One of the biggest issues in the bust ups in recent years between the CWU and Royal Mail was the Royal Mail Pension scheme. It took an act of Parliament to amend the pension scheme and this has now taken place.
Both the CWU and Royal Mail welcomed the Pensions Bill, which will enable the introduction of a new first of its kind ‘Wage in Retirement’ Royal Mail pension scheme for all employees, and has now received Royal Assent.
Royal assent means that the Queen has formally approved an act of legislature that can introduce the regulations to permit a Collective Defined Contribution type scheme to be introduced. The CWU have been pressing for this historical moment since 2018, and consider this to be a massive step in enabling the introduction of our new scheme under British law.
“We are keen to launch Royal Mail’s Collective Pension Plan in the second half of the next financial year and the next steps towards that are working with Government on the passage of the necessary secondary legislation and securing authorisation from The Pensions Regulator on our new scheme.
The CWU would like to thank our members and everyone else who have supported, believed and helped us reach this historical point.
In excess of 140,000 people will go immediately into this new scheme and will enjoy dignity and security in retirement as a consequence, and we hope others will follow, because current provision of working people outside of a Defined Benefit scheme is either inadequate or non-existent.”
– Terry Pullinger, Deputy General Secretary Postal, CWU
“We thank the Government and the Opposition in both Houses for ensuring a smooth passage of the Bill through Parliament. This puts the UK one step closer to enabling Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) pension schemes for the first time under UK law.
We are keen to launch Royal Mail’s Collective Pension Plan in the second half of the next financial year. We look to work with Government on the passage of the necessary secondary legislation, including tax changes, in a way which will allow our Plan to begin accepting contributions. It will also require authorisation from The Pensions Regulator.
Royal Assent puts us one step closer towards making CDC pension schemes a reality for Royal Mail and its people. We have been working closely with our union, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), on this. We will continue to work with them and others on our new Plan going forward. We will update our employees on progress as we move towards implementation. We will write to them with more details about our proposed Collective Pension Plan in due course.”
– Royal Mail