Pensions victory for same-sex couples

A Supreme Court victory for a retired businessman who argued that the UK’s pensions legislation discriminated against same-sex couples paves the way for thousands of gay couples to claim improved retirement benefits.

A Supreme Court victory for a retired businessman who argued that the UK's pensions legislation discriminated against same-sex couples paves the way for thousands of gay couples to claim improved retirement benefits. Under the Equality Act, it is illegal for pension schemes to discriminate against gay couples over how benefits are passed on to a surviving spouse after the death of a member of the scheme. However, the law included an exemption that allowed employers to exclude civil partners and spouses from benefits accruing from pension contributions made before 2005, when the Civil Partnership Act came into force.

In John Walker's case, the exemption would have allowed his former employer to offer his husband just £1,000 worth of pension benefits per year following his death. By contrast, were Walker married to a woman, the spouse's pension would be worth around £45,700 per year. This contravened European Union (EU) laws on equality, said the Supreme Court, who ruled unanimously in Walker's favour, effectively removing the exemption from the Equality Act. All pension schemes will now have to review their rules, to ensure they cannot be challenged in the same way.

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David Prosser
Business Columnist

David Prosser is a regular MoneyWeek columnist, writing on small business and entrepreneurship, as well as pensions and other forms of tax-efficient savings and investments. David has been a financial journalist for almost 30 years, specialising initially in personal finance, and then in broader business coverage. He has worked for national newspaper groups including The Financial Times, The Guardian and Observer, Express Newspapers and, most recently, The Independent, where he served for more than three years as business editor.