Pension Protection Fund
The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) pays compensation to members of eligible occupational pension schemes, where the sponsoring employer has become insolvent and the scheme’s assets are insufficient to meet its pension commitments. The policy intention is that an individual’s relevant fixed pension and any other pensionable service within the scheme should be added together for the purposes of determining their PPF compensation payment, and applying the cap, where relevant.
	A High Court ruling (Anthony Beaton v the Board of the PPF)11 determined that where an individual has benefits derived from a fixed pension transfer, such benefits are not attributable to pensionable service and thus cannot be aggregated with the individual’s other pension benefits for the purposes of applying the compensation cap.
	To ensure that the PPF could continue to administer the compensation regime as intended, the Pension Protection Fund (Compensation) Regulations 200512 and the Pension Protection Fund (Multi-employer Schemes) (Modification) Regulations13 were amended prospectively to enable a fixed pension to be treated as pensionable service for the purposes of calculating PPF compensation, except when aggregating benefits for the cap. Section 126 provides for those amendments to be treated as if they had always applied, so that the legislation supports the policy intent and past practice.