7 Days is a weekly round up of developments in pensions, normally published on Monday afternoons. We collate this information from key industry sources, such as the DWP, HMRC and TPR.

In this 7 Days

Automatic enrolment developments

On 21 January 2025, the DWP published its annual review of the AE earnings trigger and qualifying earnings band for 2025/26, concluding that the existing earnings trigger threshold of £10,000 remains the correct level and will not change for 2025/26. This represents a “real terms decrease in the value of the trigger”.

The current lower and upper earnings bands will also be maintained at the same level for 2025/26, at £6,240 and £50,270 respectively.

HMRC published latest newsletter

HMRC published its pensions schemes newsletter 166 on 22 January 2025.  Among other things, it confirms:

  • HMRC’s plans to publish a formal response to its recent inheritance tax on pensions consultation, along with draft legislation, later in the year (see our consultation response)
  • the application deadline for both fixed protection 2016 and individual protection 2016 is 5 April 2025. After this date, individuals will not be able to apply for either of these protections (see our Hot Topic for more information).

New requirements for corporate directors to verify their identity – regulations published

On 20 January 2025, regulations were made regarding the identity verification of corporate directors.  No timing has been given as to when they will come into force.

The Companies Act 2006, as amended by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, will require those involved in setting up and running companies to verify their identity.  Verification can be obtained via either the registrar of companies, or by an authorised corporate service provider, according to the procedure set out in the regulations.  Once verified, each individual will have a unique identifier allocated to them.  See our Hot Topic for more information.

Further detail on the verification process, including information that will need to be submitted, will be set out in rules published by the registrar (a draft of which is already available). Companies House is also intending to produce further, non-statutory, guidance to support authorised corporate service providers to undertake successful identity verification checks.