The Social Security(Northern Ireland) Order 1989

Abolition of earnings rule etc.

9.—(1) In section 30 of the principal Act, subsection (1) (the earnings rule) shall cease to have effect.

(2) In section 28(1)(a) of that Act (conditions of entitlement to Category A retirement pension) the words “and has retired from regular employment” shall cease to have effect.

(3) In section 29 of that Act (woman’s Category B retirement pension)—

(a) in subsections (2) and (3) (first and second cases of entitlement) in paragraph (a), for the words “both of them have retired from regular employment” there shall be substituted the words “has become entitled to a Category A retirement pension”; and

(b) in subsection (5), paragraph (a) (requirement, in fourth such case, to have retired from regular employment) shall cease to have effect.

(4) For Article 14 of the Pensions Order (deferred retirement) there shall be substituted the following Article—

“Increase of retirement pension where entitlement is deferred

14.— (1) Where a person’s entitlement to a Category A or Category B retirement pension is deferred, Schedule 1 shall have effect for increasing the rate of his pension.

(2) For the purposes of this Order and the principal Act, a person’s entitlement to a Category A or Category B retirement pension is “deferred” if and so long as he does not become entitled to that pension by reason only—

(a) that he has not satisfied the conditions of section 154A of the principal Act (requirement to claim); or

(b) that, in the case of a woman’s Category B retirement pension by virtue of her husband’s contributions, her husband has not satisfied those conditions with respect to his Category A retirement pension;

and, in relation to any such pension, “period of deferment” shall be construed accordingly.”.

(5) Paragraph (1) affects the rate of pension to which a person is entitled for the week in which that paragraph comes into operation as well as any subsequent week (“week” having the same meaning in this paragraph as it had in the proviso to the said section 30(1) immediately before its repeal).

(6) The statutory provisions mentioned in Schedule 1 shall have effect with the amendments there specified.