Parliament passes bill to scrap pensions for office-holders, MPs

Government office-holders who turn 55 can no longer collect pensions if they remain in office. And those who have been accruing pensions have had their pension amounts frozen since May 20 last year.

On Monday, Parliament passed a bill to give legal effect to these and other changes to office-holders' pensions, which were proposed in a White Paper on ministerial salaries that was endorsed in January. These changes have already been been put into effect administratively.

The Parliamentary Pensions (Abolition) Bill scraps pensions for office-holders and MPs. This means that new office-holders appointed on or after May 21, 2011, will not receive pensions. Neither will office-holders who had served for less than eight years by that date.

Office-holders with eight years or more of service before May 21, and current MPs who were elected before Jan 1, 1995, have been accruing pension amounts. But these have been frozen since May 21.