Torsten Bell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  I am always ready to engage in exciting debates about pensions. The right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) is right to say that far more Members should be enthused enough to come and talk for as long as possible about pensions. I hope not to speak for two hours, but somewhere close to that, and I thank Members on both sides of the House and from the other place for their thoughtful contributions to an important debate. I will avoid trying the House’s patience by reiterating the reasons why the Government do not think it right to accept amendments that are unnecessary or that undermine policy intent, but I will respond in detail to the important points that hon. Members have made. The Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) asked specifically about what the international evidence on asset allocation tells us. Two things stand out. The first is that the UK defined contribution market has an unusually low allocation to private assets, for example compared with similar schemes in Australia. The second is the point she raised that they have lower home bias—a point also partially raised by the right hon. Member for Tonbridge. Those two are related. We tend to see higher levels of home bias in investments that are in private assets than investments in public assets, for all the obvious reasons to do with the comparative advantage that comes from knowing more about the home market. I recognise the argument that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth made about the PPF and the FAS. Her powerful campaigning on this issue, including raising it through the Work and Pensions Committee, is one of the reasons why we have acted in a way that previous Governments and Pensions Ministers have not.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the Select Committee Chair for her intervention. The organisation she mentions has been consistently making these cases. In fact, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) has spoken from the Opposition Front Bench about the work of that organisation in these debates, including in a Westminster Hall debate just a few months ago. It is an important thing to think about. Some of it reflects increasing international cross-border investments, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight that we see a lower level of home bias among the UK’s defined contribution schemes.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  If I have understood the hon. Member’s question, we are ruling out the ability for the power to be used for any purpose other than for the broad private asset class. That would include questions of specific asset classes, but it would also include questions of geography. I hope that gives him the reassurance he is looking for. It is also in the interests of savers to tackle the UK’s fragmented pensions landscape. Scale matters: it reduces costs, opens up a wider range of investment strategies and enables more active asset ownership. Those arguments, I think, have cross-party consensus, and they lie behind the measures in the Bill to require pension schemes to operate at scale in the years ahead. Unfortunately, that policy objective, motivated by a desire to ensure that savers get the best returns, would be undermined by Lords amendments 26 and 37, which seek to create more exemptions from the scale requirements for small schemes. They would do so in a way that would create ongoing uncertainty for years as schemes, regulators and likely courts debate whether or not the conditions for such exemptions have been met, a process that itself would impose significant costs on savers. Both regulators have expressed their concern that, as a result, these amendments would be inoperable. I do, however, recognise the case that has been made, in this House and in the other place, for the importance of both competition and innovation in the market. That is what lies behind the pragmatic approach we have taken to achieving scale: not only have we set a pragmatic £25 billion starting point, but smaller schemes will be given time to reach that point, with the transition pathway lasting until 2035. The new entrant pathway will also provide a route for truly new and innovative disruptors to enter the market. This supports the policy intent of Lords amendments 35 and 43, which require the Secretary of State to have regard to innovation and competition when making regulations that support scale. Those amendments are, however, largely duplicative, given that the Bill already sets out that regulations made under the clauses in chapter 4 must take into account the conclusions of the review of non-scale default arrangements, and that review will consider innovation and competition. Turning from private to public pension schemes, Lords amendments 77 and 85 seek a review of the long-term affordability of public service pension schemes, a matter that I am sure many Members are interested in. The content of the proposed review, however, overlaps almost entirely with existing mechanisms through which public service pension details are reported, not least the Office for Budget Responsibility and its reports and the whole of Government accounts. Reflecting major reforms over recent years, those mechanisms provide important reassurance that the cost of public sector pensions as a share of GDP is set to fall significantly in the years ahead. Lords amendments 78 and 86 deal with the Pension Protection Fund and the potential for that fund to discharge its existing liabilities to members through a lump sum payment. I understand the sentiments of those in the other place who brought forward those amendments, in recognition of the absence of pre-1997 increases in PPF compensation, but the amendments would not achieve their intended objective of changing the level of compensation to which members are entitled. Instead, the Government are acting to improve the PPF safety net, with the Bill providing for prospective pre-1997 indexation of compensation for members whose former schemes provided for those increases. Turning back to today’s savers, we all want to see more engagement with pension savings. I am an optimist on this front: as DC pots grow, so will engagement with those savings. Lords amendment 79 seeks to support that engagement from the perspective of providers, instigating a review of marketing and member communication rules, but instead of another review, the Government favour acting to make it easier for pension schemes to give high-quality support to their members. That is the purpose of the new targeted support regime, allowing schemes—for example—to suggest appropriate contribution and drawdown rates. In developing that policy, we have considered the interaction with the direct marketing rules contained in the privacy and electronic communications regulations. As a result, the Government have committed to take forward secondary legislation to amend those regulations, and we will also return to this issue as we develop default pension regulations through consultation later this year. I close by thanking peers for their scrutiny of the Bill, and for the discussions I have had with many of them about it. I have endeavoured to do justice to the amendments retuned to us, and particularly to the motivations behind them. In aggregate, despite the divisions that the Lobbies of the House and of the other place exist to facilitate, we all want to see a flourishing pensions system that delivers for savers. This Bill will play a major part in making that happen, supporting a landscape of bigger, better pension schemes that are focused on the returns they deliver for members and, ultimately, the comfortable and hopefully long retirements that we all want our constituents to enjoy.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with the last point that the right hon. Member made. I am planning an extensive discursion on his wider point about investment in equities versus gilts shortly, so I ask him to bear with me, but it is an important point to raise. We may not agree on it, but it is important to make sure that we have aired it properly. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) started his speech with a powerful story about his father, which I am sure will have resonated with many hon. Members. The point he made actually makes the case for the diversification that the Mansion House Accord itself aims to drive. That may not have been the intention of the hon. Member’s argument, but that is the point it makes. It also reinforces the importance of default pensions as a way to make sure that we support everybody. We should allow people to make their own choices while ensuring that there is a good option for everybody as they approach retirement. The hon. Member for Torbay also talked about mandation. I am not going to lie; his words were a combination of disappointing and a bit confusing. He said that what is being proposed in the Bill is anathema to him. In that case, he is will be absolutely horrified to read the Lib Dem manifesto from the last election, which required investment managers to direct investments into particular assets. I leave him and his conscience to wrestle with that tension. The rest of us are not surprised by the Lib Dems’ attempt to sit on a fence, and then fall off it. More importantly, and usefully, the hon. Member for Torbay raised the case of AEAT pensioners. I absolutely recognise the argument that he made. That particular case and the more broad set of cases of schemes that have entered insolvency and the PPF are exactly why this Government have acted in a way that previous Governments, including the coalition Government, chose not to act. That issue was also raised by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), who also touched on surplus extraction and the question of its interaction with pre-1997 indexation insolvent schemes that are currently not choosing to pay indexation. I absolutely agree with his problem diagnosis. I have met many of the pensioners who have been affected; I have gone out of my way to meet them locally and nationally, along with many other MPs. All of us would feel the same in their situation. I am less pessimistic than the hon. Member and, specifically, I think that he underestimates the role of trustees. He is right to say that there is nothing in the Bill that gives trustees the power to override employers—that is true. What is does do is give trustees a veto over any release of surplus. Trustees who want to put at the top of their priorities progress on discretionary pre-1997 indexation in those schemes but who have not done so will now have the potential to do so under this Bill. I recognise the issue that the hon. Member raises, but I think he underestimates the change that the Bill can bring to some schemes. It is important to remember that there are some schemes that are not paying pre-1997 indexation that are not in surplus, but I absolutely recognise that those are different situations.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  I am not going to commit from the Dispatch Box to writing 50 letters, but I will happily have a conversation with my hon. Friend about it, as I always do. Turning to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), I was going to welcome his speech, but unfortunately he spent most of his remarks praising the hair of the hon. Member for Wyre Forest, showing both questionable judgment and— [ Laughter. ] Obviously I am joking; it is some of the finest hair in Parliament, as we all appreciate. When he got passed praising the hon. Member’s hair, he turned to the division between public and private sector pensions. It is an important one to dwell on. There have been big changes in public sector pensions under both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. He rightly made the case that the priority should be making private pensions better. That is what we should be focused on, and that is what we need to see. That is what the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) did not quite touch on. She was focusing on levelling down pensions, whereas we want to be able to level up and make sure that the younger generations, who are the ones who are invested in our defined-contribution system, can be confident that it is delivering a comfortable retirement. I think we all agree on that. That is why the Bill is increasing the returns that are available within the defined-contribution system. It is also why we have the Pensions Commission, which I think is part of the cross-party consensus that we should look at the adequacy that that leaves us with into the middle of this century and return to the question of how we secure that adequacy, particularly for low and middle earners. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow rightly mentioned the relevance to pensioners of the NHS, even if that is not of huge relevance to this Bill. If we are honest, the biggest betrayal of today’s pensioners, not tomorrow’s pensioners, is the state of our NHS, and that is what the Government are in the business of turning around. We debate in this House the tax rises that the Conservatives would not like to see, but it is those tax rises and the reforms that the Secretary of State is putting in place that are seeing waiting lists now consistently falling across the country. I promised a discursion on the remarks of the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat). I particularly liked his opening point that all MPs should care about pensions, not least because I think we all plan to draw our pensions—if we are not already doing so—for as long as we possibly can.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  As always, the hon. Member asks an excellent question. For people who are currently still working, it is important to keep the simple advice at the front of their mind that people should be saving towards their pension. In almost all circumstances, saving is the right thing to do, and we have strong tax incentives in the system to encourage people to do that. We should ensure that that message is heard loud and clear, and I am sure that he makes that clear to his constituents. On the harder question of how those approaching retirement decide to use their pot, it is often right to take advice, and obviously the Money and Pensions Service exists to provide that. Others choose to take it from other sources, not least from their providers themselves. The hon. Gentleman is right; we are leaving too much pressure on individuals to manage those decisions alone. That is why the default pensions parts of the Bill, which I think have cross-party support, are important in simplifying that journey for people. People can do what they want, but they will not end up with a bad outcome just because they are faced with a confusing situation in front of them. The onus will be on trustees and providers of pensions to navigate that for those individuals. Let me come back to small pots. I will make one specific point, which was raised in the other place, regarding worries about those who are taking career breaks, particularly for maternity leave, and have a dormant pot for a period of time. I want to reassure the House that paid maternity leave obviously sees contributions into pension pots continue, rather than those pots becoming dormant, and there is the most important wider safeguard, which is the ability for anyone to opt out of their pot being consolidated. That safeguard covers exactly this kind of eventuality, even though it would be only a very small number of cases.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  As a point of principle, Madam Deputy Speaker, I never fight with you—it would end badly for everyone and I would lose every time. The Conservatives would have opposed the Bill every step of the way. They would have not just been on the barricades but built them, which is the exact opposite of what the shadow Secretary of State did. What did the hon. Member for Wyre Forest tell the House on Second Reading? He said that “the Minister will be pleased to hear that there is cross-party consensus on many of the planned changes.” —[ Official Report , 7 July 2025; Vol. 770, c. 722.] Well, that was nice.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  I have just explained to the hon. Member why he should be worried. He is happy to carry on with the status quo; we are not. We are going to set this out in two ways. First, we will specify on the face of the Bill that regulations under the reserve power cannot require more than 10% of assets to be held in qualifying assets overall or more than 5% in the UK—exactly matching the Mansion House commitments. Secondly, our amendments require any regulations to implement the reserve power to be entirely neutral between asset classes, spelling out that a future Government who took a different view from this one could not use the power to direct investments into hand-picked asset classes. The existing safeguards in the Bill also remain: the time limit, the reporting requirements, the affirmative procedure, and—most importantly—the savers’ interest test that allows pension schemes not to deliver against the reserve power requirements where it is not in savers’ interests to do so.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman was a Treasury Minister for some duration, so he brings experience on these issues. He is right to say that, when it comes to an Executive agency such as this one, Ministers’ job is to receive assurance and provide strategic direction, so let me just say a bit about how we have been thinking about that. In terms of assurance, I have asked in the shorter term for written attestation not just from NS&I but from the providers that do most of the customer-facing work in that organisation. I have asked for assurances from the current provider that we will not see any such mistakes going forward, and, as I said, I have asked Atos—the previous provider—to provide attestation that it will co-operate fully, given that it was the provider throughout the entirety of the last Government, until 2025. I hope that that gives the right hon. Gentleman some assurance about how we are seeking assurances. More broadly—this is a slightly separate issue, but I think it is relevant to the question of the organisation’s leadership—the right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the challenges in the transformation programme, which started in 2020 but has gone far too slowly and over budget, as the Public Accounts Committee has made abundantly clear. We have already put David Goldstone, the former chief operating officer at the Ministry of Defence, in to support that programme of work—we need to ensure that it is back on track. We will update the Select Committee—and the right hon. Gentleman, if he would like—about that process of work.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  I am sure that many Members across the House, and many people across the country, share my hon. Friend’s experience of early engagement with NS&I. The brand has very high awareness and support for exactly the reasons he gives. On his question about an assurance that there will be change, I hope that I have set that out. The most important thing is putting in place new leadership and ensuring that we have spent the time with external advisers involved in recent months to understand the problem in detail and to set the path to putting it right. He will have heard what I have said about some of the media reporting. I hope that my statement has laid out the facts on the implications for taxpayers and the nature of the problem we are facing.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  As always, I thank my hon. Friend for his important question. He is absolutely right—the priority for us is to ensure that people are reunited with their money and that they do not incur costs in trying to get it back. That is why I have been so clear with NS&I over the past few months that it makes sure that it understands the problem it is dealing with and that it needs to set out a delivery plan as soon as May for how it will reunite people with their money. That will involve contacting representatives of estates in the first instance, and that is what people need to rely on. As I said, I want to be clear with the public today that the onus is not on them; the onus is on NS&I to contact the people whose funds deserve to be reunited with them, and that is what we will all be focused on.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about the anxiety that I am sure some people will be feeling, but it is more than that: we are talking not just about any old savings, but about bereavement cases. We do not want issues to be dragged back up in historical cases—as I said, 75% of them took place between 2008 and 2025, but there are also older cases, too. I appreciate that that will be difficult for many people, and it is our job to ensure that NS&I provides as much support as it can for those people. On the new leadership, I have been absolutely clear that we will see a delivery plan in May setting out the full timeline for rectifying the errors. As I said, on a longer timeline—although only three months, so there is not long to wait—I am asking Sir Jim to give us his wider review of the lessons from this and for the future of the governance of NS&I.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is completely right. I am sure that she speaks for many people today. The experience of administering estates is challenging for us all at the best of times, and it is of deep regret to me—and, I am sure, to everyone at NS&I—that we are putting anybody through complications. I can give her the reassurance that everybody will be paid all moneys due and held by NS&I. We will make every endeavour to reconnect people to their funds. That will include, as I say, directly contacting the representatives of estates, who will have contacted NS&I in the first place to notify it of a death. Were that not to be successful, we would then put in place a chain of contact below it. The details will be set out in the plan in May, but I can give a reassurance that that is already being worked through. We will use the time between now and May to continue to examine the data that NS&I holds—I have said that we are reviewing over 34 million cases—to ensure that we have the absolute best contacts and are able to go as soon as the delivery report plan has been set out. My hon. Friend rightly raised the question of distress. I can absolutely give her the reassurance that everybody involved understands how they should be handling matters. As I said, for the Treasury’s part, that includes recognising that there will be worries about the implications for some estates of taxes due. I will set out how we intend to address that in May.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  Let me try to take the right hon. Member’s questions in turn. I would think of compensation as two buckets. There will be automatic compensation relating to the withholding of funds. The FCA provides guidance on how that should be administered, and we will ensure that is put in place in full. More complicated cases—he has given examples in which the deprivation of funds has had implications—will be considered on a case-by-case basis, rather than by using the FCA formula that I have mentioned. I am keen to praise journalists where we can, but I am afraid that, in the case of The Daily Telegraph in recent weeks, praise needs to be caveated. It is important to raise cases brought up by members of the public, but some of the reporting I have seen in the past 48 hours has been incredibly inaccurate. I will give the right hon. Gentleman two examples. The Daily Telegraph has published a piece claiming that 160,000 cases relating to NS&I have been brought to the Financial Ombudsman Service, when in truth that number is in the hundreds. That was printed on the front page of the newspaper without basic fact-checking taking place. Today, the paper has talked about taxpayers’ money being used to reunite people with their funds. That is entirely inaccurate for the reasons that I have set out. I worry that that will have worried some MPs and members of the public. It is important that we raise questions of customer service, in which NS&I has fallen short, as I have said, but we should not be blind to what has been inaccurate journalism in the past 48 hours.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  I welcome the tone of the shadow Minister’s remarks. I obviously absolutely agree with him that customers deserve better and they deserve reassurance. I have tried to provide that today by setting out what we are doing, and giving everybody reassurance that their savings are 100% safe and are guaranteed by the Government. The hon. Member asks why we have come to the House today. This has been the intention for some time. As he says, we were notified in December. During that period, we have reviewed the over 34 million cases of customer records, as I mentioned, and have put in place the process to ensure that we have fixed this problem as we go forward, so that we can provide the reassurance for customers that I know we both want. I have also put in place the change of leadership that I have set out today, about which the hon. Member asked. I can confirm that the former chief executive of NS&I has resigned today and that he did not receive a bonus last year. The hon. Member asked about the cost to taxpayers. There has been some deeply misleading reporting over the course of the last 24 hours, so I want to be absolutely clear: the money we are talking about returning to estates belongs to those estates—it is their money. The returning of people’s money to them is not a liability to other taxpayers; it is the right thing to do, and that is what is going to take place. The hon. Member asks whether it would have been reasonable to have expected the previous Government to act. I am sure that he would rightly note that NS&I is operationally independent; I think the challenge comes given that it became clear in around 2018 that there were significant problems in this area—I mentioned the Santander case in particular—and there was widespread coverage at that time; within NS&I, people realised that this could pose problems for them. The hon. Member has taken an excellent tone today. I was less impressed to read the comments of the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride), in the Telegraph , in which he talked about a “staggering failure of oversight”—he was the Treasury Minister in 2018 when the Santander case came forward! As often, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) has shown better judgment than his superiors. Then again, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) has also talked about “incompetence on a staggering scale”, which is an irony given that he, too, was a Minister in the Government carrying out the incompetence to which he refers. I broadly welcome the way in which the hon. Member for Wyre Forest has conducted himself today. It is absolutely right that we provide the reassurance to taxpayers and, most importantly, to savers with NS&I; I hope that I have done so today.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his questions —let me try to do justice to them. He is completely right that one of the reasons customers choose NS&I is that they trust the institution, but they also know that it has that 100% Government backing. It is important that we are all clear with everybody that that remains in place, that no funds have been misplaced and that everybody will be entitled to every penny of their savings. On rebuilding that trust, that is why I have put new leadership in place. Sir Jim’s review will lay out those lessons. He is an interim chief executive, and we will be recruiting for a permanent replacement, so he is in a position to give us the full truth about what he sees. He is an experienced public servant and public sector leader, so we should look to his review. As I say, I have asked him to report in three months’ time. I will ensure that the appropriate Select Committee Chairs have that review. It will set out the lessons that we need to learn. The hon. Member rightly asks about compensation. As I set out in my statement, we will ensure that the appropriate compensation is paid along the lines of how the FCA encourages best practice. That will include compensatory interest where funds have been withheld from estates for longer than they should have been, and that will be done automatically. People who have more complicated cases will as always be able to go direct to NS&I to have them considered on a case-by-case basis.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right that administering the affairs of deceased family members or friends is always challenging, both emotionally and administratively. That is why it is so important that we get this right, now that we have set out the scale of the problem. On his specific question, I encourage him to support constituents. That is why I have said that I will require NS&I to put in place a direct method of communication for MPs who wish to raise constituency cases, and obviously I will be happy to meet him or anybody else who has constituents affected.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  I would like to make a statement regarding National Savings & Investments. On 18 December 2025, NS&I notified the Treasury of an operational failure to comprehensively trace accounts for some customers who had passed away. The result of that failure is that not all savings were identified by NS&I and paid to the beneficiaries of their estates as they should have been. Specifically, processes failed to comprehensively trace some customer holdings where they were spread across multiple profiles or systems. Hon. Members will be aware of historical challenges in financial services in this regard. For example, the Financial Conduct Authority took enforcement action in 2018 against Santander relating to the tracing of accounts following notification that a customer had passed on. That received significant attention at the time. However, what is now clear is that NS&I and its suppliers did not respond to those warning signs as fully as I and, more importantly, their customers, would expect, and nor did the last Government act. Bereaved families, whose loved ones held accounts with NS&I, will rightly be anxious about this news, so let me turn to the action that we have taken and the further steps that we are putting in place today. Since being notified, the Treasury has ensured that external advisers, including EY and legal experts, have been engaged to identify the scale of the errors. Through this work, NS&I has reviewed over 34 million customer records. That work is ongoing, but it points to up to a maximum of around 37,500 customers, with up to £476 million in deposits, being affected. Three quarters of cases relate to the period between 2008 and 2025. The number is likely to fall in future, but although it represents less than 0.2% of NS&I’s customers, that is still far too many. NS&I is not regulated by the FCA, but the Government expect it to live up to the same standards as regulated deposit-taking banks. It is therefore right that NS&I is apologising today. The Government’s priorities now are threefold. First—and immediately, to ensure that the problem is no longer taking place—NS&I has received written assurances from its customer-facing supplier Sopra Steria that the causes of the tracing issue have been addressed and will not affect customers going forward. Its previous supplier, Atos, has also committed to full co-operation, given that it was responsible for handling bereavement cases until 2025. Our second priority is to ensure that we reunite beneficiaries of those customers who have passed away with any funds that NS&I holds. Those deposits belong to customers. Returning them in no way represents an additional liability to the taxpayer, and for the avoidance of doubt, let me spell out that those savings are 100% safe. The issue is about tracing and not the security of any funds, but it is important, none the less. NS&I has put in place a dedicated programme team and hired an additional 100 staff. I have asked it to publish a delivery plan in May detailing how they will take forward the work to reunite funds with their owners. This will cover: the number of cases affected; how NS&I will proactively contact representatives of estates to ensure they receive the funds that they are due, including interest on savings; and the compensation that, where appropriate, will be paid. There is no need for individuals to waste money on a claims management company or solicitor. I reassure people that the onus is not on them but on NS&I to act—to contact estate representatives and to reconnect beneficiaries with the money they are due. Further information is available on the NS&I website and its contact centre is open seven days a week. I will also ensure that MPs have a dedicated means of contacting NS&I to raise any constituency cases directly. Dealing with bereavement is always challenging, and I am sure that we all recognise that finding out, as party of that, that such errors have been made could be distressing. We are committed to ensuring that NS&I supports those who have experienced a loss by making the process for reuniting beneficiaries with their money as easy as possible. We also recognise that there may be tax implications for affected estates and want to avoid bereaved families facing disproportionate disruption and administrative costs as a result of the error. We are exploring what support we can provide and will set this out alongside NS&I’s delivery plan in May. Current NS&I customers can access their accounts as normal. Any wishing to trace old accounts can use the tracing services direct through NS&I or the My Lost Account website. Because in the past some searches have focused too narrowly on searching for specific accounts, I have also instructed NS&I to make it simpler for people to search for all the accounts or products that they might hold. Our third priority is institutional. NS&I plays an important role, helping the public to save and providing a material contribution towards Government financing. The organisation must continue to play that role while addressing the tracing issues that I have laid out today. It must also complete what has been a challenging business transformation programme. The programme was put in place back in 2020, but with little progress made in the previous Parliament, as the recent Public Accounts Committee report has set out. This Government have appointed David Goldstone, former chief operating officer at the Ministry of Defence, to support NS&I to bring the programme back on track. With all this in mind, I also want to make sure that NS&I has the very best leadership in place. Effective from today, I have appointed Sir Jim Harra—former first permanent secretary at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—to take over as the chief executive of NS&I on an interim basis, to provide a fresh start for NS&I’s next phase of development. I also recognise the 22 years of public service of his predecessor Dax Harkins at NS&I. As well as providing leadership to the organisation, Sir Jim will undertake a review over the next three months to spell out in detail the background to the tracing problem and to set out what lessons must be learned by NS&I. I have discussed this with Sir Jim and am confident that his extensive experience will help guide NS&I in the months ahead. I will ensure that Sir Jim’s review is shared with the Chairs of the Treasury and Public Accounts Committees upon completion. NS&I holds over £240 billion of savings belonging to 24 million customers. It is an organisation that is valued by those saving with it and by this Government. I repeat NS&I’s apology to its customers and reiterate that every penny of their savings is safe, and—as always—they are 100% guaranteed by the Treasury. I commend this statement to the House.

• 23 Mar 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  Absolute nonsense. Members of the House should be reminding everybody in this country that they have a strong incentive to save for their pension, not misleading them by implying that they will somehow lose out by saving for their pension. That is not the case, and it is really important that we are consistent in our messaging to the public about that. I will come back to the wider point about the levels of saving in society. The hon. Member for Wyre Forest also asked questions about savings gaps, and he was right to do so. Unfortunately, however, he talked nonsense about that. He talked about the self-employed, low earners, women and those working for SMEs, all of whom do have lower pension savings rates, but all those groups who are under-saving are those least likely to use salary sacrifice. He talked about those on lower incomes, but as I said, 95% of those earning under £30,000 and contributing to a pension via salary sacrifice are completely unaffected. He claimed that the impact was largest on those on low earnings. That is nonsense, because 86% of contributions over £2,000 are from additional rate taxpayers. Those are the facts. [ Official Report , 14 April 2026; Vol. 783, c. 12WC.] (Correction) The hon. Member for Wyre Forest went on to invent a brilliant story of a young graduate struggling to get by who was somehow putting £5,000 into their pension every year. As I mentioned earlier, 90% of young graduates are saving £2,000 or less into their pensions. Why are they not saving more? Because their wages did not rise under the Conservative party. Why are they not saving more? Because that party did not build enough houses to help them get on to the property ladder. He asked— [ Interruption. ] I am glad to hear that all Conservative Members will stop opposing the building of homes in their constituencies in the years ahead. The hon. Member asked about the implementation. As he mentioned, I have set out that it will operate on a per-job basis. He also asked about how it will operate over a pay period basis. As he knows, national insurance broadly operates on a pay period basis, but we are consulting with employers and payroll providers to ensure that we get that right. As is normal with national insurance legislation, we will set that out in the regulations. I turn to the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard). It is not surprising that he, as a Liberal Democrat, opposes these measures but set out absolutely no ideas for how to pay for that. I look forward to him calling for more spending later this week—again with absolutely no idea how to pay for it. He raised timing. Directly to his two questions, we think it is pragmatic to give employers and individuals time to adjust—that is the basis for the pragmatic point that he raised. He also raised the scoring of that, which is a technical issue reflecting how the national accounts deal with the claiming back of tax relief for some pensions. He also mentioned the OBR. If he looks at its report, he will find that it set out that the Budget measures will have no material impact on savings levels. To end on a point of wide cross-party consensus, both hon. Members raised the case that people do need to save more for their pensions—the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) just did so, too—and we all agree on that, and particularly those 45% of working-age adults who are currently saving nothing. As I said, that includes in particular groups such as low earners and the self-employed, for neither of whom is salary sacrifice available. The answer to that is the work of the pensions commission, which I hope will continue to operate on a cross-party basis. Its interim report will be coming forward soon, and I will commend its work to the House. For today, I am afraid that the Government will oppose the Lords amendments. Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

• 23 Mar 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  That is a question the hon. Gentleman should put to his Front Benchers, who opened the negotiations with Mauritius in the first place. Opposition Members come to the House making cheap points, because they used to take seriously the job of government and they have given up entirely. I will make some progress now, having engaged with the hon. Member who obviously gave up on the job of serious government some time ago. A world where 95% of those earning £30,000 or less and contributing via a salary sacrifice are unaffected makes the case for the £2,000 cap I have set out, but the Government agree with the sentiment raised in the Lords about keeping it under review. The Bill allows for that to take place in future. That leads me to Lords amendments 2 and 8, which would exempt salary sacrifice pension contributions over the £2,000 cap from the calculation of student loan repayments. It is right that we focus on the outcomes for younger generations too often let down by the failures of the previous Government. I gently remind Conservative Members—there are only two of them here, but there are some Liberal Democrats who deserve some of the “credit” too—of their track record on this matter: trebling tuition fees, raising interest rates, scrapping maintenance grants and the rest. And that is before I get to not allowing anything to be built. That is what younger generations are being let down by. On the specific proposal, it is worth noting that while salary sacrifice arrangements can reduce the student loan repayments made, they do not reduce the total amount due for repayment. Much more important is the fact that the £2,000 cap means that young graduates are broadly unaffected. In fact—these are new figures that were not available for the discussion in the Lords, but as this issue has been raised and brought to the Commons, I will provide them—the £2,000 cap means that 90% of graduates under the age of 30 repaying student loans who are saving into a pension will be unaffected, in the sense that 90% of them save less than £2,000 a year. I hope that provides some reassurance to Members who have raised that point. Lords amendments 3, 4, 9 and 10 would make the regulation-making powers in the Bill subject to the affirmative procedure, except for those which solely increase the contributions limit. The Government agree on the importance of maintaining strong parliamentary scrutiny, particularly where changes could affect individuals’ national insurance liabilities. However, the Bill already contains a series of safeguards and the legislative approach taken follows long-standing precedence for national insurance legislation. In addition, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has carefully scrutinised the powers in the Bill, including the proposed level of parliamentary scrutiny, and concluded that there is nothing in the Bill that it wishes to draw to the special attention of the House. Lords amendments 6 and 12 seek to exempt small and medium-sized enterprises, alongside smaller charities and social enterprises, from the Bill’s provisions. Again, the Government agree on the importance of supporting small businesses—I am sure that that is a matter of cross-party support—but small businesses are much less likely to use salary sacrifice than larger businesses. Furthermore, the £2,000 cap means that 90% of employees in SMEs making pension contributions through salary sacrifice will be entirely unaffected. Indeed, the largest benefits from uncapped salary sacrifice accrue to larger businesses, not smaller ones. In practice, the changes in the Bill will help to level the playing field between small businesses and their larger competitors. Those wanting to see support for small businesses should support the measures in the Bill. The Government are engaging with employers, payroll professionals and software developers to ensure that the changes are implemented in the least burdensome way possible for employers of all sizes. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will understand why it would not be right to support the amendments from the other place, even though we recognise the valuable objectives that have in many cases motivated them. As I said, the Government spend over £500 billion each year on various tax reliefs within the tax system. That is more than double the entire annual NHS budget. The size of the spend means that the Government must always keep the effectiveness and the value for money of those reliefs under review. These are necessary, pragmatic and fair reforms that protect ordinary workers while ensuring that public finances are kept on a sustainable footing. I respectfully propose that this House disagrees with the amendments.

• 23 Mar 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  As always, I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. He was pretending that the competition is about who is the better MP, but we know it is really about the volume of speaking in this Chamber. The two of them are running it close, but never testing the patience of this House. It is amazing that you have allowed them both in this early in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, because that is what the closing minutes of every debate in this House should be about. It is important to have traditions, and they both deliver admirably, but I will make some progress before we get sidetracked entirely. I was talking about the pragmatic approach we are taking to this change. As I have said, there will be no change until 2029, and the £2,000 cap means that salary sacrifice contributions can continue. That recognises the fact that that has become an established process in several companies and for individuals, so we are giving people time to adjust. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised that, and I have responded by saying that this is pragmatic because pension tax relief continues in its entirety. It is important to remember that relief is available to all savers, not just to the minority who have salary sacrifice available to them. With that in mind—and I am sure that the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) for the Conservatives will have decided to support the Bill in its entirety having listened to those powerful arguments—I turn first to Lords amendments 1 and 7, which would exempt basic rate taxpayers from the operation of the Bill, and Lords amendments 5 and 11, which would increase the contributions limit to £5,000. The Government’s balanced and pragmatic approach, with the £2,000 cap, means that 74% of basic taxpayers using salary sacrifice will be entirely unaffected. The small proportion of basic rate taxpayers with contributions above the cap will still be getting the national insurance contributions relief on the first £2,000 of contributions made via salary sacrifice, in addition to the full income tax relief that is available to all employee pension contributions. Exempting basic rate taxpayers in the manner proposed would be incredibly difficult to operate. An individual’s tax band is not knowable until the end of the tax year, which means employers would be required to carry out complicated calculations at the end of the year to reconcile the figures, and they would need to know their employees’ other sources of income, which I do not think anyone would believe is a good idea.

• 23 Mar 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome the opportunity to consider the Lords amendments to the Bill. I thank Members of both Houses for their careful scrutiny of it, and I particularly thank the Financial Secretary, Lord Livermore, for leading the Bill so expertly through the other place. Before addressing the amendments directly and explaining the Government’s decision not to support them—I know that will be shocking—I turn briefly to the need for these reforms. As the Chancellor set out at the Budget, we are taking action to make the tax system fairer and fit for the 21st century. That requires us to keep the effectiveness and value for money of the £500 billion of tax reliefs under review, and it is especially important to do so when costs are expected to increase significantly. The cost of national insurance contributions relief on salary sacrifice into pension schemes was due to almost treble, from £2.8 billion in 2017 to £8 billion by 2031, without reform, which would be equivalent to the cost of the Royal Air Force. This is not only an expensive tax relief, but one with a very uneven impact. The majority of employers do not offer salary sacrifice at all. The vast majority of salary sacrifice contributions are made by higher and additional-rate taxpayers. Salary sacrifice is unavailable entirely to those earning at or near the national living wage, or to the UK’s 4.4 million self-employed workers, and we know that both groups are more likely to be under-saving for retirement. On this basis, the status quo is indefensible. Change was inevitable, but we have chosen to take a pragmatic approach, with no change until 2029, and a £2,000 cap to allow pension contributions via salary sacrifice to continue.

• 23 Mar 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

• 23 Mar 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member always raises questions brought up by his constituents, which we know is a valuable part of the work he does in this place. The direct answer to his constituents is that all of them have a very strong tax incentive to save for their pension, without salary sacrifice. We spend £70 billion a year to provide that incentive, whether via the lump sum or the national insurance exemption for employer contributions. I hope the main thing he says to any of his constituents who come through the door is that they have a very strong incentive to save, whatever their circumstances. On the pension gap, that is why we have revived the Pensions Commission. Its work is ongoing, and I am sure he will read in detail its interim report, which will be coming out in the coming months.