Oral Answers to Questions

John Milne Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I very much welcome the fact that my hon. Friend’s local authority is joining up with Connect to Work, which will be available across the whole of England and Wales by this summer. These regulations are a very important step forward. More needs to be done to give people confidence that moving into work or embarking on volunteering will not trigger a benefit reassessment. I also point him to our Pathways to Work guarantee, giving tailored personalised support to young people in the position that he described, and to the “Keep Britain Working” review by Charlie Mayfield, making employer vacancies accessible to my hon. Friend’s constituents and others in the position that he described.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

My disabled constituent Joanne was holding down a good job, but delays in Access to Work resulted in her not receiving the necessary support to stay in it. The Government’s new “right to try” initiative is a positive move, but will the Minister commit to resourcing vital support services like Access to Work, and to eliminating its backlog of over 62,000 cases as a matter of urgency? If not, we will find ourselves in the same position a year from now.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The support provided by Access to Work is absolutely vital. There has been a big surge in demand for the scheme over the last few years, which has led to some significant delay. I am very sorry to hear that the hon. Gentleman’s constituent has been affected in the way that he described. We said last year that we wanted to reform Access to Work, and that reform is much needed given the greatly increased demand. We are working on proposals and as soon as we are able to put them before the House, we will do so.

Pension Schemes Bill

John Milne Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

First, may I express my support for the words of the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) with regard to pre-1997 pensions and that long-standing scandal? It is a great injustice and it feels like successive Governments—including this one, sadly—are just waiting for the problem to literally die away.

I would like to speak to Lords amendment 79, which aims to ensure that pension schemes can offer robust guidance without falling foul of the new regulatory landscape the Bill creates. The Liberal Democrats remain committed to ensuring that the Bill works for individual savers. Of course, it must work for our economy and for industry, but it must, first and foremost, help the “little and less” saver. That requires ensuring that savers have access to decent relevant guidance on their pensions, because without guidance choice does not translate into good outcomes.

The reality is that engagement with pension guidance for the average person is, to put it simply, woeful and worsening. Around 90% of defined-contribution pots are accessed without any engagement with Pension Wise. Uptake of the service has fallen by about 4% since 2018, despite the fact that Pension Wise is demonstrably successful—nine out of 10 users say that they would recommend it to others. That context matters, because in 2015 the introduction of pension freedoms represented a significant opportunity to ensure that guidance could be offered to far more people. Individuals were given the responsibility for spending their pension savings, but that was often without a clear understanding of the tax implications or the consequences for later life. Since then, from 2015 to 2025, many, including the Work and Pensions Committee, have argued that this was precisely the period when an auto-enrolment-style trial for guidance should also have taken place.

The Government recognised the scale of the problem in 2022, when they introduced a stronger nudge towards Pension Wise. That followed a Department for Work and Pensions report that showed a marked increase, rising from 5% to 30%, in drawdown products being accessed without guidance. Over half of transfers were out of pension products, often driven by mistrust, and lower income savers were disproportionately negatively affected by drawdown use compared with higher earners. Yet even then, the opportunity to trial the automatic booking of guidance appointments, which was backed by the Work and Pensions Committee and Age UK, was not taken.

Now, the landscape has changed again. The Bill reshapes the regulatory framework in a significant way, including through the introduction of defaults for pot holders. That makes this moment another opportunity to ensure that as many savers as possible receive good quality guidance, but that chance will be missed if guidance is not properly embedded alongside these reforms. Defaults will fundamentally affect how savers interact with their pensions. That means the Government must provide urgent clarity not just for savers, but for schemes and trustees. Schemes need clear and concise guidance on how defaults operate, and on what advice and guidance they can lawfully provide so that they are protected from future legal challenge, ambulance chasing or scandal.

Equally, savers themselves will need support to navigate what is often a collection of multiple pots with multiple defaults and varying outcomes. What should not happen is for a default system to be put in place without updated and clearly defined guidance alongside it. That would risk encouraging passive defaulting while alternatives are not properly explained or understood, which might act to supercharge the existing problem of disengagement rather than solve it. At the very least, we must ensure that people are given the opportunity to engage. The dashboard’s imminent introduction might address some of these problems, but it is not a silver bullet.

The Department for Work and Pensions and the Minister have set out a road map for reform, but the big glaring hole in that road map is access to guidance. I ask the Government to ensure that guidance is explicitly part of the plan, to set out clearly what role the Money and Pensions Service and free and impartial guidance will play for savers who want it, and to consider whether, alongside the necessary secondary legislation, the Department could publish a clear statement on the role of guidance in both the default and savings journey of pension savers.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

I wish to speak to Lords amendment 15 and, ultimately, what it still fails to address: the long-standing injustice faced by almost 1 million pensioners.

The Chancellor’s decision last year diverted attention, with her announcement of the restoration of indexation to a quarter of a million pensioners in some of the schemes in the PPF. While 250,000 now have their indexation back, 90,000 in the PPF do not. In addition to the 90,000 who have lost out, there are 139,000 in the financial assistance scheme. Some of those pensioners were once part of the civil service where functions were privatised. I specifically refer to members of the AEA Technology and Carillion public sector pension schemes, who were promised that their civil service pensions would be honoured after privatisation. Imagine being legally cheated out of your pension by your country’s Government and then ignored when you plead your case. Finally, 750,000 people in private defined-benefit schemes, the pre-1997 pensioners, have also lost out. We are talking about 979,000 people—almost 1 million pensioners—who have lost out on the regular increase for part, or for the whole part, of their pension.

The Bill is trying to paper over an enormous crack in our national pension framework. Ministers themselves have acknowledged the problem for pre-1997 pensioners. Most recently, the Minister confirmed that around 17% of defined-benefit pensioners have not received discretionary increases—in some cases, for nearly 30 years. It is not a minor anomaly. Many have lost more than half the real value of the pensions they have earned. Many will not live long enough to see any redress, but their survivors will receive a fraction of the pension at a time when food costs are projected to go up by 9% this year alone, and who knows what will happen with energy costs.

What is particularly difficult to justify is the piecemeal nature and inconsistency of the Government’s approach. They have been entirely willing to mandate how defined-contribution schemes invest, yet they remain unwilling to mandate even basic fairness for the 17% of defined-benefit pensioners whose sponsoring companies are following a law and avoiding doing the right thing. The Lords amendment would return us to a Bill that would make it easier to extract surpluses from defined benefit schemes. The Minister tells us that the trustees will be in the driving seat, but for the pre-1997 pensioners, trustees have never been in the driving seat. In most cases, trustees cannot compel discretionary increases. They cannot even advocate effectively for those who have already lost out, and they cannot override employers’ decisions. The imbalance is clear: employers decide, trustees administer. Trustees are told that it is not their role to seek to change benefits for pre-1997 pensioners. What is the value of a trustee? Surely it is not just to be a rubber stamp for boards of directors, usually based inthe USA.

Youth Unemployment

John Milne Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

We heard the Conservatives defend the 40% figure on the drop in youth apprenticeship starts—that is on the record. If they want to defend and own that record, so be it, but we want to prioritise opportunities for young people, and that is what we are doing with this package. There is a lot in it for employers in Burnley and for small and medium-sized businesses, which now have a new financial incentive to give a young person the vital start in life that can set them on a path of pride, purpose and dignity. That is what having a job gives you.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

The Government want to cut funding for level 7 apprenticeships and redirect resources to younger groups, but bodies such as the Royal Institute of British Architects tell me that young people are unlikely to enter professional training in the construction sector, because funding will be withdrawn at the later, more expensive stages of their training pipeline. Does the Secretary of State accept that a one-size-fits-all, generalised cut-off point for 22-year-olds just does not work for industries that have a longer training period?

[Pat McFadden]

Once again, the Liberal Democrats speak against the prioritisation of youth. We are for training throughout the system and throughout the age range, but we have to make a decision about where to prioritise it with a public budget. I have unashamedly made the decision to prioritise young people, and I think that is the right thing to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Milne Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

The truth is that the Conservatives presided over a huge post-covid rise in the number of young people not in education, employment or training, and they did precisely nothing about it. They also presided over a huge rise in the number of young people going on to sickness and disability benefits and did precisely nothing about it. They have discovered a thirst for change only after leaving office—they have no credibility and no plan on this issue. In contrast, we are responding through the youth guarantee, through changes to the apprenticeship system, and by giving young people more hope that the Government will help give them a chance in life.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

A recent report from Adzuna, a large job search agency, shows youth unemployment at an 11-year high and vacancies plummeting. Jobseekers urgently need the new “jobcentre in your pocket” digital service. Given that current timeframes suggest that it will not be ready until 2028, will the Secretary of State assure us that all options are on the table to accelerate delivery—including leveraging the private sector and technology—so that we can support jobseekers now, rather than years down the line?

[Pat McFadden]

We do want to support jobseekers now. As I said, there is a long-term challenge with youth unemployment, which we are responding to through the measures I have outlined. If we can be more ambitious than those measures in the future, we very much will.

Place-based Employment Support Programmes

John Milne Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I also thank the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for shining a light on this important issue.

The Liberal Democrats strongly support the principles of devolution and localism so we welcome the Government’s stated ambition to expand place-based employment support. Employment conditions vary so much across the country that a purely national strategy could never work. However, local delivery is only half the story. A succession of Governments have been adept at passing on new responsibilities to local government but not necessarily the budget to match. The Liberal Democrats will not support reforms that simply shift costs and risks on to councils without the funding systems and accountability to make them work. What extra powers or funding flexibility will the Government give local and combined authorities so that they can design and deliver place-based employment strategies that genuinely reflect their local labour markets?

Improving employment prospects is also about removing barriers. Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of people are economically inactive due to long-term sickness linked to NHS waiting lists. More than 600,000 people have reduced their working hours while waiting for treatment. Too much existing work support consists of generic help with CV writing and basic qualifications such as maths and English. Although important, that does not go far enough to answer individual needs, especially for people with specific health conditions. The current system seems to work best when providing adjustments for people already in work, who then become disabled, but fails those who are trying to get a job in the first place. The practical adjustments through Access to Work are frequently agreed only after the job offer and that is too late in the process.

The case of one of my constituents from Horsham, Amanda, illustrates what can go wrong when systems do not join up. Amanda is deaf; she got a job and needed an interpreter funded through Access to Work, but a basic administrative breakdown between her employer and the Department for Work and Pensions resulted in her support being refused. Long delays in making awards are causing real trouble; I believe the waiting list has increased by four times in just a few years. The current system seems unable to respond to individual circumstances.

The Liberal Democrats argue that devolution must be matched with stable funding and enough resources to support implementation. There is a journey to go on and, as we embark on it, we need to be honest about a legacy of negative culture in the system. According to a 2025 survey by Turn2Us, 64% of claimants say that the system is trying to “catch them out.” Only 15% said support from work coaches is useful, while 55% of universal credit claimants say that claiming benefits has “worsened their health.” That sounds less like an employment system and more like a deterrence system.

That tactic has backfired. Job hunting is a tough process; morale matters. Totally undermining unemployed jobseekers by treating them like benefit scroungers has only ended up making sure that is exactly how they remain: stuck on benefits. The pressure on jobseekers to demonstrate industrial quantities of applications every week has destroyed trust on both sides. I have seen how local employers in my constituency have disengaged with the jobcentre. They feel that the applicants they are being sent are not interested and are just trying to meet their weekly quota of applications. The Liberal Democrats welcome the trial of place-based approaches, such as JobsPlus. It is too soon to judge, but the early signs suggest higher engagement and improved confidence and wellbeing. We need to get both jobseekers and employers believing and trusting in the system again.

We need clarity on funding. Council budgets are already under severe strain and rural areas, such as mine in west Sussex, face some of the greatest barriers to employment support, yet also face some of the stiffest demands and the tighter settlement under the new local government finance settlement. Councils are concerned that JobsPlus funding ends in March 2026, yet the full evaluation has not yet been completed. What long-term funding certainty will be provided to ensure that community-based employment support is not cut off just as it starts to deliver results?

Finally, on national oversight, it is vital that we ensure that place-based employment support is properly integrated with jobcentres and national programmes such as restart to avoid duplication and confusion. Will the Government commit to clear outcome measurement and regular, public reporting so that Parliament can hold the DWP to account for what those programmes actually deliver? Alongside that, what are the Government doing to properly integrate local employment schemes with national programmes, such as restart and jobcentre services, to make everything work together effectively?

To conclude, the Liberal Democrats believe that place-based employment support can reduce inequality, improve outcomes and help people into sustainable work, but it must be backed by long-term funding, a competent Administration and clear, national accountability. Otherwise, localism will end up as a slogan, not a solution.

Pensions and Social Security

John Milne Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

We are not proposing any change in those arrangements. As the hon. Gentleman will know, those arrangements were introduced by the previous Government. In fact, the coalition Government put in place the current arrangements for the new state pension, which were introduced with commitments to future uprating. We are committed to delivering the triple lock, but we are not planning to change the relativities between those two arrangements.

Most working-age benefits and other benefits for people below state pension age will also increase by 3.8%. They includes statutory payments such as statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, the personal allowances of income support, housing benefit, jobseeker’s allowance, and contributory employment and support allowance. The order will also increase by 3.8% the child amounts, the carer amounts, transitional severe disability premiums in universal credit, and pensioner and carer premiums in income-related employment and support allowance.

As I mentioned earlier, the Universal Credit Act 2025 included important changes to rebalance universal credit. For 2026-27, the standard allowance in universal credit will be uprated by September’s consumer prices index plus an additional 2.3%. That represents the first ever permanent above-inflation rise to the universal credit standard allowance, and I believe that it is the first permanent real-terms increase in the headline benefit rate since the 1970s. That is not part of the order that we are debating, but all these increases will apply across Great Britain.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

I very much appreciate the action that the Government have taken to uprate UC—for the first time in its history, as the Minister says—but does he accept that it still will not cover the cost of basic essentials such as food, heating and rent for many of our most put-upon constituents?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I think perhaps the point that the hon. Gentleman is making is that it does not fulfil the aspirations of the essentials guarantee campaign, with which he and I are familiar, and that is true. However, April’s above-inflation uprating will be the first of four such upratings, so there will be a similar over-inflation uprating in each of the following three Aprils. It will not end up at the level on which the essentials guarantee campaign has focused, but let us see what happens beyond the period for which we have made these announcements. As he said, it is an historic change of direction for public policy.

Benefits for people in England and Wales who have additional costs as a result of disability or ill health will also increase by 3.8%. These include disability living allowance, attendance allowance and personal independence payment. The increase will also apply to carer’s allowance.

The draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2026 sets out the yearly amount by which the guaranteed minimum pension part of an individual’s contracted-out occupational pension, earned between 1988 and April 1997, must be increased when it is being paid. The increase is paid by occupational pension schemes, and helps to provide a measure of inflation protection for people in receipt of contracted-out occupational pensions earned between 1988 and 1997. The law requires that GMPs earned between those two dates must be increased by the percentage increase in the general level of prices measured the previous September, capped at 3%. The September 2025 inflation figure— or CPI—was 3.8%, so the increase for the financial year 2026-27 will be 3%.

The 3% cap provides pension schemes with more certainty, allowing them to forecast their future liabilities more reliably. That is important when they are considering their funding commitments. The measure strikes a balance between, on one hand, protecting members against the effects of inflation, and on the other, not increasing scheme costs beyond what schemes and sponsoring employers can reasonably afford.

The draft Social Security Benefits Uprating Order 2026 will, if Parliament approves it, commit the Government to increased expenditure of £9 billion in the next financial year. Changes will mainly come into effect from 6 April this year and apply for the tax year 2026-27. The order maintains the triple lock—which benefits pensioners in receipt of both the basic and new state pensions—raises the level of the safety net in pension credit beyond the increase in prices, increases the rates of benefit for those in the labour market, and increases the rates of carers benefits and benefits to help with additional costs arising from disability or health impairment.

The draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order requires formally contracted-out occupational pension schemes to pay an increase of 3% on GMPs in pensions earned between April 1988 and April 1997, giving a measure of protection against inflation, paid for by the scheme. I commend the orders to the House.

Poverty and Welfare Policies

John Milne Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I will come later to the debate we had about PIP. I absolutely agree, and all the evidence shows, that disabled people are much more likely to face poverty and hardship than able-bodied people.

At its core, poverty prevents people from playing a full and meaningful role in our society. That is why there is both a moral and an economic case for taking action, and why tackling poverty should be central to any serious strategy for economic growth, as well as a key part of a progressive Government’s agenda. According to the Equality Trust, reducing income inequality to the level found in more equal OECD nations would save the UK up to £128 billion annually in reduced costs in areas such as crime, imprisonment rates, tackling poor mental health and welfare.

However, none of that will be possible if we continue to use the same austerity-driven measures we have used in the past. For example, the proposal to means-test the winter fuel allowance was based on the ill-judged view that a pensioner living on little more than £12,000 a year was well off. The attempt last year to reduce disability benefits by £7 billion was based not on people’s needs, but on the Treasury’s demand for cuts. Even the very welcome and long overdue decision to lift the two-child limit still leaves the overall benefit cap in place, and fails to uprate the threshold in line with universal credit. As a consequence, an estimated one in 12 children will still be caught in deep poverty.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

We keep hearing that disability spending, and welfare spending in general, is spiralling out of control, but the truth is that, as a percentage of GDP, it has barely moved since the mid-1980s, under Margaret Thatcher—that famous supporter of welfare. Does the hon. Member agree that if we are going to reform welfare, we should at least start from the right place, with the right figures?

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I absolutely agree—in fact, the hon. Member must have read part of my speech, because I will come on to that point a bit later.

There is now a wealth of evidence showing that there is a growing gap between what people have and what they need for a decent standard of living. Millions in the UK are falling well short of that standard, as costs continue to rise and our social security system fails to provide adequate and appropriate support.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Milne Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I do agree with my hon. Friend, and I would be happy to meet him. Motability is an important scheme that does an important job. Some tax reliefs will be removed in July. Existing leases will not be affected, and neither will wheelchair-adapted vehicles. There will still be vehicles, with no up-front payment, that are affordable solely through the mobility component of personal independence payment, so the scheme will continue to do a great job but will give better value for money for taxpayers.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

The shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions recently stated that

“millions are getting benefits for anxiety or ADHD along with a free Motability car.”

That is clearly nonsense, because only 200,000 claimants—at most—would be eligible to apply in the first place, and many of them also have a physical disability, which is the real reason for the car. Does the Minister agree that this must rank as one of the least accurate claims ever made by a politician, despite the strong competition?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Well, choosing the most misleading claim is a tough contest, but the hon. Gentleman is right. The shadow Secretary of State’s colleagues introduced PIP, with the current criteria, in 2013. They then had 11 years to change it if they thought doing so was necessary, but they did absolutely nothing. My review will look at the eligibility criteria for the mobility component of PIP.

Pension Schemes Bill

John Milne Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

I shall speak to new clauses 8 and 13, which stand in my name, among others.

With its title, the Pensions Schemes Bill, this piece of legislation was probably never destined to grab headlines—sorry, Minister, but that is the case—which is a pity, because it contains some genuinely intelligent measures, developed over years with significant cross-party support, and could go some way to boosting UK plc, as we all want. Directing more of our pension fund savings into UK investments is a long-overdue mission; however, it is not just about what you do, but how you do it, and as I argued in Committee, I am not convinced the Government have struck the right balance with their plan to take sweeping powers of mandation. Yes, we should be concerned about very low pension fund investment into the UK, but the reason behind that is not some form of trustee treason; rather, it is a logical and predictable response to the UK’s regulatory framework and a market that over-emphasises costs, which discourages any kind of active management strategy.

Mandation is the wrong solution. There are other ways to reach the same outcome through partnership, building on the consensus achieved in the Mansion House accord. I strongly urge the Government to look again at creating more ready-made investment vehicles. The biggest risk in mandation is that it could force pension funds to make sub-optimal investments, because they are chasing the same limited supply of UK assets as everyone else.

In addition to more support for innovation and start-ups, like others who have spoken today, I see a fantastic opportunity for large-scale investment in social housing, care homes, high streets, environmental schemes and infrastructure. That would bring huge social rewards, as well as boosting growth, which is the Government’s mission. That will not happen, though, unless the Government help local and regional authorities to pump prime the system with a stream of investable products. To me, that seems like a small ask, and I hope the Government will reconsider.

I am pleased by Ministers’ positive response to some of the amendments we fought for in Committee. That does not always happen. The scandalous treatment of pre-1997 pension savings has been left unresolved for decades, so I welcome this Government being the first to act and their decision to link compensation payments from the PPF and FAS to CPI inflation. Of course, this is far from a complete solution, and indexation applies only going forward, but given that until now there had been no sign of compensation of any kind or of any group, I will take this as a partial win. I pay tribute to persistence of all my Horsham constituents who have raised pre-’97 indexation with me time and again.

Compensation by the PPF is certainly a solution, but we are in danger of missing a one-off opportunity to access pension surpluses. The Bill will give trustees increased access to surplus savings, which have built up in many funds in recent years, which is good, but without some sort of extra push from the Government, it seems to me likely that none or little of the money will go toward pre-1997 pension injustices. In the Work and Pensions Committee last week, I asked the Secretary of State whether he truly believed that the Bill as it stands would help people, and I got a “Yes, Minister” kind of answer:

“I am not going to call stumps on brand new legislation before it has had a chance to have an effect, so let’s see what effect it has.”

That is not good enough. The companies that have not been shamed into action in a quarter of a century are not miraculously going to discover altruism today. Some form of compulsion is required.

I hope that the pre-1997 section will be taken further in the Lords, where the balance of power gives the Liberal Democrats somewhat more leverage than we had in Committee. [Interruption.] It is a wonderful institution—so democratic, is it not? I also welcome the decision to abolish the Pension Protection Fund levy, which had become effectively redundant; that was the subject of another Lib Dem amendment. That move will reduce hidden fees for pension schemes and pass those savings directly to savers.

However, other things are still missing. As someone with a professional background in pensions communications, I argued in Committee for the Government to enable free universal pension guidance at the age of 40, among other stages, when there is still time to change outcomes, rather than waiting all the way to the moment of retirement itself. There is a ticking time bomb of pension inadequacy that must be addressed today, and pensions guidance is an incredibly low-cost way to improve outcomes. The Pension Wise service would be an excellent vehicle for that, and it is ready and waiting for us to use it. If the Government will not back new clause 8, will the Minister meet with me and members of industry to look at how an auto-enrolment trial could finally move this proposal forward?

That brings me to new clause 13, tabled by myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), which seeks to strengthen the people-focused elements of the Bill by using pensions services to offer free, accessible guidance to the groups we know are under-saving. If we look at minority ethnic savers, we see that their pension pots average £52,000—less than half of the £115,000 that applies to white British savers. Let us also consider that women are on average set to retire on just £13,000 a year, compared with £19,000 for men—a third less. Disabled workers are approaching retirement with average pension savings of £47,980—just a third of the UK average. The Government rightly say that they want people to be independent, financially resilient and able to pay their own way, but that cannot happen if entire groups—women, ethnic minorities and disabled people—are destined to retire on a fraction of what others are provided with.

There is a lot to like in this Bill, but legislative opportunities come up only once in a blue moon, and a lot more could be done here. I ask the Government to support new clauses 8 and 13.

[Elaine Stewart (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to new clause 22. Let me begin by recognising the work of the Hewlett Packard Pension Association, particularly the work of Patricia Kennedy from Ayrshire—she hoped to be in the Gallery today, but she was too ill to travel. Patricia has been a driving force to keep this issue alive, but of course this is not about only one individual; it is about all pre-1997 pensioners.

Earlier this year, I was proud to host Patricia and many of her fellow campaigners in Parliament. That meeting made clear the human cost of inaction—pensioners seeing their incomes erode for decades, and families struggling because the system has failed them. That is why new clause 22 matters. At its heart, the new clause sets a simple principle: pensions earned before 1997 should not be left to wither away. It also follows a principle that the Government have already adopted.

I welcome the Minister’s commitment in his opening remarks to work with trustees to ensure that schemes in surplus, such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, work to benefit pensioners. If good co-operation is not forthcoming, will the Government look to other legislative means to correct this course? Many of these schemes are backed by profitable multinationals, yet discretion has failed. It has failed with Wood Group, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, STMicroelectronics, Atos/Sema, American Express, AIG, Pfizer, 3M, Chevron, NCR Scotland, Lloyd’s Register, and Johnson & Johnson.

Some pensioners have gone for 10, 15 or 23 years without a single increase. That is not fairness. NC22 would correct that. I am sure all Labour Members agree that pensioners should not depend on the whims of employers, and we should be wary of accidentally creating an entrenched situation in which pensioners in failed schemes receive protection while those in solvent schemes remain unprotected—to me, that seems inconsistent. New clause 22 would address that inconsistency, ensuring that every pensioner has the security and dignity they deserve, regardless of when their service was accrued. I thank the Minister for meeting me to talk over my worries about this Bill.

Draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Collective Money Purchase Schemes) (Extension to Unconnected Multiple Employer Schemes and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2025

John Milne Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 General Committees

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats largely welcome all the measures in this legislation. We also agree that it will be of great benefit. I am seeking clarity on just one thing: communications. CDC schemes are harder to explain than DB guarantee or DC individual pot arrangements. Misunderstanding could lead to some negative consequences. I understand that the idea is that minimum communication standards will be in place, overseen by the Pensions Regulator. What might that consist of? Does the regulator approve a communications programme in advance or check it afterwards? Does it have minimum numbers of comms going out or timings? Could the Minister give some clarity on exactly what is proposed?