Clive Betts MP: speeches

Speeches

• 6 Jul 2026 · Civil Service Pensions · Hansard source

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  I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting. We have looked at this situation on a number of occasions, and we will have a joint session with the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Minister on Wednesday. The individual cases that we have heard are absolutely appalling, and we will relate them to Capita and the Minister. We have heard from two widows who have been waiting since last year to get their pensions sorted out, which is not acceptable. I have two issues for the Minister to reflect upon. When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that. Looking at Capita’s past record on both the teachers’ pension scheme and the civil service pension scheme, we see that it has not run one scheme properly. That should have been taken into account before the contract was let. The other issue, and this is where the Opposition spokesperson did say something relevant, is that this scheme was falling apart last year. The National Audit Office looked at it, and clearly it was going wrong then. So I ask the Minister: did he start to look at alternatives then and did he at that point start to put together in-house provision that could eventually take over?