Pension Schemes Bill

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted]

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendments 15 to 24, 27, 30 to 34, 36, 38 to 42, 83 and 88, do insist on its disagreement to Commons Amendments 88A and 88C, and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 88E to 88P to the words restored to the Bill by the Commons disagreement to Lords Amendments 15 to 24, 27, 30 to 34, 36, 38 to 42, 83 and 88.”

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation and for our meeting with her and the Pensions Minister yesterday. Small movements are better than none, but she will know from that conversation that, as regards the so-called reserve power, there is still a long way to go, and the House should be clear about the issues that remain. There are four in particular.

First is the principle of mandation, even if it is a reserve power to bring in mandation. The primacy of trustee fiduciary duty must be made clear. A structure that subordinates that duty is not acceptable, which means no mandation. Secondly, it is wholly unacceptable that the bar for trustees to decline to invest in the assets that the Government prefer is set higher than the fiduciary duty threshold, requiring trustees to prove material harm—which is a very high standard and probably impossible to do. What reward would the pension saver receive for taking that additional risk? The potential for higher returns alone is not sufficient, but that goes if mandation goes.

Thirdly, the Mansion House Accord has fiduciary duty and consumer duty embedded within it. If this clause is truly a back-up to that accord, it cannot set those duties aside and replace them with something else.

Fourthly, this whole part of the Bill, as the Minister has explained, is predicated upon an allegation of market failure. Were that not the case, I would maintain that competition law would come into play for policy co-ordination.

So what to do? The only logical conclusion is that mandation must go. That does not stop a nudge and monitoring approach—but no threatening reserve power or regulations, because that is coercive, like the debt collector who says they will break your arm, even if not right now. Supporting the Mansion House Accord should surely reference the enablers and caveats that are the fiduciary duty and consumer duty, as well as the government assistance with assets where appropriate.

As this whole project is, in effect, a competition law dispensation to permit co-ordinated policy action, it should be appropriately time limited—for example, to the end of the current Parliament, because that would also safeguard from what future Governments might do, which has been raised more than once. After that, the entire structure should fall away. If it needs replacing, that would be up to the subsequent Government.

Of course, as I have expressed all the way through, there must be no discrimination between investment vehicles, which we know is a Treasury plant, not an industry request, and an example embedded in the heart of the Bill of how highly inappropriate things can be imposed. It will come as no surprise that I will ask noble Lords once again to insist on our deletion and to disagree with the government amendment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Motion C because that deals with Amendment 35B, which I moved in the last round of ping-pong. I am delighted with the amendments that the Government have brought forward. I felt, during the process of Committee and Report, that I was banging my head against a brick wall every time I spoke—which was often—about innovation and competition. I did not think I was getting anything other than a headache. I am absolutely delighted, and I completely accept that the broader wording that the Government have put forward in their Amendments 35C and 35D is an improvement on what I had been arguing for, so I thank them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. I thank them for being very constructive in their engagements—possibly more so offstage than onstage, but I am always grateful for and will take whatever I can find. I thank in particular the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Noakes. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, knows now that I really was listening all the way through Committee and Report, even if there may have been times when—I am sorry—it looked like I was not; I shall work better on my nodding in future. I am really glad that she and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, are happy with where we have got to.

I will try to pick up on a few points. We have gone over them many times in debate, so I will not hold the House back in order to redo them all over again, tempting though that is. I turn first to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux. I think the problem is that we have started in the middle of the argument. The diversification of portfolios is critical to reducing risk. There is clear international evidence that a small investment in productive finance, in the context of a diversified portfolio, brings better returns. That is demonstrable. We have to admit that most mass-market DC schemes have little or no private markets in their default funds, and that is very much in contrast to the position in many other countries. So the starting point is that it is reasonable to assume, as the evidence would suggest, that it is better for savers for that to happen.

However, we do want safeguards around this, and what the noble Lord described is one of the safeguards. If this power were ever to be used—it is a reserve power, so the Government do not expect it to be used—a report would have to be commissioned to look at the impact of doing so on savers as well as the broader economy, to establish what would happen. Then, despite all that, if trustees believed, knowing their savers and membership, that it would not be in their interests because of some reason—for example, even if it might broadly be in their interests but it would not be in their savers’ interests—not only can they make an application for an exemption under the savers’ interest test but we would expect the fiduciary duty to drive them to do so. The test is designed to be capable of being passed, not just failed. I understand the noble Lord’s position, but that is the Government’s position.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, asked about the timing: why should it not stop in this Parliament? We have talked about the power stopping in 2032, but the Mansion House Accord has until 2030 to happen, and this Parliament, I am sorry to say, is due to finish before that. Would that it could continue—no, I will not go in that direction; it will get badly reported. We think, that if the power were ever used, there would have to be enough time to see its impact before bringing it to an end. The sunset date of 2032 seems a reasonable starting point and that, I hope, is something that she can appreciate.

A question was asked about collective action, which we have been around several times. The Government have set out the arguments that the view on collective action failure in the market is not just ours; the industry has made this really clear. When the Mansion House compact—the predecessor to the Mansion House Accord—published its collective assessment of progress two years into its assessment, it identified this dynamic of competitive pressure focusing the market on minimising cost as the single biggest barrier to delivering on its own commitments. We have been here before; it has been tried on a voluntary measure and failed, and industry identified this as the single biggest barrier. That is why we are addressing this and that is the reason for doing it.

I can reassure my noble friend Lord Davies that the OBR will continue to produce long-term forecasts of the economy, which will provide a context for the figures that are being made. I am grateful to him for asking about it.

Finally, to describe the changes the Government have made as small is unreasonable. I remind the House what this now is: this provision, the reserve power, is now capped at the same rate as the accord. It cannot be used to compel investment in a single, hand-picked asset class. The headline percentage can be set only once. The power lapses in 2032 if not used and, if it were ever used, the entire regime is repealed at the end of 2035—every element is taken off the statute book. Those are significant movements. The Government have listened. The Commons has twice sent this back; it wants this in the Bill, so we should give it to the Commons. I urge the House to agree.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have contributed. As the Minister said, we have been around the arguments many times, so I will be brief. This was sold as a backstop to the accord, so it is not a case for celebration when something that bit off a lot more than the accord is brought a bit more closely into alignment with it. The fact is that the reserve power is coercive—that is what it is there for and what it is meant to do. It is not without effect, yet it was not consulted on. It was sprung on us suddenly and snuck into the Bill, and we have had to deal with it.

I was interested in the tax advantage point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but these are the least well-off pensioners who are going to be asked to put more into risky assets. Should they not get an extra slice of tax relief, then? All the people who are in safe, defined benefit schemes and those kinds of things where they are not at risk get a tax advantage too. It is not a runner.

I come back to the basic point, which relates to fiduciary duty and the best interests of pensioners in what is their money. Bear in mind that the point has been raised—I am not sure whether it has ever been answered—about the human rights aspect of diverting some of the pensions. We could go on a lot longer— I hope we do not—but I regret that I must test the opinion of the House.