Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department took to ensure that the changes made to firefighters’ pensions in 2015 were compliant with equality legislation when those changes were implemented; and how his Department ensures that policy making is equality legislation compliant.

The changes made to firefighters’ pensions by DCLG (now MHCLG) in 2015 were part of an overarching pensions reform programme which applied to all public service pension schemes and included equality checks and public consultation on equality issues. When considering reforms to the secondary legislation which underpins the firefighters’ pension scheme, the Home Office has proper regard to its public sector equality duty and follows the appropriate consultation process.