The Registered Pension Schemes (Modification of the Rules of Existing Schemes) Regulations 2006

Payments not prejudicing HM Revenue and Customs approval

6.—(1) If the rules of an existing scheme—

(a) provide for an absolute entitlement to the making of a transfer or the payment of a specified sum or rate of pension; and

(b) refer (in whatever terms) to the possibility of making a transfer or a payment in any greater amount which would not prejudice approval of the scheme by—

(i) the Inland Revenue, or

(ii) Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs,

the following provisions of this regulation apply.

(2) The scheme’s rules shall be construed, in respect of the transitional period, as—

(a) authorising the trustees or managers of the scheme to make transfers or payments falling within paragraph (1)(b) only to the extent that the payments would have been authorised by the rules immediately before the coming into force of these Regulations; and

(b) to prohibit the making of transfers or payments which would not have been so authorised.

This is subject to the following qualification.

(3) If, immediately before the commencement day, the consent of a sponsoring employer, or any other person except Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, was required before the trustees or managers of a pension scheme could make a payment of the kind referred to in paragraph (1)(b), then the power conferred by paragraph (2)(a) may only be exercised with the consent of that person.