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Amendments to the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme

Today I am laying an amendment to the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme (PCSPS) under Section 1 of the Superannuation Act 1972, which will come into force on 1 July 2026.

The primary focus of the amendments is to correct historical inequalities relating to the provision of adult survivor pensions in respect of same-sex marriages and civil partnerships. There are also additional technical changes to clarify the scheme rules and to align them with other relevant legislation.

As a result of the then government’s response to two legal judgments (Walker v Innospec and Goodwin v the Secretary of State for Education), all public service pension schemes must provide pensions for surviving same-sex spouses and civil partners, as well as widowers of female scheme members, that are no less favourable than would be provided to the widow of a male member in similar circumstances. This change will only affect benefits in respect of service before 6 April 1988 as all other survivor benefit provision is fully-equalised.

The implementation of these changes will not impact progress under the administration recovery plan, which has been agreed with Capita.