- The normal minimum pension age (NMPA) will rise from 55 to 57 on 6 April 2028.
- Some individuals will retain a protected pension age (PPA) of 55 where an ‘unqualified right’ existed before 4 November 2021.
- Transfers can affect whether a client keeps their PPA, and advisers should understand the difference between individual and block transfers.
Key takeaways
1. What is changing and when
From 6 April 2028, the normal minimum pension age (NMPA) will move from 55 to 57. This change happens overnight, meaning that someone who turns 55 on 5 April 2028 may access their benefits, but someone turning 55 the following day will usually need to wait until age 57.
Existing protected pension ages linked to earlier regimes (for example, A‑Day protections or retained age 50 rights) will continue unaffected.
2. Who retains protection
A new protection regime applies to certain scheme members, allowing them to keep a pension age of 55. These include:
- Individuals who were members of a registered pension scheme before 4 November 2021, where the scheme rules on 11 February 2021 gave them an unqualified right to access benefits before age 57.
- Members of the armed forces, police, and fire public service pension schemes, regardless of the specific rule wording on 11 February 2021.
Each scheme is responsible for determining whether such an unqualified right exists. Quilter’s Collective Retirement Account does not contain an unqualified right in its rules.
3. Understanding ‘unqualified rights’
An ‘unqualified right’ means the member can request their pension benefits at the protected age without requiring consent from trustees or administrators, so they had the right to take benefits at age 55 as a matter of course and there was no special actions they needed to take other than requesting their benefit via whatever means the scheme required. If they had this unqualified right on 11 February 2021, the member may retain a PPA of 55, provided they met the membership criteria before 4 November 2021.
Transfers already in progress before 4 November 2021 would also be able to use the receiving scheme’s PPA if applicable even though the did not yet have benefits within the new receiving scheme.
4. Transfers and their impact
From 4 November 2021, a protected pension age of 55 can be maintained on transfer, but the rules differ depending on the transfer type:
5. Taking benefits
Ordinarily, anyone with a protected pension age must bring all of their benefits into payment at the same time. If they do not fully crystallise in a single event, they lose their PPA. This rule does not apply where the protected pension age is 55. Members with a PPA of 55 can crystallise their benefits in stages.
After 6 April 2028, anyone who already has benefits in payment and is younger than 57 will still be able to take income from their crystallised funds. They will not be required to stop on 6 April 2028 and wait until age 57. Payments can continue uninterrupted. This is because the minimum pension age applies only when taking a pension commencement lump sum, not when drawing income from funds that have already been crystallised.