Pension Schemes Bill Amendments Include Section 37 Certificate "Fix"

The Government has published draft legislation that aims to provide a "fix" for past pension scheme amendments that are at risk being void due to a failure to obtain a "section 37 certificate" from the scheme actuary at the time. Here we take a look at what the draft legislation says and consider what issues remain.

On 1 September 2025, the Government published draft legislation intended to allow schemes to validate historic amendments which would otherwise be void because of a missing "section 37 certificate".

The Virgin Media case found that amendments to contracted-out schemes made between 6 April 1997 and 5 April 2016 were void if the trustees didn't obtain a section 37 certificate from the scheme actuary confirming that the scheme would continue to meet the statutory standard after the amendment was made. It's often unclear from scheme documents whether a section 37 certificate was obtained. This raises questions about whether historic rule changes can be