7Abolition of earnings rule etc
(1)In section 30 of the principal Act, subsection (1) (the earnings rule) shall cease to have effect.
(2)In section 28(1)(a) of that Act (conditions of entitlement to Category A retirement pension) the words “and has retired from regular employment” shall cease to have effect.
(3)In section 29 of that Act (woman’s Category B retirement pension)—
(a)in subsections (2) and (3) (first and second cases of entitlement) in paragraph (a), for the words “both of them have retired from regular employment” there shall be substituted the words “has become entitled to a Category A retirement pension”; and
(b)in subsection (5), paragraph (a) (requirement, in fourth such case, to have retired from regular employment) shall cease to have effect.
(4)For section 12 of the Pensions Act (deferred retirement) there shall be substituted the following—
“12Increase of retirement pension where entitlement is deferred
(1)Where a person’s entitlement to a Category A or Category B retirement pension is deferred, Schedule 1 to this Act shall have effect for increasing the rate of his pension.
(2)For the purposes of this Act and the principal Act, a person’s entitlement to a Category A or Category B retirement pension is “deferred” if and so long as he does not become entitled to that pension by reason only—
(a)that he has not satisfied the conditions of section 165A of the principal Act (requirement to claim); or
(b)that, in the case of a woman’s Category B retirement pension by virtue of her husband’s contributions, her husband has not satisfied those conditions with respect to his Category A retirement pension;
and, in relation to any such pension, “period of deferment” shall be construed accordingly.”
(5)Subsection (1) above affects the rate of pension to which a person is entitled for the week in which that subsection comes into force as well as any subsequent week (“week” having the same meaning in this subsection as it had in the proviso to the said section 30(1) immediately before its repeal).
(6)The enactments mentioned in Schedule 1 to this Act shall have effect with the amendments there specified.