CH-2024-000162 - [2025] EWHC 2237 (Ch)

The absence of any interpretative provision in the 2001 Rules to help resolve that issue ([32]);

The Trustee’s argument that legislative provisions are to be read - as a ‘starting position’ - as excluding future amendments unless otherwise provided for, rather than vice versa, albeit with no authority cited for that proposition ([33]-[34]);

The ability to avoid the risk of scheme rules which paraphrase legislation diverging in the event of future legislative changes by cross-referring to the specific legislation to allow for the rules to move with those changes ([35]);

The significant assistance for construction purposes afforded by cases such as Barnado’s v Buckinghamshire & others [2018] UKSC 55 which explains the distinctive characteristics of pension schemes and how these make it appropriate for the court to give weight to the textual analysis by concentrating on the words used, attaching less weight to the factual background ([38]-[39]);

Having applied the textual analysis, his view that the better meaning of Rule 5.5 was the ‘dynamic’ construction based on the natural reading of the legislative cross-reference in this case ([40]);

The Trustee’s approach that legislative references are to be ‘set in aspic’ at the point of execution of scheme rules and that express language excluding the application of subsequent legislative changes is not required ([41]);

That approach risking a strained meaning being ascribed to the plain language of the text and the recognition of background context or industry practice, against which cases such as Barnado’s had cautioned ([41]);

Mrs Alexis’ Scheme pension coming into payment in 2018, at which point, her state pension age based on the then current iteration of paragraph 1 of Part I of Schedule 4 to the Act was 66 ([43]);

There being nothing in the language of Rule 5.5 requiring the reader in 2018 to look back to 2001 to check for what the Schedule provided for then, such a requirement representing a departure from the plain language ([43]);

The need for the Administrator to look again later at Schedule 4 once Mrs Alexis reached 66 in 2024 to check whether payment should cease for the purpose of the 2001 Rules ([43]);

Such a reading not requiring any strained interpretation or the reading in of additional meaning or language, the specific legislative reference for the purpose of determining state pension age remaining constant and only the words in that reference having changed ([44]);

The ability of the draftsman to achieve a fixed construction to Rule 5.5 simply through a few additional words in the same way, for example, that the 2001 Rules sets out the specific time at which a member’s Final Salary is to be tested against the Earnings Cap ([45]);

The ‘dynamic’ construction for the purpose of Rule 5.5 being consistent with a reading of the 2001 Rules as a whole, the draftsman fixing the interpretation of some of the provisions at a particular time but not others which have similarly changed ([46]);

Such a reading also being consistent with the long term nature of pension schemes for which there is some expectation that laws will change, the state pension age itself in the process of changing when the 2001 Rules were introduced as reflected in the equalisation of pensionable age provided for in the original rules in paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the Act ([47]); and

Even if not the intended construction of Rule 5.5, the dynamic construction being a workable and the preferable one ([48]).