Torsten Bell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Dec 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. Pensions matter. They are the means by which we deliver on some of the biggest promises we have made to the public: that the prospect of a comfortable retirement, with the option of leisure—hon. Members may choose not to take it—in later life, is there for the many, not just the few. We need not only to encourage people to save, but to ensure that those savings work as hard as possible for them to deliver that comfortable retirement. That is ultimately what this occasionally technical Bill is all about. Better returns mean better retirements, and there are few things more important than that. The Bill adds wind to the sails of some of the major changes already under way in our pension landscape. Most importantly, it pushes ahead with the shift towards larger, better-governed schemes, better able to access and deliver returns for savers and to invest in a wider range of assets. It introduces a new value for money framework, so that schemes are judged on performance and service, not just cost. It removes one of the big barriers to people engaging with their pensions by consolidating small, inactive pension pots. It delivers reforms to ensure people are building up a pension, not just a savings pot, with simple default pensions that do not require each of us to become a financial expert as we approach retirement. For defined benefit schemes, the Bill strengthens the local government pension scheme, puts more trustees in the driving seat for managing scheme surpluses, and addresses the lack of pre-1997 indexation within the PPF and the FAS. Those are real improvements shaped by constructive debate and detailed scrutiny in this place and across the pension industry. I again thank Members from all parts of the House for their contributions and I thank the Clerks for taking us through Committee. I also thank the Bill team—Jo, Amanda, Mike, James, Sagar, Saadia and Steve—and the many officials across DWP and the Treasury who have worked behind the scenes to support the Government in bringing forward this important legislation. I appreciate that it is not a short Bill. The PPF, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator have also played important roles for which I am grateful. I commend all of them, and this Bill, to the House.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  I did not say anything of the sort. I said that we are not going to have a £10 million mansion in Westminster paying less tax than a terraced house in Blackpool, and that has been brought to an end by this Budget. I have heard the worries of some Opposition Members about the surcharge, and I want to assure the House that less than 1% of properties will be affected, and even for the £10 million mansion I have mentioned, it will not exceed £7,500 a year. To put that in perspective, it is not even enough to bribe a Russian-sympathising, Putin-praising Reform politician—or a traitor, as we should always call them. Other reforms in the Budget will ensure that everyone who drives on our roads helps to maintain them. It will address the fact that tenants pay higher taxes than their landlords and tackle some of the tax breaks that have exploded in recent years, disproportionately benefiting the wealthy. That is the fair thing to do, and it is the responsible thing to do. I know that others want to take a different approach, and I heard representations from some to raise income tax. Who was particularly keen? The shadow Chancellor. He told eager listeners— [ Interruption. ] I think he should listen. He told eager listeners at the Conservative party conference that he would “go for income tax”. In fact, he was more enthusiastic than that, going on to label it the best “thing to do”. We have not taken his advice, and are instead delivering major reforms—reforms ducked by Tory Chancellor after Tory Chancellor. We have heard a lot about welfare today, and I recognise why. It is because our welfare system is failing, and we are changing it. We are undoing the huge incentive to be labelled too sick to work that the Conservative party built into universal credit, and the OBR has confirmed that this will move tens of thousands more people into work. The shadow Chancellor claimed he had a plan to reform welfare, but he did not mention that it was quashed by the courts. What he actually did as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was to oversee the subsidised leasing of luxury cars, with the ordinary taxpayer bearing the cost of tax breaks for Mercedes and BMWs on the Motability scheme. Well, those days are done. The scheme has itself removed luxury cars, and it has committed to half of its cars being built in Britain. We are reforming its tax breaks to save over £1 billion in the coming year.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  It is coming down.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  I will come to the hon. Lady in a second, because she and the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) told us that the Liberal Democrats wanted wealth taxes, while continuing their record run of opposing every single wealth tax put in front of them, and conveniently forgetting that the Liberal Democrats tried and failed to introduce just such a wealth tax in government —a level of convenient amnesia matched only by the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) when reminiscing about his school days.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  What I know is that youth apprenticeships fell by 40% under the Conservative party. That is what failure looks like. I am coming on to some of those matters. We do not want to grow this economy by simply borrowing more, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) rightly pointed out before he turned, at some length, to snails. There is nothing progressive about arguing that we should spend more than £1 in every £10 of taxpayers’ money on debt interest —money that would be better spent on schools and hospitals—so Liz Truss and the leader of the Greens should stay exactly where they belong and where they both started out: in the youth wing of the Liberal Democrats, far away from Government. We in the Labour party will cut borrowing in every single year—more than in any other G7 country—and more than double the headroom against our fiscal rules. We are cutting borrowing and giving businesses the confidence to invest, and cutting inflation too. We are taking £150 off energy bills, freezing rail fares for the first time in 30 years—as my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Oliver Ryan) set out—and extending the fuel duty freeze. All this knocks 0.4% off inflation next year, helping interest rates—which have already been cut five times since the election—to keep on falling, helping businesses to expand and getting mortgages down. What will not be coming down is public investment, which the OBR says boosts our economy. The pro-growth choice is not to return to the austerity of the past, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) set out. Austerity saw Tory Chancellors slash public investment, and repeatedly scrap and delay projects—the worst kind of short-term political fixes, with the worst kind of long-term economic consequences. This Budget presses ahead with an extra £120 billion of capital investment. It is exactly because this Government are confident about Britain’s future that we are going to invest in it. Sizewell C is going ahead, and we are building the UK’s first small modular reactor at Wylfa—the biggest industrial investment in north Wales for a generation. We are also building the lower Thames crossing. Infrastructure is being built in every corner of Britain. The blockers and the pessimists, and the gloomsters and the doomsters, are being taken on, confronted and defeated. The Opposition parties have never seen a housing development or energy project that they did not want to block, but those days are done. Britain is getting back in the building business. The Budget also contains necessary and fair choices on tax, which hon. Members have raised repeatedly. We have not hidden from that fact, nor am I hiding from the fact that we are asking everybody to contribute by further freezing tax thresholds towards the end of this Parliament. I hear the chuntering and the howls from the Conservatives, but where did this year’s frozen thresholds come from? Them. Who put in place next year’s freeze? Them. They announced threshold freezes, they defended threshold freezes, they voted for threshold freezes, and they cannot howl with outrage about them now. In case all of that is not clear enough to them, let me spell it out: of the revenue raised from frozen thresholds, over three quarters comes from the choices made on their watch. The difference between us and them is that we are not ducking the long-needed reforms that our tax system needs—reforms that mean we can keep the contribution from workers as low as possible. We have already abolished non-dom status, raised capital gains tax and ended tax breaks for private schools. The Budget brings an end to the disgrace of someone in a terraced house in Blackpool paying more in council tax than someone in a £10 million mansion in Westminster—or what the shadow Chancellor called an ordinary family home. If he had had more time, I am sure he would have gone on to worry about people with an ordinary family deer park, duck pond and stables.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to close today’s debate, and I thank all Members for their contributions, including my hon. Friends the Members for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), for Exeter (Steve Race), for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd), for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald), for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), for North Northumberland (David Smith), for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes), for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper), for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker), for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang), for Congleton (Sarah Russell) and for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn), who all made strong cases for this Budget. I listened carefully as Opposition MP after Opposition MP talked down the British economy, as the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) did, talking down British workers and talking down British entrepreneurs. I have been trying to remember what it reminded me of. I was racking my brains, but then it came to me: they are just reading out exactly the same script that they had at exactly this time last year. The shadow Business Secretary, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), frothing with his usual excitement, claimed that Britain would spend 2025 in recession. He said: “‘Could we be in recession?’ Yes we could.” That was his forecast. The actual figures are in, and the truth is that Britain in 2025 did not just avoid recession, but beat the forecast. The OBR has revised up growth this year from 1% to 1.5%. Let us look at wages. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson) said, wages are up in the forecast and, far more importantly, in people’s pay packets. Wages have gone up more in the first year of this Government than in the entire first decade of the last Conservative Government, and there is much more to do. Changing Britain was always going to be hard, and we now know that the damage from the last decade of austerity and Brexit was worse than previously thought. That lies behind the productivity downgrade that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) rightly raised, but the question is how we respond to that news.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Who did the borrowing?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  I am afraid that I do not have time to give way. The last Government cancelled face-to-face assessments for health benefits; this Government are bringing them back. The last Government also oversaw a scandal that has received far too little attention. They allowed people who came to Britain for just a few years—people who left, and never had any intention of returning—not only to buy a state pension, but to buy it on the cheap. The Conservative Government did not just waste money here at home; they wasted it across Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and we are bringing this overseas pension scandal to a close. What this Government will never do is pretend that the Tory policy of making children poor does anything other than cost us all in the long run. Child poverty costs this country £40 billion a year. A child growing up in poverty is less likely to be in work as an adult, and they earn 25% less at age 30. We tackle child poverty not only because it is a moral imperative, as was laid out by my hon. Friends the Members for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) and for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon), but because it is an economic one. This Government will scrap the two-child limit, we will lift over half a million children out of poverty and we will deliver the biggest fall in child poverty of any Parliament on record. Everyone can see what the Conservatives are trying to do. They cannot defend their record, and we all know why. They have nothing to say about Britain’s future, as the Leader of the Opposition made patently clear yesterday, and now they are salivating at the prospect of trying to hide their total lack of policy behind the cheap, divisive, lazy politics of talking about “Benefits Street”. Well, bring it on, because this Budget is for every street, with potholes being filled, neighbourhood police back on the streets and an NHS that is actually there when we need it. It is a Budget for every street in cutting borrowing because that helps not just mortgage payers, but employers; it is a Budget for every street in cutting energy bills because the cost of living crisis has seeped into everyone’s homes—rich and poor, north and south; and it is a Budget for every street because child poverty exists in every part of Britain, limiting life chances, wasting talents and undermining not just some childhoods, but all of them. With borrowing down, energy bills cut and public services rebuilt, this is a Budget for every street in Britain. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned. —(Gregor Poynton.) Debate to be resumed on Monday 1 December.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Why is that then?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Your ending.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  It will fall every year!

• 25 Nov 2025 · Pension Investment in UK Equities · Hansard source

  More

  He may not have been paid at all. His focus at the beginning of his remarks on growth and one of its key enablers, investment, was right. If we stepped back and forced ourselves to ask, “What is the one thing the British economy needs more of?”, it would be public and private investment. As several hon. Members have said, the UK has the second largest pension scheme in the world, worth £2 trillion. It is our largest source of domestic capital, underpinning not just the retirement we all—or at least most of us—look forward to, but the investment on which our future prosperity depends. That is why this Government launched and concluded a review of pensions investment within a year of taking office. Those reforms are now being taken forward through the Pension Schemes Bill, as the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) pointed out. First and foremost, the Bill includes measures to deliver bigger and better pension schemes in the DC market. It requires multi-employer defined contribution pension providers to hold at least £25 billion in assets by 2030 or to be on track to do so by 2035. That requirement will drive scale and sophistication in workplace DC schemes so that they are better positioned to invest in a fuller range of asset classes, including specialist private markets such as venture capital, which we have not heard much about today but which are key. The biggest gap in UK capital markets is growth finance: the gap that holds back our science and tech start-ups, scale ups and pre-initial public offering companies. That does not take away from the challenges we are raising about public markets, but if we look at our capital markets as a whole, that is our biggest gap. Pensions can be a key source of funding for those economically critical investments and sectors, which my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and Bletchley (Callum Anderson) set out, as he has done many times in the discussions on the Pension Schemes Bill. This is not just theoretical; it is actually starting to happen. Legal & General is investing in post-quantum cryptography and Nest is investing in energy generation. Last week, the Chancellor and I met with Aegon UK, NatWest Cushion and M&G, which have all confirmed that they will invest £200 million in the British Growth Partnership, a fund managed by the British Business Bank investing in cutting edge British businesses and building on British strengths in areas such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing and the medical technology that other Members have talked about in the past. As we have heard, Members are well aware of the Mansion House accord, a voluntary commitment by 17 major DC funds to invest 10% of their main default funds in private assets by 2030, including 5% in UK private assets. That will boost investment across a range of asset classes, including growth market equities, which we have not touched on much today. That is welcome news driven by a focus on giving savers better returns and showing how pension funds can contribute directly to making Britain the best place to start up, scale up and ultimately list companies. I should emphasise that we should think about our capital markets as a ladder up which firms can climb. Our job is to make that climb easier, not just to focus on the ultimate destination. Several Members raised the question of transparency. The Pension Schemes Bill includes a new framework under which DC funds will need to disclose their investments in more granular detail, including UK-overseas and asset class split. We will be able to see in more detail what individual schemes are doing. We are doing that so that we can measure their value for money. For the first time, we will be able to see where those funds are invested. Finally, as Members know, the Bill includes a reserve power, which has been discussed today, to ensure that the change that the pension schemes themselves say is needed in the interest of members happens. I will repeat what I said on the “Making Money” podcast—it is very exciting that the hon. Member for South West Devon had time to tune in. I am confident that this power will not need to be used, given the progress the industry is already making. It is designed as a proportionate backstop to the commitments that the industry has already made, with strong safeguards to protect the interests of pension savers. On mandation, I note—as gently as possible, given the excellent tone of this discussion—that I have spent much of the last six months hearing strong opposition to any mandation backstop while hearing, often from the very same people, language that does not directly contradict that, but gets close to calling for mandation, whether it is social housing, public equities or anything else. I just gently note that tension before as gently moving on to set out some of the wider steps that the Government are taking to support our capital markets, because they go far beyond pensions. It is important to note that although UK equity markets have faced some challenges in recent years, London’s markets remain some of the deepest and most liquid in the world. We want to build on those strong foundations and make the UK as attractive a destination as possible for companies to start, scale and stay. There is a danger here: we need to make sure we are having this discussion about the change we need to see, while also celebrating many of the real strengths that exist in London’s capital markets.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Pension Investment in UK Equities · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I will indeed leave several minutes for the winding-up speech. Like everyone else, I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) on securing this debate, particularly on the Budget eve; it is very kind of him to make my diary relaxed. It is a topic on which he has thought deeply and that we have discussed many times. As ever, I welcome his constructive and practical approach, which befits someone who confirmed to me earlier that he holds the title of longest-serving Economic Secretary to the Treasury. Luckily, he was not on performance-related pay, given the growth of the economy during that time.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Pension Investment in UK Equities · Hansard source

  More

  I am not sure that I fully understood, so I am not going to commit to agreeing. Remember that the capital gains on shares in equity ISAs—investment ISAs—receive tax relief in their entirety, so the tax is not the problem in terms of people’s rates of return; the returns would have been very real indeed over, for example, that 25-year period. However, my basic argument is that we need better advice, and that our targeted changes will make it possible for financial firms to offer that. We are also supporting an industry initiative to rebalance risk warnings to ensure that firms are offering consumers information about investing, not trying to scare them off with over-the-top warnings. Together, these measures will support savers in securing stronger returns over the long term because, as the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire just said, this is about making money for savers—whether in pension savings or elsewhere—putting money into people’s pockets and further strengthening our world-leading capital markets. I will make one more substantive point and then conclude. This is not just about capital. In the end, the growth agenda, and needing the investment to make it happen, is about actual investment not just financial flows. Financial flows are an enabler of the investment that ultimately matters to the size of the capital stock, the quality of the infrastructure, the quality of the firms, and the amount of capital that workers have to work with. That is, in the end, what matters, and it means firms wanting to grow, which is why I focused slightly more in my remarks on the whole chain of firms’ access to capital. This is also about being able to get out and actually get things built. I gently remind Members, when I hear them opposing anything getting built, anywhere, by anyone, at any time—I definitely hear the Lib Dem Front Bench opposing— [ Interruption. ] I am not talking about the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), but the Lib Dems have never seen a house that they wanted to be built. That is my lived experience of sitting in the Chamber day after day. We need to actually get things built, and as I said, I agree with the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) on the pipeline of investment. That is ultimately what we need if we want growth to happen; it cannot just be about changing the flows of existing assets. I once again thank the right hon. Member for Salisbury for securing today’s debate. A strong pensions industry and thriving capital markets are cornerstones of our capitalism, as I think everybody in this Chamber agrees. We are introducing significant reforms of both the capital markets and the pensions industry, and I am grateful to have had the chance to discuss them this afternoon.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Pension Investment in UK Equities · Hansard source

  More

  I am. I will just gently say that many people, when discussing the reasons for that, point to a policy of Brexit delivered without any ideas about how it should be delivered in a smaller, home market and without any plans for the future. I would probably pause on that before I started offering anyone views on anything at all. My Treasury colleagues have already delivered an ambitious programme of reforms: modernising UK listing rules; establishing the private intermittent securities and capital exchange system—PISCES—to support private companies to scale and grow as a stepping-stone to public markets; and making it easier to raise capital and IPO in the UK with new prospectus rules from January of next year. To come directly and more fairly to the question that the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) raised, I think it is important to celebrate the fact that we have seen some of that translate into positive momentum recently. Hon. Members will know that the stock exchange has had a very strong year, outperforming most of the rest of the world. We saw listings from Fermi America and Shawbrook last month, and there are other exciting companies in the pipeline. I now regularly see my hon. and learned Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury in confetti-filled photographs from the stock exchange, and I look forward to seeing many more in the years to come. I encourage hon. Members to go and engage in similar activities. Our capital markets are not just about celebration and ceremony; they are critical in connecting retail investors’ capital with businesses in the way that several hon. Members mentioned. Investing offers a powerful way for people to make their money work harder and share in growth. That is why the Government are bringing forward measures to get Britain investing again. The right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) raised a point, which I have heard him discuss before, about risk appetite and the incentives that people have. I would say that if we look at the evidence from the last 25 years, we see that it is not the strength of the incentive that is the issue. Many people holding cash ISAs would have made very significant returns if they had held that in equities instead. I will give an example. If someone, each year since the introduction of ISAs, had put £1,000 into an equity ISA rather than a cash ISA, they would be £50,000 better off. The issue is not purely about incentives, and I think focusing there would miss some of the wider changes we have been seeing, but I am always eager to hear about what more can be done. What we are doing is working closely with the FCA and rolling out a scheme of targeted support ahead of ISA season next year. That will represent the biggest reform of the financial advice and guidance landscape—mentioned by the hon. Member for South West Devon—in more than a generation. It will revolutionise the support that consumers can receive to invest.

• 24 Nov 2025 · Draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Collective Money Purchase Schemes) (Extension to Unconnected Multiple Employer Schemes and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Members for Wyre Forest and for Horsham for their consensual approach and the clarity of their support for what is a development of CDC schemes that has had good cross-party support. Communications are very important. The truth is that they are important in all pension schemes—particularly within CDC schemes because they are new, and because there is some complexity sitting behind them. That is why we take this particularly seriously. In response to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Horsham, the regulators will be looking at the overall approach to communication. They are not signing off the individual bits at the initial authorisation. As I said in my opening remarks, the authorisation is not a “one and done”. There will be ongoing monitoring of that. Specifically on communications, for multi employer CDC schemes, the marketing in general will be to employers, not to individuals. That may help allay some concerns about how that is communicated. But even within that, we will definitely want clarity, particularly to savers, about the honesty of what the offer is—this is not a DB scheme; it is not a certain guaranteed income. It is one that is aiming for a target amount, and there can be some fluctuation around that. It is important that we are honest and straight about that, and that those of us who support these schemes are also clear about what they are and are not offering. The pension landscape does need to change—we all agree about that. Fundamentally, we need to move from having savings pots to delivering actual pensions. CDCs are one of the ways—there are others—in which we can make progress on that. I therefore commend this instrument to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.

• 24 Nov 2025 · Draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Collective Money Purchase Schemes) (Extension to Unconnected Multiple Employer Schemes and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Collective Money Purchase Schemes) (Extension to Unconnected Multiple Employer Schemes and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2025. That should encourage enthusiasm from everyone. The primary purpose of the draft regulations is to extend the legal framework for collective money purchase schemes, commonly known as collective defined contribution schemes, to allow multiple unconnected employers to participate. Until now, CDC schemes have been restricted to single employers or connected employers. Significant progress has been made in getting more people saving, not least under the previous Conservative Government. We now have 23 million people saving into a workplace pension, but the job is not finished. Currently, pension contributions in defined contribution schemes are going into a savings pot, not a pension, leaving them exposed to the twin challenges of adequacy and risk. The Government believe that CDC schemes have an integral role in helping us address these challenges. The statutory instrument puts in place a number of key measures to ensure that unconnected multiple employer CDC schemes deliver for members. Part 2 of the statutory instrument amends the Pension Schemes Act 2021—we will be hearing more about that—to allow for unconnected multiple employer schemes and to broaden the range of organisations that can set up a CDC scheme. To become authorised, a scheme needs to satisfy the Pensions Regulator that it meets the authorisation criteria, which are listed in section 9(3) of the 2021 Act. Part 2 of the statutory instrument amends that Act to create additional authorisation criteria specifically for unconnected multiple employer collective money purchase schemes. We have identified persons who we consider will have an important role in such schemes, and we have brought these people within the scope of the fit and proper persons test, so that they are subject to appropriate scrutiny. It is imperative that our regulations clearly establish who is responsible for a scheme’s business strategy and financial sustainability, and that it is evidenced to the regulator at authorisation. Regulation 10 therefore amends the 2021 Act to require that an unconnected multiple employer CDC scheme has a single scheme proprietor that meets specific criteria and requirements. Regulation 10 also inserts a requirement for the scheme proprietor to prepare, maintain and submit a business plan to the regulator. The new legislative framework will permit schemes that intend to operate on a commercial basis. To mitigate the risks of schemes overpromising to gain a commercial advantage or mis-selling, we are introducing a promotion or marketing authorisation criterion. The requirement is that no person has carried out promotion or marketing of a scheme that is unclear or misleading without rectification, and that the scheme has adequate systems and processes for ensuring that promotion or marketing is clear and not misleading. We want trustees of these schemes to focus entirely on the interests of scheme members, and to have complete autonomy to do so. A trustee also acting as a person who promotes or markets the scheme, or as the chief financial officer for the scheme, detracts from this responsibility and creates a clear conflict of interest. Regulation 5 of the statutory instrument amends the 2021 Act to make a separation of these roles an authorisation criterion. It is the Government’s intention that running an unconnected multiple employer CDC scheme as a closed scheme should always be an option open to trustees, where it is viable to do so and to the extent that it is permitted under wider pensions legislation. Regulation 5 therefore inserts a new authorisation criterion into the 2021 Act to ensure that trustees can choose this option, if appropriate. To deter speculators, part 2 also imposes a mandatory deadline of 24 months from authorisation, by which an authorised unconnected multiple-employer CDC scheme must start being operated—it cannot sit there in abeyance. Part 3 of the statutory instrument supplements the meaning of “connected” in section 49(2)(a) of the 2021 Act—one of the better sections. This term is relevant for determining whether a collective money purchase scheme is a single and connected employer scheme or an unconnected multiple-employer scheme, and therefore which of the two legislatives frameworks applies to it. Part 4, including schedules 1 to 6, implements the new authorisation and supervisory regime for unconnected multiple employer collective money purchase schemes under part 1 of the 2021 Act. It includes regulations on the application for authorisation, scheme design, financial sustainability, the valuation and adjustment process essential to calculating benefits, and the supervisory regime, both at set up and on an ongoing basis. The new regime will continue to place strong emphasis on regulatory oversight. The Pensions Regulator is empowered to issue risk notices, approve and enforce continuity strategies and, ultimately, withdraw authorisation where schemes fail to meet the required standards. Part 5 of the instrument contains amendments to the Occupational Pension Schemes (Collective Money Purchase Schemes) Regulations 2022, introduced under the last Conservative Government, to ensure that certain aspects of the single or connected employer collective money purchase schemes regime are aligned with this new regime. Part 6 and schedule 7 make consequential amendments to other relevant primary and secondary legislation. Unconnected multiple employer CDC schemes are a welcome addition to the UK pensions landscape, as are CDC schemes more generally, as they have come forward on the basis of cross-party consensus over the past few years. When well designed and well run, which this instrument will ensure, they can help boost retirement incomes and benefit the wider economy. I comment the instrument to the Committee.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  The previous Labour Government cut child poverty significantly, and so will this one.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  What this Government have done to steady the markets is to kick the Conservatives out of office and leave them in opposition for years to come.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Regional Economic Growth: Pension Funds · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for his question. I agree with where he started, but unfortunately he then went on to praise some of the work done under the last Government, when we did not see the investment that he talks about coming through and reaching entrepreneurs, who he rightly says we should do more to support. That is what the Mansion House Accord, which we have now put in place and supported for the private sector, is doing, and what the British Business Bank is doing by bringing forward the British Growth Partnership. We need to see UK pension funds investing in our most innovative, fastest-growing companies.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Regional Economic Growth: Pension Funds · Hansard source

  More

  The LGPS actually has a strong track record of local investment of exactly the kind that my hon. Friend mentions, including in social housing, and we want to build on that record. The Pension Schemes Bill will introduce requirements for local government pension scheme pools to work with strategic authorities, including mayoral strategic authorities, on local investment opportunities— [Interruption.] Before they decided that full-time chuntering was their business of the day, I thought the Conservatives used to be in favour of that. With the highest sustained levels of public investment since the 1970s, Britain will get back in the business of investing in its future once again.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Regional Economic Growth: Pension Funds · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is always a powerful advocate, both for the fast-growing companies in his constituency and for the right pension policy for the UK as a whole, as we saw when he sat on the Pension Schemes Public Bill Committee. Sterling 20 is a new, investor-led partnership between the UK’s 20 largest pension funds and insurers. It was established at the regional investment summit in Birmingham on 21 October, and we are working closely with the partnership to deliver exactly the kind of investment that my hon. Friend talks about.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Regional Economic Growth: Pension Funds · Hansard source

  More

  No, not at all.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Regional Economic Growth: Pension Funds · Hansard source

  More

  I can reassure the hon. Member that we are scrapping the attitude of the Conservative party, which blocked any building from happening anywhere in this country year after year. Houses were blocked. Railways were blocked. Anything that involved any difficult choices was blocked by a party that gave up governing long before the general election.