Mr. Jerry Moriarty:

On younger members, there would need to be a very long delay period, and a lot of people retiring in that period, to fundamentally alter the structure of the scheme.

It may differ from scheme to scheme, but the provision in terms of valuing the benefits for members in wind up is that, as members start to approach retirement, their values get higher than they are when further away from retirement. It is no longer the sort of cliff edge where there was a huge difference in the value of one's benefits the day before retirement and the day after. Possibly for some schemes, it may make a difference if there is a member in the scheme who has very large benefits, and there are only a small number of members, but overall I would not see that as a huge issue, unless it is a really long delay where the whole structure of the scheme is fundamentally altered. I do not see that it could be a significant issue for the vast majority of schemes.

On the constitutional difficulties, the minimum funding standard was introduced by legislation after the Pensions Act came into effect in 1990. There have been a lot of changes made to that to enhance members' benefits over time, such as preservation of benefits, where once someone has been in a scheme for two years, he or she is entitled to the value if it is kept as a deferred benefit. There was a time when one could work up to just before retirement, leave the company and get all one's member contributions back. More recently, there has been the introduction of a risk reserve, which has raised the funding requirements as well. None of those issues, as I understand it, caused any constitutional difficulties, so I do not see how something like this could either.