Pension Schemes Bill Debate
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Amanda Martin
Main Page: Amanda Martin (Labour - Portsmouth North)Department Debates - View all Amanda Martin's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Pension Schemes Bill
Amanda Martin Excerpts(1 day, 11 hours ago)
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Torsten Bell
No, we have got some more. That was before Conservative Front-Bench Members—then in a less bonkers phase of life—nodded through the Bill, which they now claim is some kind of end-of-days Armageddon. Let us be reasonable.
Torsten Bell
No, I am going to finish.
Let us be reasonable. Maybe Conservative Front Benchers just needed some time to think about it. What happened at Third Reading? On that occasion we had the pleasure of the shadow Secretary of State—she had not quite got to the frothing phase of her development—saying that
“there is a lot in it that we do welcome”,
as it will
“help people to manage their pension savings and get better returns.”
She went on,
“so we will not be voting against the Bill”—[Official Report, 3 December 2025; Vol. 776, c. 1130-1131.]
We are now told it is an Armageddon Bill.
The shadow Secretary of State was right then, and she is ludicrously over the top now. The Bill puts savers’ interests first, as she well knows. She knows something else, which makes this faux crusading all the more embarrassing. Who are the politicians who have lobbied me to mandate pension scheme investment decisions? Tories. That has been mainly in private, so I will spare their blushes, but one ventured out into the open. The Leader of the Opposition’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), called me and others to a Westminster Hall debate just a few months ago. Why? Because he was worried about what he called my
“effort to hold back from mandation”.—[Official Report, 25 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 110WH.]
What was he worried about? That we were not doing enough to push pension savers into UK investments. That is the truth behind all the froth today. The Bill supports savers and focuses on driving up the returns on their savings, and even the most over-excited Opposition Members know that is the right thing to do.