I recognise the incredibly important work that police officers do, protecting our communities and keeping us safe. Policing is a difficult, and often dangerous, job, which should be properly compensated.

I share the concerns of serving officers in Bolton, and across the country, that the Government’s reforms to the police pension will see officers working longer for less and leave many unclear on what their settlement figures will be. Even officers who have served for decades will be transferred over to this new scheme and have therefore had their retirement plans thrown into disarray.

These specific concerns about the police pension reforms were raised with the Government during the passage of the ‘Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022’. In response, James Cartlidge, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, said:

“The Home Office is consulting on detailed regulations to implement a prospective McCloud remedy for the police pensions scheme, but the Government must not take action contrary to the intention of this Bill to remove discrimination identified by the courts by inadvertently introducing new unequal treatment and discrimination.”

However, I fear that that the Government’s new pension reforms have introduced new discrimination, based on age and sex, as well as eroding the quality of police pensions for all officers, old or new.

The Government has already introduced these reforms through a statutory instrument; however, I have written to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Clarke, and raised our concerns with him. I have posted a copy of this letter below for you to read.