1. INTRODUCTION
This response to the consultation paper on pension
sharing on divorce is made on behalf of the Association of Pension
Lawyers (the APL). The APL was set up in 1984. Its membership
consists of 600 lawyers advising pension schemes, mostly in private
practice with firms of solicitors.
The APL is a non-political organisation. Our
aim is to give help and input where we can on the details of proposed
legislation, rather than to comment on the policy behind the legislation.
Having said that, we do welcome the introduction of pension sharing
on divorce, provided the details are right.
We are pleased that the DSS is consulting on
the draft legislation as we believe this is a sensible way of
minimising the technical hitches. Pension sharing does potentially
have a wide-ranging impact on the administration of pension schemes,
and possibly the cost of the benefits.
We will structure our response so as to follow
quite closely the structure of the Bill. We have focused mainly
on funded, tax-approved, final salary occupational pension schemes
but we do make comments on money purchase, unfunded and personal
pension schemes where appropriate.
