PENSION CHANGES

The Government is expected to back an amendment to the Pensions Bill which would give courts the power to force divorced husbands to transfer up to half their pensions to former wives on retirement.

The pensions industry this week predicted that the ammendment - put down by Baroness Young, the Conservative peer ahead of the Bill's third reading in the Lords next week - will oblige courts to take a husband's pension into account when drawing up a divorce settlement. However, it is expected that there would also be the right to review the settlement when the husband retired.