Torsten Bell MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Sovereign Grant Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his tribute to the monarchy. His description of what he would like to see in the setting of the sovereign grant reflects exactly what has to take place. As I was just explaining, the three trustees are required to take into account the funding required to deliver the function that we all want our monarch to deliver.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Sovereign Grant Bill · Hansard source

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  I think everybody in this House will agree with the thrust of what the right hon. Gentleman successfully argues. A royal household with an important role, both as the sovereign, and in maintaining an estate of grade I listed monuments, needs certainty about its income. It is not for me to defend the previous Government, but the 2011 Act provided two bases for funding. The first is the mechanism that he mentioned, relating to a proportion of the profits of the Crown Estate. The second is a proviso that there be no fall, from year to year, in the amount of the grant. That is to provide exactly the stability that he talks about. That is why we are taking forward this primary legislation, with that dual lock. The reduction this year is purely to take into account the bringing to an end of the Buckingham Palace 10-year repair project. The legislation then provides an ongoing commitment to the royal household and the monarch that the grant will remain at next year’s level, at least. I hope that offers the right hon. Gentleman reassurance. As I was saying, a key point of context is that Parliament agreed a temporary uplift to the grant from 2017-18 to 2026-27 to fund the Buckingham Palace reservicing programme. That was a major 10-year investment to modernise ageing infrastructure, replace critical electrical and mechanical systems, and safeguard the long-term future of one of the nation’s most historic buildings. As that programme nears completion, it is time for the level of funding to be reassessed. Earlier this year, the then royal trustees completed the latest review and considered both the royal household’s projected expenditure and the Crown Estate’s projected revenues for the period from 2027 to 2032. The trustees concluded that with the Buckingham Palace reservicing programme nearing completion, the exceptional funding requirements that justified that temporary uplift no longer exist. They therefore recommended that the sovereign grant should fall from £137.9 million in 2026-27 to £99.9 million in 2027-28. That represents a reduction of almost £38 million, or more than a quarter. At the same time, the trustees recognised that the royal household continues to face operational pressures in delivering what we all think of as crucial work. The recommended amount of funding will enable the household to address a maintenance backlog that was exacerbated by the pandemic, and to replace ageing digital infrastructure to strengthen cyber-security. The grant provided for by this Bill ensures value for money for taxpayers, and that the royal household can continue to discharge its crucial functions effectively. This Bill delivers a fair and proportionate funding settlement. It reduces the amount of the sovereign grant, following the completion of a major capital programme; it improves the resilience and sustainability of the statutory framework established in 2011, while maintaining parliamentary oversight; and it ensures that the sovereign grant can continue to fulfil its core purpose, which is supporting the official duties of the monarch and maintaining the occupied royal palaces on behalf of the nation. On that basis, I commend this Bill to the House.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Sovereign Grant Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member has shown interest in this topic over many years, in a lot of different environments. This is a question of “and”, rather than “or”. As he says, the document spells out that His Majesty is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. I encourage him to go on to the royal family’s website, where he will see the language about the King being the defender of the faith very prominently displayed. I hope that gives him the reassurance that he seeks.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Sovereign Grant Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. The Bill relates to the sovereign grant that Parliament has provided to support the official duties of the monarch and the work of the royal household. The Bill implements the conclusions of the recent royal trustees’ review of that sovereign grant. In doing so, it resets the grant level for the next financial year, giving effect to the commitment of successive Governments and the expectation of the royal household for a reduction in the level of funding following the completion of the Buckingham Palace reservicing programme, which keen Members will have heard about on the news this morning on the back of the discovery of some historical documents. The Bill also makes targeted improvements to the statutory framework for this funding, introducing limited flexibilities to ensure that funding levels remain appropriate even in exceptional circumstances. This will make it easier to respond where funding would otherwise become inappropriately low or inappropriately high. To support the monarch’s official duties, the sovereign grant funds the staff, official travel, property maintenance and essential services for the sovereign to fulfil their unique constitutional role. That role extends beyond ceremonial functions: it includes hosting heads of state, supporting diplomatic engagements, representing the United Kingdom overseas, and strengthening our relationships across the Commonwealth and the world. These activities support the UK’s interests, including trade, investment and security. At home, the grant supports the significant role of the sovereign and the wider royal household, from recognising charitable and voluntary service to bringing communities together across the United Kingdom. Since 2012, the amount of the sovereign grant has been determined through a statutory framework established by Parliament in the Sovereign Grant Act 2011. That framework requires the annual grant amount to be calculated by reference to the previous year’s expenditure and a percentage of the profits of the Crown Estate—an independent public corporation whose net revenue profits are returned to the Exchequer. To ensure that funding levels remain appropriate, the 2011 Act requires the royal trustees—the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Keeper of the Privy Purse—to conduct regular reviews.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Employment levels have risen since the general election, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight that too few young people are getting the chance to move into work and to participate in education. That is exactly what the Milburn report is looking at, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will feed into that. However, we are not waiting for that report; the Government are already acting. That is what the jobs guarantee is doing, and why businesses that employ young people on universal credit will receive £3,000. It is right that there is a moral as well as economic imperative to get young people into work.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The difficult choices that we have had to make are why NHS waiting lists are falling in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and why his own police chief constable said that “increased officer numbers will enable us to further tackle issues such as antisocial behaviour, theft and drug-related crimes.” The hon. Gentleman is a man who, unfortunately, on the day of the mini-Budget spoke up in this Chamber and said that it was a “vote of confidence” in the whole UK economy. The only regret he must have is not being more enthusiastic—otherwise he would be shadow Chancellor.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question and congratulate his wife on what is a significant achievement; I am sure the whole House is supporting her. He is absolutely right that we want to see more young people having the income, opportunities and purpose that work provides, which is why it is welcome that employment is up. However, we do need to do more. We will keep providing national insurance relief for employees aged under 21 and apprentices under 25, and we are rolling out our youth hubs, including in North Somerset.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend and I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions, and she has been an important campaigner for pensioners in her constituency who have been affected by it. Although three quarters of schemes provide some degree of pre-1997 indexation, there is a very real impact on members of schemes that do not—indeed, we have discussed that with local pensioners in south Wales. The surplus reforms that this Government are bringing forward will make it easier for some trustees to negotiate for additional indexation. We launched a consultation on this issue on 10 June, and it runs until 2 September. I will take my hon. Friend’s comments as input for that consultation.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point, and we need to fund the NHS to stop letting down older generations. Taxes have consequences that affect the whole population, including pensioners. The Chancellor has set out that the level of the personal allowance will remain above the level of the new and the basic state pension—the headline rates—throughout this year. In future years we will ensure that we ease the administrative burden for pensioners who have small amounts of tax due.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member will know that a judicial review claim has been filed, and that we cannot comment on live litigation. There are legitimate views on raises in the state pension age, particularly the 2011 acceleration put in place by the coalition Government, but the investigation that is being considered by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is not about those increases; it is purely on the narrow point about communication. The Government have made their position clear on that and set it out in the decision document placed in the House of Commons Library.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a consistent campaigner on these issues in this place and in our regular meetings, and I always learn something from those conversations. I am not going forward with exactly the suggestion he brings forward, but I agree that there is more we can do, not least to provide clarity for trustees. We are working with industry to develop guidance clarifying that fiduciary duties allow trustees investing in members’ best interests to consider systemic risks, including climate change, and we will consult later this summer.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Supporting British Pensioners · Hansard source

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  I am incredibly hopeful that this Government are doing a much better job than the previous Government in supporting pensioners, not only by driving up the state pension, but by getting on with the much delayed reforms to our defined-contribution pension system, which the previous Government left on ice. We are also coming forward with something much more important, because the biggest betrayal of older generations in Britain today is the state in which the Conservatives left our national health service.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Supporting British Pensioners · Hansard source

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  The Government are committed to supporting British pensioners to enjoy a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of work. That is why we are raising the state pension throughout this Parliament via the triple lock. That saw the state pension increase by 4.8% in April, boosting the level of the new state pension by £575 a year.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Supporting British Pensioners · Hansard source

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  I can give the hon. Member the assurance he asks for, which is that this Labour Administration, like all Labour Administrations, are on the side of pensioners. Of course, he only defected earlier this year, so he was a Conservative MP during all 14 years of the Conservative party’s disastrous last Government—a Government who saw pensioner poverty rise and left one in five of those aged over 75 on NHS waiting lists. That is what letting down pensioners looks like.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Supporting British Pensioners · Hansard source

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  That is a very important question. We need to make sure that those who will retire in 2050 can look forward to the same kind of comfortable retirements that many—not all, but many—of today’s pensioners enjoy, and the honest answer is that we are not on track for that at the moment. This Government are taking a two-stage approach. We are driving up returns on pension savings now—that is what the Pensions Schemes Act 2026 does—but we are also doing the longer-term work through the Pensions Commission to look at exactly the question of how we make sure that tomorrow’s pensioners can enjoy comfortable retirements. I promise that the commission will bring forward its report early next year.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has done significant campaigning on this issue in recent months, and we all know why. The Government obviously inherited the student loan system situation, and we have already acted to cap the interest rate on student loans. We look forward to reading her Committee’s report, and, I am sure, to her ongoing campaigning on this issue.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  The background to this is that employment is up 920,000 since the election. As I just said, there are structural challenges when it comes to youth unemployment. I gently refer the Tories to the fact that we saw a 250,000 increase in the number of those not in education, employment or training in the last three years that they were in office, and youth apprenticeships saw a 40% fall when they were in office. This Government are getting on with supporting young people. That is why this month will see the introduction of a £3,000 hiring bonus for firms that take on someone aged 18 to 24 who has been looking for work for six months.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  UK employment levels are strong by historic and international standards. The hon. Member is right, though, to highlight a structural challenge when it comes to young people being out of work and, for that matter, education. That is why we have committed £2.5 billion over the next three years to the youth guarantee, helping to deliver up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Draft Pensions (Abolition of Lifetime Allowance Charge etc) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Pensions (Abolition of Lifetime Allowance Charge etc) Regulations 2026. I will briefly take the Committee through the background and purpose of these draft regulations, which relate to the abolition of the pensions lifetime allowance. At the 2023 spring Budget, the previous Government announced that they would abolish the lifetime allowance. The Finance (No. 2) Act 2023 removed the lifetime allowance charge. The Finance Act 2024 removed the other elements of the lifetime allowance from the pension tax regime from 6 April 2024. That was a significant task; the entire pensions tax regime was structured around the existence of a lifetime allowance, and many other aspects of the regime, such as allowable pension and lump sum benefits, were calculated with reference to the lifetime allowance. Additional regulations have thus been needed to provide further administrative and technical detail. Since the Finance Act 2024 and the regulations that followed, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has continued to work with industry representatives to ensure that the legislation operates correctly. In doing so, HMRC has identified further areas that do not operate as intended. This statutory instrument simply modifies a number of areas of primary legislation and some areas of subordinate legislation purely to ensure that the abolition of the lifetime allowance is delivered as originally intended. Those changes ensure that the lump sum allowances work fairly and consistently, including treating overseas pensions in the same way as UK schemes and giving individuals flexibility to decide the order of multiple payments on the same day. They also clarify the calculation of protections and enhancements so that the outcomes more closely reflect those achieved under the lifetime allowance. Finally, they introduce targeted technical fixes and improved reporting rules to support accurate administration for the post-lifetime allowance regime. The draft regulations are not a change in policy but make the further technical and consequential amendments necessary to ensure that pensions tax legislation can operate as intended following the abolition of the lifetime allowance. Most of these changes will take effect from 6 April 2024 —in other words, they will apply retrospectively—when the lifetime allowance was abolished, although a small number of amendments will come into effect only from the date that the regulations come into force. The regulations have been made by the Treasury by exercising the powers conferred by paragraph 134 of schedule 9 of the Finance Act 2024. I therefore commend the instrument to the Committee.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Draft Pensions (Abolition of Lifetime Allowance Charge etc) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I have nothing further to add. Questi on put and agreed to.

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak in the debate with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for opening it and for rightly highlighting and celebrating the fall in pensioner poverty, while noting that that is no grounds for complacency about what happens in the years to come. I also thank the select but high-quality group of hon. Members who have chosen to speak and to share their insights, and the honourable members of the public who contributed their own voices to the debate by signing the petition. As we have heard, over 100,000 have done so. I suspect that many more people would have at least shared the sentiment behind the petition of wanting to support our pensioners in retirement. This Government certainly do. The real question is how that is best done. Do we have clear enough priorities that can be delivered on, and delivered on at times when there are many other competing pressures? Our priorities as a Government, when it comes to supporting pensioners, are twofold: raising the state pension and rescuing the NHS. The foundation of the vast majority of pensioners’ incomes is, of course, the state pension, which we have heard a lot about today.

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  He was not my predecessor, because I am the Pensions Minister and Gordon Brown was never a Pensions Minister. Does the hon. Gentleman know who was? Margaret Thatcher. Gordon Brown oversaw big falls in pensioner poverty. Why? Because he introduced pension credit in the early 2000s. That then drove the huge falls in pensioner poverty that we saw in the 2000s, supported by increases in private pension savings that came through during those years. So, yes, I do endorse the record of that previous Chancellor, even though he is not a predecessor of mine. Hon. Members will know that the basic and the new state pensions increased by 4.8% in April; I think it is a matter of cross-party consensus that that is a good thing. It will boost pensioner incomes by up to £575 a year. We are also protecting the poorest pensioners with a 4.8% increase in the pension credit minimum guarantee.

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  It is for the Chair to decide what is appropriate, but I will come on to the question of fair rates of tax. We should be clear and transparent in how we talk about this issue: any increase in the rate of the state pension is always significantly greater than any increase in tax that follows from that increase due to our not having tax rates of over 100%. It is important that we are heard to say that to people. I will come on to the rates of tax in a second. It is obviously an important part of this debate, given the nature of the petition. The single biggest betrayal of older generations today is not anything to do with pensions. It is the state of the NHS that we inherited: an NHS that our pensioners in particular rely on and that in 2024 was letting far too many of them down. Here is one fact that it is hard to get over: over one in five of those aged over 75 were on English NHS waiting lists, which soared to over 7 million. One in five people over 75 were left on an NHS waiting list. That is what letting down pensioners looks like, and our priority is to turn that around. The number of those waiting has fallen by over 400,000 since we took office. That progress reflects reform, but it also reflects resources, with £26 billion additional investment supporting 5 million appointments. The need to turn around the NHS is something that I think we all agree on. It is slightly telling that there was no mention of the NHS in the previous contributions. As I am also a Treasury Minister, it is my job to remind all hon. Members that we can will the ends, but not the means. As always, that applies particularly to the Liberal Democrats, who gave up connecting the two several years ago. Delivering the funding to raise the state pension and rescue the NHS involves choices. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) talked about one area in the welfare space and about choices there. I gently say to him, having seen the work of the Department under the previous Government, that there was no plan then. Under the current Opposition, there still is no plan to change the welfare system, but they also claim that changes to the welfare system would fund their proposals on defence and on tax. It is implausible that they would make any difference in this area.

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  I will chunter from a standing position shortly.

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  I apologise to the right hon. Member for underselling him, but I think that he is also underselling the work that this Government are doing. Changes to the flawed welfare system that we inherited are already taking place. In April, we reduced the financial incentive put in place by a previous Conservative Prime Minister that provided people with a strong incentive to label themselves as too sick to work and therefore did not provide them with any employment support whatsoever. We are bringing forward other measures month by month. Members will see progress in the next few months, in terms of offering people support if they hire young, unemployed people. Changes are happening right now. I have discussed the choices on the welfare side. Given the nature of the petition, I want to come on to how those choices include tax, because those who made the effort to sign the petition deserve to know where we stand. Not a single Member set out their views on the petition’s proposal clearly, but we owe some honesty about that for the quality of the debate. The reality is that no political party will deliver a doubling of the personal allowance for pensioners. If any Member disagrees with that, now is the moment for them to stand up and set out their support for the petition, but I suspect all Opposition Members will agree. Why is that? It would come at a very substantial fiscal cost of several billion pounds each year. That is inconsistent with the priorities I have set out, including on the state pension and the NHS, which I think most hon. Members share. Too often, debates on this topic do pensioners an injustice by pretending that most of them are not already paying income tax. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) said a little about that, but the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) explained the situation exactly: the system, as it was set up, has always been that state and private pensions are taxable. The vast majority of pensioners are already paying income tax; over 80% of pensioners were doing so by the end of the previous Conservative Government. The question is whether we can keep the contribution that is asked of pensioners—and workers, for that matter—down by making other changes to our tax system. That is what the last Budget focused on: making the system fairer by asking those who can afford to contribute more to do so, not least by taxes on those with the most valuable properties. As he has done in many of our interactions, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest opposed some of the changes that we set out on inheritance tax, salary sacrifice and the rest, but that would mean less money for the NHS or higher tax rates on pensioners, workers and others—there are consequences to our choices. It is true that we have extended the personal allowance freeze that was put in place by the previous Government. That reflects the need to protect the state pension, rescue our NHS and make sure that public finances are put on a sustainable footing. I am not hiding from the consequences of that policy decision, but the UK has one of the most generous personal tax allowances in the OECD and the G7. It is important to note that our income tax system is progressive; it is not about just who comes into tax but how much tax people pay. Those who have more contribute more, which is exactly as it should be. The impact of the freeze is that higher rate taxpayers, on average, will contribute roughly three times as much as a basic rate taxpayer; the majority of pensioners who pay tax do so at the basic rate or not at all. Although I have been honest that doubling the personal allowance for any particular group is not a remotely realistic prospect, our tax system recognises pensioners. The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk mentioned the 2010 Government’s record on the triple lock, but he slightly missed the abolition of the age-related personal allowance, a very generous version of which the petition calls to have brought back. The hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) praised the coalition Government but somehow also forgot to mention the abolition of the age-related personal allowance. Our tax system recognises pensioners in other ways, not just by that position, which was abolished under the coalition Government. As the hon. Member for Wyre Forest set out, those over the state pension age pay no national insurance. Older generations also tend to benefit most from the multiple tax allowances, not least the £1,000 savings allowance for basic rate taxpayers. The personal allowance will continue to exceed the basic state pension and the full new state pension this year, but, as several hon. Members have set out, the Chancellor has also promised that we will ease the administrative burden for pensioners so that they do not have to pay small amounts of tax via simple assessment from 2027-28. I have heard hon. Members’ requests for more detail on that in the near future, and the direct answer to the question from the hon. Member for Wyre Forest is that those changes will be included in the forthcoming Finance Bill. I recognise the substantial support for the petition, which is as it should be. Pensioners who have worked hard all their lives deserve a decent retirement. The best way to deliver that is for this Government to continue their work to rescue the NHS and increase the state pension throughout the course of this Parliament, and, as we look to future generations of pensioners, to put in place a stronger private pensions system. That is what the Pensions Commission is looking at right now, which I think has cross-party support, because we want to know that tomorrow’s generations of pensioners will also look forward to the retirement we all want to see them enjoy.