Milburn Review: Interim Report

Helen Whately Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement on the publication of the Milburn report on young people and work.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)]

Last week, Alan Milburn produced a powerful report on the crisis of opportunity facing young people. The Secretary of State asked him to lead this work because it is a crisis that has been ignored for far too long. Far too many young people are leaving education and not getting the chance to work. The human and financial impact on individuals can last a lifetime, and the economic costs are significant. It is clear that this is not a feature of the last year or two but a deep-seated and long-term issue.

Unlike the Conservatives, we will not stand back and abandon young people in the face of this crisis. During their last few years in power, the number of young people not in education, employment or training rose by a quarter of a million—a shameful legacy. Rather than holding young people in contempt, we believe in them. We are making opportunity for young people a national cause. We have begun with the youth guarantee, more work experience, workplace training and apprenticeships, hiring bonuses for employers who take on young people in regular or apprenticeship roles, and subsidised employment for young people who remain out of work for 18 months. That means, in total, half a million opportunities for young people to work, train or undertake apprenticeships.

We have undertaken welfare reform to remove barriers in the benefits system that trap young people. We have changed the law so that claimants on sickness and disability benefits have the right to try work without the fear of automatically triggering a benefit reassessment. We have narrowed the gap between the health element and the standard allowance—a perverse incentive of the last Government’s making—and we are investing in genuinely personalised employment support.

We have made a good start, but last week’s interim report is a call to action. That is why this Government are putting work and opportunity at the heart of everything we do, and we will go even further as Alan Milburn comes forward with his final report and recommendations.

[Helen Whately]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question. It is a shame that the Minister had to be dragged here. Last week, the Secretary of State was only too eager to talk about this report on the telly. Where is he today? Why so quiet now? I think we all know.

The Secretary of State has been caught out telling the devastating truth about Labour MPs:

“who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”?

That is what Labour MPs really think, and that is what the Government have done. They have put up people’s taxes, spent more on benefits and left hard-working people with less to live off.

Once again, Labour’s shenanigans are getting in the way of something we really should be talking about. Every morning, a million young people wake up in Britain with nothing to do and nowhere to go. This is a disaster for our country, our economy and, worst of all, for all those young people: Labour’s lost generation. The Minister said that it started under us—yes, the numbers did start going up from the pandemic, so this was not a surprise for Ministers—yet here we are after almost two years of Labour in office and it still has no plan. All it has done is make the situation worse, and of course commission this big report.

I welcome Alan Milburn’s contribution—it is a serious analysis—but Milburn himself says it is just a diagnosis; there are no solutions, actual answers or policies. In fact, he even tells us that the things the Government have been doing—their “piecemeal” programmes—are not going to work. He also says that after six months of inactivity, young people are far less likely ever to work. This is urgent, but where is Labour’s urgency?

This is not the first time Labour has let down young people: the number of NEETs soared to 17% after Labour’s last stint in government. The Conservatives turned that around to less than 10% in 2019. Of course, covid undermined that progress, but the Labour Government have turned a post-pandemic problem into a crisis by taxing jobs, tying up businesses in red tape, making it riskier and more expensive to hire a young person, and destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs in retail and hospitality. Like many young people, one of my first jobs was working in a local pub, but Labour has pulled the plug on that opportunity for this generation.

Whenever we do get to hear Labour’s plans, we know what they will be: spending more money and taxing people more to pay for it. That is the wrong answer. The answer is jobs, to back businesses, to cut taxes, to get rid of red tape, to get government out of the way and to reform welfare—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. You get two minutes. [Interruption.] Yes, it is two minutes, and it has always been two minutes. I have not changed the rules. When I grant an urgent question, please stick within the rules. That helps me, because we have said that we will try to adhere to that.

Getting Britain Working Again

Helen Whately Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I respect the Secretary of State. He has talked at some length about what is wrong with the welfare system, but the fact is that there is no welfare Bill in the King’s Speech. I reckon he is stuck between a rock and a hard place: he knows the benefits bill is out of control; he knows that the public are sick of seeing their taxes go on ever higher welfare handouts; he even knows how the savings could be made because I have told him [Laughter.] They are laughing, but they are the problem. The Secretary of State also knows that the MPs behind him will have none of it. With the Prime Minister clinging on by a thread, no wonder there was no welfare Bill in the King’s Speech.

Here is the problem: failure to grip welfare puts the Government dangerously out of touch with people out there—the people he, I and all of us are here to serve. Let me read from an email that I received recently from a constituent; I will call her Sandra. She says:

“I am writing to you with utter frustration. We work so hard and for what? What is the point of working please tell me. To watch everyone else do nothing and get paid more than you! I’ve done the benefit calculation online and I’d be better off quitting my job…I’d be better off getting universal credit…how is that normal or fair?”

My constituent is far from alone. I have heard that feeling expressed time and again since I have been shadow Secretary of State—on the doorsteps, in the pub, in the supermarket, on the train and all over social media. Beyond Westminster, people are despairing. Family breadwinners are losing their jobs, homes are being sold to pay the bills and young people are losing hope. Millions have drifted out of work, and for many, claiming benefits simply makes more sense.

For those who are working, each month they are seeing their earnings disappearing in higher taxes and higher bills, with nothing left over. No wonder they are fed up. People who are doing the right thing are paying for people who have opted out. And what is Labour doing about it? Absolutely nothing. The Government are making a big mistake because the bald fact is that alarm- clock Britain is sick of paying out for “Benefits Street”.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful case, but her party was the future once, so why were all the challenges that she identifies not fixed when the Conservatives were in government? They were the ones who set up and built this welfare system.

[Helen Whately]

I hate to tell the hon. Gentleman, but Labour is in charge now. It has had nearly two years and nothing is changing.

You do not have to take my word for it, Madam Deputy Speaker; here are the numbers. Over 8 million people are claiming universal credit, almost 4 million people are claiming sickness benefits and over 600,000 households are getting over £32,000 a year in benefits. That is more than the take-home pay of the average British worker. Ninety-one thousand households are getting over £50,000, which is enough to put them in the top 10% of our nation’s earners, and 16,000 are getting over £60,000 in benefits every single year. A person who works would have to earn over £70,000 to have that. All that is costing the country £140 billion a year. People know when they are being taken for a ride.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister had a chance—one last chance—to hit reset, reverse those trends, get people off benefits and bring down the welfare bill. But with his back against the wall, it is no surprise that the Prime Minister’s King’s Speech contained none of that. While hundreds of thousands of people struggle to find work, the Prime Minister is only interested in protecting one job: his own. Yes, the Secretary of State can claim that he is doing something—his work experience programmes, his youth schemes, the savings-free Timms review and all that—but we all know that that is just tinkering at the edges.

The Government tried welfare reform last summer and failed. Now, they have given up altogether. They had no plan when they got into office and they still have no plan now, and that matters. For every day of inaction, hard-working taxpayers pay the price. Doing nothing costs money. The welfare bill will reach £170 billion by the end of the decade and that money could be so much better spent on things such as defence or making our streets safer or—think of this—it could be left in people’s pockets for them to spend.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

rose—

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman wants me to give way. Does he have a welfare savings plan? If so, let us hear it.

[Sam Rushworth]

I certainly do. It is this Labour Government and it is getting people off NHS waiting lists and back into work. However, it is not for me to answer the questions; my intervention was simply to give the hon. Lady another opportunity to answer the question that was put to her by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) and which she did not really answer. This broken system that she described as “Benefits Street” is a system that the Conservatives created. Why, in 14 years, did they do nothing about it? It is easy to create political anger, rather than to have dealt with it, and that is why this Government are now dealing with the Conservatives’ mess?

[Helen Whately]

Oh dear; what a shame. There were no ideas for savings there at all. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that will get him a job under the next Labour leader, I am afraid that he will have to keep trying.

Labour claims to be the party of working people, but the facts do not back that up. Labour always leaves office with unemployment higher than when it arrives, and it is on track to do that again. There are now over 300,000 more people unemployed than when this Government came to power. Their policies—the jobs tax, the Employment Rights Act—have actively killed jobs. Now, as mentioned in yesterday’s King’s Speech, we have the regulating for growth Bill. You couldn’t make it up.

Employers are being asked to swim against the tide with bricks in their pockets, and now the Government are planning to make it worse. Many businesses have stopped hiring; others are letting people go. Businesses tell me that they are getting hundreds of applications for jobs that they might have struggled to fill a couple of years ago. No wonder that there are 700,000 graduates on out-of-work benefits. Youth unemployment is at over 14%. This is a disaster.

Young people want to get their lives going, earn money, pay their own way, save for a car; instead, hundreds of thousands are stuck. The Secretary of State knows that. That is why he has frantically announced a flurry of schemes at the cost of £2.5 billion. Obviously, a work placement is better than nothing, but the young people I speak to want jobs, not Government-funded work experience.

Less than two years ago, the country voted us out and Labour Members in. They have laughed and jeered at us, but they are not laughing now because they have found out that governing is hard. They promised voters change, but the only change that most people have seen is that they are poorer. Who knows what they got up to in opposition? Clearly, it was not working out what they would do if they won the election. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is chuntering. I know that yesterday he called the Leader of the Opposition “rude” when, actually, she was just telling the truth. He does not like to hear the truth. Maybe he should do a little less talking from the Front Bench and a little more listening.

Being in power is not an end in itself; what matters is what someone does with the power that voters trust them with. I am sure that many of those on the Government Benches care about our country, but caring is not enough. The question is: what are they going to do to fix it? If the King’s Speech that we are debating today tells us anything, it is that they do not know. The only things they can think of will make the situation worse; and on welfare, they have given up.

I believe in learning lessons whenever one can. One lesson that Labour Members should learn is to make good use of time in opposition; work hard, think hard and make a plan. That is what we have been doing, and that is why we have been able to set out an alternative King’s Speech, which has more in it than the actual King’s Speech. Take our plans for welfare—and to be clear, these are just our plans so far. We have a plan to reform welfare and make £23 billion in savings. We will bring back the two-child benefit cap, stop handouts to foreign nationals, stop sickness benefits for anxiety and ADHD, bring back face-to-face assessments, ban “sickfluencers”, reform fit notes and restore the household benefit cap to its original purpose of ensuring work always pays better than benefits. No more gaming the system, no more free cars for tennis elbow or acne—Britain will no longer be a cash machine for the world.

People have had enough. They can see our welfare system is not working. It is not even working for people who are seriously ill or disabled. We are not keeping our plan secret; it is all out there. Other parties are adopting our policies. Reform, for instance, has not been shy about doing so, although it has been confused, and its Members are not here today. The Secretary of State should feel free to do so too, and though the MPs behind him will hate it, we are here to help.

This is the most surreal King’s Speech debate I have ever taken part in. People out there are angry, frustrated and fed up. They can see the country is not working. They want the Government to fix it, but Labour are too busy working out who should be in charge. The saddest thing is that it will not make a difference. They can change their team captain, but they are still the same team. I have heard them cheer on taxes for farmers, family businesses and schools. I have heard them cheer for lifting the two-child cap. I have heard them argue against welfare savings. They think you fix poverty by giving out free breakfasts, paid for by people who are struggling to pay the bills themselves. Labour’s answer is always the same: tax more and spend more of other people’s money, and it is the wrong answer.

Sometimes in life you have to pick a side. We have picked one: we are on the side of people who get up each day and go to work. They are doing the right thing, and we back them. Sometimes things go wrong and people need help. That is why welfare should be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. Labour have made their choice: it is to carry on as if nothing is wrong. Yesterday’s King’s Speech was a chance to fix things, and they blew it.

Pension Schemes Bill

Helen Whately Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 28th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Let me begin by welcoming the Minister back to his place—we missed him last night, and it is good to see him back in the Chamber.

Throughout our many debates, we have broadly agreed on the policy intent behind most of the Bill, but as I have said time and again, agreement on the principles of a Bill is not the same as offering the Minister unqualified support for every measure in it, particularly the power contained in clause 40, the power of mandation—or the reserve power, as the Chief Secretary calls it—which enables Ministers to instruct pension funds where to invest. When the Bill was first introduced, that mandation power was truly breathtaking in its scope. It was extraordinary—an unconstrained power that would have allowed the Secretary of State access to 100% of at least £400 billion-worth of auto-enrolment default pension funds. It would have allowed Ministers to direct their investment in whatever way they saw fit.

What happened the moment that became clear to people? Members sitting opposite and, indeed, behind me—not least those in Reform UK—were already queuing up with pet projects and struggling sectors. They thought that savers’ money should be used for net zero schemes, steel and renationalising water. They were not proposing those measures on the grounds of the return on investment for savers, and the income that they would generate for people’s later life; that much is obvious. But we said no—no to politicians having that power, no to Ministers directing pension savings into their pet projects, and no to overriding the interests of savers in favour of politicians desperate for access to capital.

I was clear from the outset that the power was dangerous and had no place in the Bill. After sustained pressure from the industry, from the other place and from this side of the House, the Government have, very slowly, been forced to row back. They have rowed back from a power grab that threatened trust in auto-enrolment pensions and risked damaging savers’ retirement incomes. Let us be clear about what those concessions amount to. First, on allocation limits, the original Bill contained no cap whatsoever on how much of a saver’s pension could be mandated into specified assets. Now, after pressure, the Government have imposed hard limits. No more than 10% of a default fund may be directed into qualifying assets, and no more than 5% may be directed specifically into UK assets. That is a major retreat from the original proposal.

Secondly, on sunset and single-use restrictions, the Government have brought forward the expiry date of the reserve power to 2032, if unused. They will repeal the whole regime by 2035 unless it is renewed by fresh primary legislation, and have limited the core mandation power so that it can be exercised only once—another retreat. Thirdly, the scope has been narrowed. Mandation can now apply only to the main default auto-enrolment fund, not the entire pension scheme or every pot—again, another retreat.

Today we have had further concessions. The Government now accept that before this power can be exercised, regulators must conduct an independent assessment of whether a genuine collective action problem exists—whereby no one wants to be the first mover—and whether that problem is inhibiting investment in private markets. We have been consistent in our view that mandation is not the right solution, but we accept that requiring independent assessment before the power can be exercised is a safeguard against ministerial overreach, and I appreciate the Pensions Minister’s assurances from the Dispatch Box on the weight of evidence required. The Government have also accepted that the reserve power cannot be used before 2028—again, another retreat.

The Government have further strengthened the savers’ interest test following yesterday’s amendment. Schemes will no longer have to prove that compliance would likely cause “material financial detriment”. Instead, they need only demonstrate that compliance is likely not to be in the best interests of members, thereby aligning the test with trustees’ existing fiduciary duties. That matters, because fiduciary duty is sacrosanct and must be protected. Nothing is more important in a modern pension system than the duty to act solely in the best interests of savers. That duty is the foundation on which trust in our pension system rests. This amendment means that in a conflict between mandation and fiduciary duty, fiduciary duty wins—again, another important retreat. Finally, the Government have agreed to remove discrimination between investment vehicles by clarifying that both direct and indirect holdings in the relevant asset classes count towards compliance—the final retreat.

Every one of those changes tells the same story: the Government introduced a power that was too broad, too vague and too dangerous. Step by step, and under pressure, they have been forced to narrow it, constrain it and hedge it with safeguards. Why? Because the original power was indefensible, and because the Government knew that the concerns were real. The work that we have done has obliterated the Government’s original proposal. As it stands now, the mandation power looks nothing like how it was first imagined. What began as a sweeping ministerial power grab has been stripped back, pared down and boxed in on all sides. Only now, after our intervention, has it become at least palatable. It is a vestige of its former overmighty self—a shrivelled husk.

Let me be clear: we do not believe that the Government should direct private capital, or that Ministers should interfere in investment decisions that are properly left to trustees and markets. Here we have Labour doing what it always does: thinking that the Government are the answer, with the state going where it has no place to go. When the Conservatives return to government, we will remove mandation from the statute book entirely, because at the heart of this policy lies a dangerous assumption that Ministers in Whitehall know better than trustees, fund managers and markets on how to invest the public’s pension savings. I have yet to meet anyone who wants a politician managing their pension, and pensions belong to the people who earn them, not Government Ministers. It is as simple as that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Whately Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I was disappointed that the Secretary of State did not answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), so let me help him. Unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds is at 14.3%—that means that one in seven young people is unemployed. There are thousands fewer jobs and thousands fewer vacancies under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government. I speak to young people across the country, who tell me that it is desperately difficult to get a job, and it is no wonder. His Government have made it much harder for businesses to employ people, especially young people.

I appreciate that the Secretary of State may be trying his best with his plethora of work schemes, but they are just a sticking plaster for the damage that the Chancellor has wreaked. Governments do not create jobs; businesses do. His Government need to change tack and back businesses to create opportunities for the next generation. I am on their side—isn’t he? Will he help the Chancellor understand before it is too late?

[Pat McFadden]

The hon. Lady neglected to mention that youth unemployment never recovered to levels enjoyed under the last Labour Government at any point during the Conservative party’s time in power; it was exacerbated during their last few years in particular. The difference is that we are responding with the initiatives that I have set before the House today. That is because we believe that work is the best answer and the best opportunity for young people. I will keep going, to give young people hope and opportunity because that is what this Labour Government stand for.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Mr Speaker,

“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”.

That is the view of the author of the Government’s strategic defence review, the Labour peer, former Labour Defence Secretary and former Secretary-General of NATO Lord Robertson. Which will the Secretary of State choose: defending the country or paying people not to work?

[Pat McFadden]

The Conservative party failed to reform welfare and failed to back our defence forces—it left the armed forces at their smallest size since Napoleonic times—and it says that there is a choice. The truth is, the Conservatives did neither of those things; we are doing both. We are increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP—something they never achieved, despite inheriting that level from us when they took office—and we are reforming welfare by putting work and opportunity at the heart of everything we do.

[Helen Whately]

Let us put some facts on the table, because it is time for the Government to confront the hard choices. We are spending less than 2.5% of GDP on defence, but 5.3% of GDP on welfare. Six million people of working age are living on benefits. Under the Secretary of State’s Government, over a million more people have gone on to universal credit and hundreds of thousands have gone on to sickness benefits—and the Government are choosing to spend even more by scrapping the two-child cap. We cannot go on like this. When will he and the current Prime Minister come forward with a plan to bring the welfare bill down? Or is it like with Sir Olly Robbins: another topic where his judgment and the Prime Minister’s differ?

[Pat McFadden]

The shadow Secretary of State said that she wanted some facts, so let me give her some facts. The Tories inherited spending on defence at 2.5% of GDP; they left office with it lower. They left the Army at its smallest in two centuries, and they cut the number of frigates and destroyers by 25%. It is the Labour Government who are increasing expenditure on defence. It is the Labour Government who are reforming welfare, including the changes in universal credit this month, and the youth employment initiatives that we have talked about throughout these questions.

Pension Schemes Bill

Helen Whately Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

First, may I thank the hon. Gentleman for opening this evening’s debate, and for setting out the latest Government amendments, in place of the Pensions Minister? These ping-pong sessions with the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell) have become a regular in my diary, and I will miss him this evening.

When this Bill was introduced last summer, we said that much of it was a sensible step forward that built on the work of the previous Conservative Government. We stand by that view, but supporting the broad direction of a Bill does not mean unqualified support for its every provision. Throughout its passage, we have challenged the Government on the local government pension scheme, on member communications and on the scale requirements in the Bill, but you will be pleased to know that those debates are behind us, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Today, there is just one issue left: mandation, or, as the Government prefer to call it, the reserve power—a power that sat in clause 40 until the noble Lords once again removed it from the Bill last Wednesday. The Government’s case for this power is straightforward: they want more pension investment in private markets and, by extension, more pension investment in the UK. That was the ambition behind the Mansion House accord, and it is an ambition that we share. We want to see the accord succeed, we want more productive investment, and we want pension capital to work harder for savers, but although the ambition is right, this policy is not. Mandation is the wrong lever to achieve those aims.

As the House has heard from me and my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) at each stage of this Bill, mandation is flawed both in principle and in practice. The Government may call it a reserve power, but everyone knows what it is: a threat hanging over pension schemes if they do not fall into line. The Mansion House accord was a voluntary agreement built on trust, with mutual commitments between industry and the Government. Mandation replaces trust with a threat in law. Why would the pension sector, or in fact any sector, ever try to come together and agree a voluntary pact with the Government again if it is hammered into law a few months later?

Mandation puts in statute a power that, though more limited in its current manifestation, could be put to all manner of uses. It cuts across the fundamental duty of trustees to act in the best interests of savers; instead, that duty is trumped by Government requirements in law. It means that pension savings, or a share of them, will be put to work to serve the interests of the Government, not the interests of the saver who wants their pension to provide them with a decent income in later life. Perhaps most seriously of all, mandation risks undermining public trust in the pension system. That is why the power is not just unnecessary; it is dangerous and has no place in this Bill.

I will now turn to the Government’s latest amendments on mandation that are before us today, which apply to the so-called savers’ interest test. At the moment, if a pension scheme believes that complying with the Government’s mandation power would not be in the members’ interests, it may apply for an exemption, but to secure one, it must show that compliance would cause “material financial detriment” for members. That is an extraordinarily high bar. The Government have heard the concerns raised in this House and the other place, particularly by Lady Bowles, and have now brought forward further amendments.

The Minister told us that the amendments will strengthen the exemption process. Well, they do make it slightly easier for schemes to argue that a mandated investment allocation may damage returns. Instead of having to prove that mandation “would” cause material financial detriment, schemes will now need to show that such detriment is just “likely”—we have gone from “would” to “likely”. Frankly, if the Minister thinks that this one-word change offers a truly robust safeguard, I urge him to think again.

The need for these amendments tells its own story: the Government accept that mandation risks conflicting with the duties that trustees and pension providers owe to savers. If no such conflict existed, there would be no need at all for an exemption process. The right to appeal, enhanced through today’s amendments, demonstrates that Ministers accept that mandation may force schemes away from doing what is in their members’ best interests. Under the amended Bill, schemes must still prove likely financial harm before they are allowed to do what is best for savers. That misunderstands the principle at the heart of fiduciary duty. Trustees should not need state approval to act in the best interests of their members. These amendments just tinker at the margins; they do not fix the flaw in the policy.

I have been talking in somewhat technical terms, but I want to remind the House of the consequences of what we are talking about. If the Government push pension schemes into the wrong investments, those investments underperform and savers end up with weaker returns, who carries the can? Not the Minister, who has stepped in valiantly today, and not the Government, who legislated for this power. It will be pensioners, who will retire with less. Let us remember whose pensions we are talking about here. Who is most likely to suffer if the Government turn out to be a poor asset manager? The millions of workers who contribute via auto-enrolment—people who have never chosen an investment strategy, but who trust pension providers to do the right thing on their behalf.

Those people are not poring over fund fact sheets; they are getting on with work and supporting themselves and their families, hoping that one day they will be able to retire with financial security. This policy asks those savers to place their trust not in pension managers, but in Government Ministers. In doing so, it risks undermining the very trust on which auto-enrolment depends. We can debate whether the level of auto-enrolment is right, but no one challenges whether it is a good thing overall. Yet the Government are putting at risk this success story, around which there has been great political consensus, and the consequences do not stop with pension savers.

What signal does this send to the wider investment community? We hear that major City reforms are to come in the King’s Speech, but will the market really greet those reforms with confidence if this Bill becomes law with mandation in it? Confidence would be created if investors could see that the Government are committed to making the UK a good place to invest in. Mandation sends the opposite message. It tells people that we have a Government who are prepared to go where the UK state does not usually go: to get involved in the allocation of private capital. It tells people that the Government will take a shortcut to getting investment in the UK by forcing pension schemes to do so, rather than fixing the underlying problems. I do not think that the Minister’s colleagues have really thought this through. The easy answer is rarely the right answer.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us at an impasse, with agreement on the diagnosis but profound disagreement on the prescription. We all want more pension investment in the UK, and the Conservatives support moving from a focus on cost to a focus on value. We support removing barriers to the Mansion House accord, but there is no consensus for state compulsion. Pensions belong to the people who earn them, not Ministers. I have yet to find anyone who wants to trust a politician with their hard-earned pension savings, but that is exactly what the Government are trying to force on the country’s savers through this Bill.

Today the Minister finds himself tasked with defending the indefensible, and one provision is preventing an otherwise good Bill from passing. The Government amendments make mandation less bad, but if something is wrong in principle, it does not become right in smaller doses. I leave the Government with one simple message: remove mandation, and the job is done—this Bill will pass.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Western]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but that is not going to happen. We have to deal with the collective action problem that we are facing, to ensure that providers can move forward with the commitments that they have made. The power gives them assurance, but we hope that we will never need to use the power. The fact of the matter is that the industry requires that certainty; without it, it will not be able to move forward, given the collective action problem that exists. That point has been accepted by the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman is quoting selectively from a letter that I have written to the industry. We had this exact debate with the Pensions Minister last week. There is an acknowledged and debated collective action problem; on that, there is a level of consensus, but there is no consensus that mandation is the right answer. In fact, there is a consensus in the sector that mandation is the wrong answer. This Bill contains measures that will make a difference, and will go towards fixing this collective action problem, such as the value for money framework. The Mansion House accord was only signed last year, and the Government should give it time to work. We do not need mandation in this Bill.

[Andrew Western]

On the consensus in the industry, I say to the hon. Lady that it wants this Bill done and taken through this House. Tonight’s amendments make the savers’ interest test easier to pass, create a lower threshold for an exemption, and give certainty that the exemption will be granted where the threshold is met, with due regard being paid to the scheme’s assessment. Reasons for any refusal will be set out.

The House has now considered this Bill three times. On each occasion, it has endorsed the Government’s position. We have listened to the concerns raised in the other place, and we have responded with numerous material changes to the primary legislation across three rounds. The power is capped, neutral across asset classes, restricted to a single use, completely sunsetted in 2035 and subject to a savers’ interest test that tonight’s amendments have materially strengthened.

The TUC has said that it is “vital” that this Bill passes. Age UK has said that the measures in this Bill

“will help both today’s and tomorrow’s pensioners”.

The industry wants to get on with implementing these reforms. The Association of British Insurers and its members have said the same. They have welcomed the safeguards that the Government have put in place on the reserve power. It is time to get this Bill passed, and I commend the Government’s position to the House.

Question put.

Pension Schemes Bill

Helen Whately Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

What a difference a week makes. When the hon. Gentleman rose to conclude our debate last Wednesday, he delivered from the Dispatch Box what I can only describe as a tirade. Serious and considered concerns—not just from me and my hon. Friends, but from noble Lords and many respected people across the industry—were met with accusations. We were told that those concerns were “nonsense on stilts”. He said that I had been “infected” by my party. If by that he meant that I have strong opinions—that I believe in a smaller state because Governments do not have all the answers and often need to get out of the way—then I must break the news to him that I have held those views for many years. I came to Parliament after a career in business. I knew my views then, and I still know them now.

Last week I thought that the Minister could and should do better, and I am glad that since then he has. His tone has shifted, and I am grateful for the discussions he has had with me and my team. His engagement has been constructive, and we have indeed made progress.

Turning to the amendments tabled since our last debate, I first welcome the Government’s commitment on the local government pension scheme. A faster and wider review of the triennial valuation by the Government Actuary’s Department is sensible and significant. If the review is to be meaningful, it must focus on what actually drives employer contribution rates, and we welcome that the Government have now recognised that.

Secondly, the Government have committed, in their amendment in lieu of Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s amendment 77, to examine the costs and sustainability of public sector pensions. That too is welcome. That review should consider questions of intergenerational fairness, long-term sustainability and how best to protect the benefits already promised to people, particularly at a time when demands on the state are rising and taxpayers are being asked to contribute more than ever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liam Byrne]

I rise to say a couple of things in support of the Minister, who not only has done a heroic job in laying out the intellectual architecture for the legislation before he got to the House, but is so expertly steering it through the House. I wish him all the very best this afternoon in finishing the job.

I want to make three points. First, the measures that the Minister has set out are essential if we are to pursue the long-term interests of pension savers in this country. It is in their fundamental interests that they live and retire in an economy that is growing faster in the years to come. The only way in which we can collectively achieve that is by raising the investment rate in this country. For a long time, our investment rate was the lowest in the G7; it is improving and is now the second-lowest in the G7. It is for exactly that purpose that hon. Members on both sides of the House made the argument that we need to repatriate investment saving.

The fact is, we have got to resolve the paradox that, on the one hand, we have £3 trillion-worth of pension savings and, on the other hand, while we have some of the world’s best life science, best universities and best entrepreneurs, we do not have the investment institutions and systems that connect long-term savings to that brilliant tradition of entrepreneurial genius. Unless we fix that long-standing paradox, this country will not grow faster. That is not a Labour analysis; it is an analysis that was first advanced by the former Conservative Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt).

If we manage to get that right, the investment rate in the country will go up and the economy will grow faster in the years to come. Therefore, there is not a cost to the savings of Britain’s pension savers—it will actually be to their advantage.

[Helen Whately]

As I think the right hon. Gentleman will have heard in my speech, there is widespread agreement that we want to see more investment by pension funds in the UK; the debate is about whether mandation is the way to achieve that. Actually the Minister’s main argument for the mandation powers is not about investment in the UK; it is about solving a collective action first-mover problem in trying to improve returns and the risk that that will put up costs to pension funds and for savers. That is what he’s really arguing, rather than the point made by the right hon. Gentleman about investment in the UK.

[Liam Byrne]

I am grateful for that intervention, because the hon. Lady made my second point for me. It is just not good enough to will the ends and not the means. The reality is that, after all the heroic work of the former Conservative Chancellor, built on ably by the current Chancellor of the Exchequer to advance the Mansion House accord and the Sterling 20, the repatriation of long-term savings into our country is going at a snail’s pace. If we want to deliver it by a timetable on which we are both agreed, we will need to give a little bit of encouragement to the industry. That is exactly what the Minister’s proposed provision would do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Torsten Bell]

I fear the hon. Lady has not sat through enough of these sessions. Earlier, those on her own Front Bench engaged exactly with some of the arguments that I have made, explaining exactly the points she has raised. I will just say that she should go and have a look at what Australian pension schemes are doing investing in UK infrastructure and go and look at what is happening when US investors are investing in UK venture capital. Why is that happening? It is not because of differential tax breaks—there are very strong tax incentives. No, it is because of a history of not having the collective action problem that we have set out, and the fact that those on the Conservative Front Bench do not wish to engage with that is holding us back.

[Helen Whately]

On the ABI report that he referred to—he has referred to it before—yes, the ABI has agreed with the diagnosis of the problem, as I set out, as a collective action problem. However, it does not agree with mandation as the remedy. The Minister needs to be clear about that.

[Torsten Bell]

The truth is that there is a range of opinion among ABI members about that. However, there is agreement across the industry about the need to deliver change.

I turn to some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) who, again, kindly did not refer to the Lib Dem manifesto, which called not just for reserve power, but for the direction of pension scheme assets into certain asset classes. I gently say that it is a shame to not see him engage with the substance, rather than taking the easy option of offering high-level, throwaway comments about a thing that he had in his own manifesto. On the plus side, however, he is right to say that the investment pipeline is important. The issue there is that that is different in different sectors. Within the infrastructure sector, it is obviously about having a country that is delivering actual infrastructure. Within venture capital, it is about making sure that there is easier intermediation for pension schemes into a market of which they have less experience. We are doing exactly that and that is what the Sterling 20 process is doing. I see very good engagement between pension schemes right across the board on that and every chief executive I speak to is engaging with exactly those questions that the hon. Member for Torbay raises.

The Bill has received detailed scrutiny over the past year, and it is a better Bill for it. We have brought forward amendments that, subject to delivering the core pension reform programme of the elected Government, respond to the detailed points raised by peers in the other place. With those improvements, this is a Bill that industry worker representatives and charities wish to see passed into law. The TUC said:

“It’s vital the Bill is passed so workers can start to benefit.”

Age UK has said the measures in the Bill will help both the pensioners of today and the pensioners of tomorrow. It is important that these can be implemented as soon as possible. Aviva welcomed today’s amendments and said:

“We hope this is enough to build the consensus needed for the Bill to be passed”.

The ABI has said that it and its members are

“clear that we want the Bill to pass”.

They are right, and I commend the Government’s position to the House.

Question put.

--- Later in debate ---

That this House insists on its disagreement with Lords amendments 77 and 85 but proposes amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.—(Torsten Bell.)

[Helen Whately]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The last Division we voted on was on a motion proposed by the Government that grouped a series of amendments with which we agreed, alongside amendments on mandation, with which we had strong disagreements. What steps can be taken to bring about a separate Division on the mandation clauses, with which we disagree?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I thank the hon. Member for her point of order. The content of the motions is a matter for the Government. I can reassure her that they would not have appeared on the Order Paper unless they were in order. Those on the Government Front Bench have heard what she has said. If she would like any further advice on procedure, I recommend that she contact the Public Bill Office.

Pension Schemes Bill

Helen Whately Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Who knew that the Pension Schemes Bill would become so controversial? It is a Bill on which there was so much consensus; a Bill begun by one party in government and now being continued by another; a Bill that could have sailed through Parliament. But no, that was not to be, because the Government had an idea—a bad idea. Labour saw £400 billion-worth of pension funds, the savings built up through years of successful auto-enrolment, and it was tempted. We can picture Labour Members looking at the pensions piggybank and saying to each other, “Just imagine what we could do with that money—we could perhaps put it towards some of the Energy Secretary’s net zero schemes.” They have taxed the country to the hilt, they cannot bring themselves to make savings on welfare, and they have run the Treasury dry, so now they are coming for pensions.

Labour snuck in the power that we talk about as mandation under the auspices of a backstop to the voluntary Mansion House agreement. Well, well, well. It really did not have to be this way. If only the Pensions Minister had been a little more receptive to suggestions from other parties or from the pension sector itself. It is hard to find anyone who supports his mandation policy. Pensions UK, the Pensions Management Institute, the Association of British Insurers, Aviva and BlackRock—I could go on—are all against mandation, as are any number of economists and respected voices, from Paul Johnson to Dominic Lawson, and even the Minister’s former colleague Ed Balls. In the other place, noble Lords in their droves have sought to expose this policy for what it is. He should have listened to their debate, as I did, but listening may not be something he likes to do. He even blocked one respected industry voice, Tom McPhail, on social media when Tom simply called out mandation for what it is: a dangerous power grab by the Government.

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

Is not the hallmark of every Labour Government that they end up running out of other people’s money? When they do that, they end up borrowing. When that runs dry, they end up eyeing up our pensions, as Gordon Brown did. My constituents and many people who contact me are deeply concerned by the mandation powers in the Bill and the impact those will have on their savings. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a real concern? Many people up and down the country are outraged by these powers and what the Government could do with their money.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Sometimes the Pensions Minister talks about this all as being technicalities, but the fact is that the Government are coming after people’s hard-earned savings, and the public can see it. The Government think it is a pension pot they can mess with. We know that it is people’s own savings. The Government do not know best. [Interruption.] The Minister should not just listen to us; he should listen to the noble Lords in the other place.

The Minister has returned to this House after suffering 12 defeats in the other place. That is what happens when a Government put their fingers in their ears. This situation is entirely of the Pensions Minister’s own making, because there is a great deal of common ground here. Across this House, we want pensions policy to move forward. We have shared ambitions for our pension system, such as boosting pension pots through increased pension scheme scale and a greater focus on returns, rather than minimising costs. We want greater transparency and consumer engagement in the size and performance of pension pots and a system that works better for people with terminal illness. Despite all the consensus, the Minister’s Bill is still far from the finish line.

Returning to Lords amendment 1, which the Government are seeking to eject from this Bill, relates to the mandation powers. I have no disagreement with the objectives of the voluntary Mansion House agreement. On the contrary, I want to see more investment in the UK and higher returns for savers in default pension schemes, and there is widespread support for those objectives, but even the Minister should have realised that he could not get away with saying that the provision is just a backstop to the Mansion House agreement when the mandation power in his Bill was so glaringly different. Back in December last year, I warned him that mandation would not wash, but he did not listen. That is why I have fought mandation every step of the way, along with the pension sector, my colleagues on the Front Bench and the noble Lords in the other place, who resoundingly rejected it.

The Minister is back here with his tail between his legs, and he has changed his tune from, “It’s all fine, nothing to see here”; he reluctantly tabled three amendments last week. I recognise the direction that the Government are trying to move in. They are reining in the power that they are taking, and trying to make it look more aligned with the voluntary Mansion House accord. The fundamental problem remains unresolved, however, because at its core, the Bill still gives the Government the power to direct the investment of people’s pension savings, and that, as a matter of principle, is wrong.

Work and Pensions

Helen Whately Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Written Corrections

[Pat McFadden]

I think that the statement offers hope to young people throughout the United Kingdom. I look forward to a positive and close working relationship between the UK and Welsh Governments on this issue, because I believe that both Governments share a desire for young people, in Clwyd North and everywhere else in the country, to have the best start in life. I think that, for example, the £3,000 hiring bonus and the jobs guarantee for the long-term youth unemployed, which are GB-wide initiatives, can help people in my hon. Friend’s constituency and offer hope that there is a solution to the scarring effect of leaving young people to fester in long-term unemployment, which is not good for them and not good for the country either.

Universal Credit: Foreign Nationals

The following extract is from Work and Pensions Questions on 9 March 2026.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

The working-age benefits bill is set to reach £171 billion by the end of this Parliament, yet the Government are doing nothing to get it under control. In fact, by scrapping the two-child cap, they have added another £3 billion. It is time to stop spending and get saving. The Conservatives would stop benefits for foreign nationals and save £7 billion a year. Britain cannot be a cash machine for the world. With war in Ukraine and now in the middle east, we must boost our national security, so why are the Government continuing to bankroll benefits for migrants rather than investing in defence?

[Andrew Western]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Conservatives created this system. On her specific question about what we are doing to restrict access to the benefits system by foreign nationals, she will also be aware that the Home Secretary has brought forward proposals to extend the period before somebody can achieve settlement from five to 10 years, and there is a consultation under way to move that point from the point of settlement to the point of citizenship.

[Official Report, 9 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 6.]

Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western):

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

The working-age benefits bill is set to reach £171 billion by the end of this Parliament, yet the Government are doing nothing to get it under control. In fact, by scrapping the two-child cap, they have added another £3 billion. It is time to stop spending and get saving. The Conservatives would stop benefits for foreign nationals and save £7 billion a year. Britain cannot be a cash machine for the world. With war in Ukraine and now in the middle east, we must boost our national security, so why are the Government continuing to bankroll benefits for migrants rather than investing in defence?

Youth Unemployment

Helen Whately Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

The Government have lost control of welfare. The benefits bill is ballooning. Sickness benefits alone will cost us £109 billion by the end of the decade. Working-age benefits are costing £161 billion right now and rising. But instead of bringing forward welfare savings, Labour MPs have chosen to spend ever more on benefits. Just the other day, they backed an extra £3 billion spending on scrapping the two-child benefit cap. It is all paid for in the same way—by taxpayers, by hard-working people, and by the businesses that employ them.

First the Government tax jobs, and then they wonder why there are fewer of them. Let me tell them: if you tax it, you get less of it. Under Labour, unemployment has gone up month after month. Our youth unemployment now rivals that of Greece, at over 16%. That is one in six young people out of work, wanting employment but denied the chance—and a university degree will not save them, either. Some 700,000 graduates are out of work, and nearly 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training. So many young people have done everything asked of them. They have studied hard, done their exams and got their grades, but now they are getting rejection after rejection to their job applications.

The Government are letting down a whole generation, and the Secretary of State knows it. He said so himself this week on the radio. He talked about the “scarring effects” of youth unemployment: worse mental health, worse outcomes and even lower life expectancy. He is right, so why are his Government making things so much worse? Let us be clear about what this new policy is. It is not a jobs plan or a serious new deal for young people; it is a sticking-plaster, and an expensive one costing over £1 billion. These are state-subsidised jobs to replace the real ones that Labour has killed.

The Secretary of State has laid into our record on apprenticeships, but he knows perfectly well that the drop he refers to happened because we raised the standard of apprenticeships to make them a qualification that would actually count, and to make them a meaningful alternative to university, not just a way for businesses to get cheaper workers. I warn him not to just chase higher numbers in his reforms; quality matters. And why are the Government doing nothing about dead-end degrees and mounting student debt? Why not adopt the policy we have announced of cutting back on low-value degrees, and using the saving to increase apprenticeships? This Government’s answer is to just go back, cap in hand, to the taxpayer.

At the end of his statement, the Secretary of State talked about welfare reform, but why do we never hear the important word “savings”? I think we know why. The Government tried and failed to make welfare savings last summer. What has changed since then? The Prime Minister is only weaker and more indecisive, though the problem becomes ever more urgent. Today’s personal independence payment figures show that claims are up again. There are over 300,000 more people on PIP since Labour took over—a rise of 9%—and the number of young people claiming PIP has risen by 14%. There are nearly 150,000 more people claiming benefits for mental ill health and neurodiversity. I have been clear: this cannot go on. Benefits are not the right answer. Work is better for us. People who can work should work.

The Secretary of State needs to answer some questions. Where exactly has the extra £1 billion that he has just announced for state-funded jobs come from? Will this latest plan actually bring down youth unemployment? Will it even touch the sides? How will he stop fraudulent claims for the cash? How will he make sure that no one loses their job because of his cash handouts? How will he make sure that all this spending makes a difference, and that he is not subsidising employment that would have happened anyway? Does he accept that taxing jobs on the one hand and subsidising them on the other is not an economic strategy, but the economics of the madhouse? Finally, can the Secretary of State at least agree that the benefits bill needs to come down? Perhaps he could take this chance to use the word “savings”. Does he see the irony? Does he understand my feeling of déjà vu? This is another plan from his party for welfare reform that spends more money, rather than saving it. When will he bring forward a plan to actually bring down the benefits bill? He talks about welfare reform; is this it?

[Pat McFadden]

I fear that the hon. Lady’s response was written without her listening to a word in the statement. She has confirmed that the Conservative party not only bequeathed us the problem, but has learned nothing about how to tackle it. There was no statement of responsibility, no statement of regret and no apology for the record on youth apprenticeships—in fact, she defended cutting youth apprenticeship starts. It is a continued pretence that somehow all of this started just two years ago.

The hon. Lady asks where the funding to help young people comes from. It comes from stable management of the economy—something that the Conservatives know nothing about and that we have practised for the past two years. Young people, at whom all of this is aimed, will have heard her disparage efforts to get them into work and to give them more opportunity. They will have heard her dismiss our changes, which will boost youth apprenticeships. They will have heard her pretend that we can somehow wish all this away with tax changes. That proves that the Conservatives have learned nothing from their disastrous management of the economy. They will have heard her say that the package does not offer young people anything, when we have announced a plan to give them a new deal with more jobs and more apprenticeships. That is the difference between our approach and theirs.

I want to give young people in this country opportunities to get skills, to get a job, to get off benefits and to build a better life for themselves. That is much better than kicking the ladder away and leaving the system unchanged, which is what the Conservatives did. How does the hon. Lady explain the number of NEETs rising by a quarter of a million in the last three years in which they were in power? How does she explain their lack of action to deal with it? When it comes to welfare, what I have said today is very clear and simple: the best means of welfare reform is to put work and opportunity at the heart of the system, and that is what we are doing with this plan.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Whately Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

The working-age benefits bill is set to reach £171 billion by the end of this Parliament, yet the Government are doing nothing to get it under control. In fact, by scrapping the two-child cap, they have added another £3 billion. It is time to stop spending and get saving. The Conservatives would stop benefits for foreign nationals and save £7 billion a year. Britain cannot be a cash machine for the world. With war in Ukraine and now in the middle east, we must boost our national security, so why are the Government continuing to bankroll benefits for migrants rather than investing in defence?

[Andrew Western]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Conservatives created this system. On her specific question about what we are doing to restrict access to the benefits system by foreign nationals, she will also be aware that the Home Secretary has brought forward proposals to extend the period before somebody can achieve settlement from five to 10 years, and there is a consultation under way to move that point from the point of settlement to the point of citizenship. However, if it is the Conservatives’ position to suggest that somebody who has worked here for decades, contributed to the system and made a positive contribution to this country should have absolutely no access to support, we have a fundamentally different point of view.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you are no doubt familiar with the dramatic principle of Chekhov’s gun: if there is a gun on the wall in the first act, it will be fired by the final scene. Ministers say that the mandation power in the Pension Schemes Bill is merely a backstop that they do not intend to use, but once they have a power in law like a gun on the wall, how long will that intention last? Will the Secretary of State make a commitment to the House that the mandation gun will never be fired at the expense of UK pension savers?

[The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She will know that the industry itself set out in the Mansion House accord that it thinks there needs to be change in the pattern of investment in our largest defined contribution schemes. It says that because it is in the interests of savers, and that is why the previous hon. Member for Hexham, the longest-lasting Conservative Pensions Minister, labelled it a good thing. All the Pension Schemes Bill does is put in place the mechanism to make sure that change, which the industry has said is in the interest of members, actually happens.

[Helen Whately]

Given that the savings of millions of people are at stake, I am disappointed that the Secretary of State did not rise to answer this important question. The Pensions Minister needs to stop conflating the voluntary Mansion House agreement with changing the law to give Government the power to direct pension fund investments. The two are not the same. Both the Association of British Insurers and Pensions UK are urging the Government to drop the mandation power from the Bill. The Pensions Minister has a tendency to think he always knows best, but he is not always right; apparently, the Ed stone was his idea. Let us not have people’s retirements savings suffer the same fate as the quest of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband) to become Prime Minister. The Government should not be giving themselves control over how people’s retirement savings are invested, but that is what mandation does. I am against it, the pensions sector is against it, and savers are against it. Will he listen and change tack?

[Torsten Bell]

The hon. Lady is going to be absolutely furious when she finds out what those on the Opposition Front Bench did when the Pensions Schemes Bill came through this House. There is all this sound and fury now, but, when it came to choosing whether to vote against the very power she now says is incredibly dangerous, she went for a snooze on both Second and Third Reading. She is going to be even angrier when she finds out what her right hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury (John Glen) and for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) have called for, which is the mandation of pensions schemes in the UK to invest—