consent. Regulation 12(7) to (9) specifies the conditions under which a member’s relevant money purchase rights (see regulation 12(11)) can be transferred without their consent.

These Regulations insert a new paragraph to permit transfers of members’ relevant money purchase rights without the members’ consent where the receiving scheme or section is a collective money purchase scheme authorised under Part 2 of the Pension Schemes Act 2021.