Pension Fund Reliefs

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his question. I of course agree that adequacy is an absolutely essential part of the pensions landscape. That is what phase 2 of the pensions review is designed to look at. The scope and terms of reference for phase 2 will be published in due course, once we have made fuller progress with phase 1.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

Is the Minister aware that the resumption of investment flows into investment trusts requires investor confidence, including from pension funds, that the future regime will not repeat the mistakes of the past? How can that happen when the FCA consultation suggests reinstating aggregation of costs for investment trusts, which do not have consumer costs, and then not aggregating costs for ETFs, which do have such costs? Are the Government prepared to lose billions more over the next 18 months or more until the regulator gets it technically correct?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am aware of the issue that the noble Baroness raises, mainly because of her campaigning on it. I pay tribute to her and to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for their campaigning on this issue and for their Private Members’ Bills when we were in opposition, which I found extremely persuasive. I think we have made some progress since we have been in government. I regret that we are not able to go as far as the noble Baroness set out in her recent Private Member’s Bill right now, but we continue to review these issues and I thank her again for her campaigning.