National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

I think I have already answered the right hon. Member’s question: it is important to keep tax reliefs under review. The cost of pension salary sacrifice is growing very fast indeed, so we have reviewed this tax relief and think it is important to bring in pragmatic changes, as I will come on to.

As I was saying, I am confidently looking forward—

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Torsten Bell]

I am going to make a bit of progress, and then I will give way to the hon. Member.

The truth is that reform was inevitable. Although Conservative Members are not saying it now, they know this is true, because it is what they said in government. In the 2015 summer Budget, they said:

“Salary sacrifice arrangements…are becoming increasingly popular and the cost to the taxpayer is rising”—

[Interruption.] I will come on to what the last Government wanted to do in the pensions space in a second. I am glad that the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) is so keen to hear this; he is setting me up nicely for what is coming in a second.

The summer Budget of 2015 went on to say:

“The government will actively monitor the growth of these schemes and their effect on tax receipts”,

which is the same argument that I just made to the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). That monitoring led, a year later, to the then Chancellor—now Baron Hammond of Runnymede—announcing benefit-in-kind restrictions. He told this House:

“The majority of employees pay tax on a cash salary, but some are able to sacrifice salary…and pay much lower tax… That is unfair”.—[Official Report, 23 November 2016; Vol. 617, c. 907.]

He was right then, and the same argument holds today.

Former Conservative Ministers should certainly agree, because in government they were planning exactly the kind of change to pensions that we are now introducing. By way of proof, in 2023 the Conservatives commissioned research on restricting salary sacrifice arrangements for pensions, which is exactly the same measure they are opposing today. What was the proposed cap on pension salary sacrifice in that report? It was £2,000 a year, which is exactly the same cap they are opposing today.

[Lincoln Jopp]

The Minister seems to have co-opted the amount of money spent on the Royal Air Force into his argument. Is he aware that absent the defence investment plan—it was promised in the autumn, and the House rises tomorrow—we have no idea about the size, shape and cost of the Royal Air Force, because the Government are late with their homework?

[Torsten Bell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, as I always do, because he always makes interesting points, but my larger point is this: if the Conservative party refuses ever to support any increases in taxation, increases in such spending—I think there is cross-party support for the Ministry of Defence, as the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire mentioned—cannot be funded and cannot happen.

Almost every tax expert in the country has noted the need for change, and most have called for pension salary sacrifice to be ended entirely. However, we are taking a more pragmatic approach by recognising that change will affect many employers and employees. Our balanced approach has two key parts. The first is time. As I said to the hon. Member for Strangford, nothing will change overnight. We are providing over three years’ notice of the reform’s implementation. What did the previous Government provide to employers? One year’s notice of their reforms to salary sacrifice. This will give everybody involved time to prepare and adjust, which is widely welcomed by firms and business groups. Employers and payroll providers have already been working with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to ensure that this change operates in the most effective way, and that process will continue as we approach implementation.

The second key design choice is the cap of £2,000. This cap protects ordinary workers and limits the impact on employers, while ensuring that the system remains fiscally sustainable. The cap means that the majority of those currently using salary sacrifice will be unaffected. It means that almost all—95%—of those earning £30,000 or less, who work disproportionately for small businesses, will be entirely unaffected, and 87% of affected salary sacrifice contributions above the cap are forecast to be made by higher and additional rate taxpayers. This is a pragmatic and fair approach, as well as the fiscally responsible one.

Some will claim—I am sure we will hear this from the Opposition—that salary sacrifice arrangements drive aggregate levels of pension savings. That is simply wrong. After all, salary sacrifice arrangements existed through the 2000s and into the early 2010s, and what happened to pension savings during that period? There were not rises, but big falls in private sector participation in pension savings. The existence of salary sacrifice did nothing to prevent a situation in which, by 2012, only one in three private sector workers were saving into a pension.

What made the difference was not the complicated national insurance reliefs available to some employees, but automatic enrolment, the groundwork for which was laid under the last Labour Government and which was continued by Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ministers. That reversed the collapse in workplace pension saving, and it means that over 22 million workers are now saving each month.

We also see that contributions have risen in line with regulatory requirements, not with the growth of salary sacrifice. Pension salary sacrifice relief doubled between 2019 and 2023. Was that associated with a surge in average pension contribution levels? No, they have remained entirely stable as a proportion of pay, because all the evidence indicates that it is largely automatic enrolment that drives changes in pension savings. That should not surprise anybody, because the research commissioned by the Conservative party that I mentioned earlier pointed in the same direction. It found that the majority of employers reducing their tax bill by offering pension salary sacrifice did not use the savings to increase pension contributions.

More importantly for any member of the public listening—and it is important for all of us to be clear about this throughout this debate—pension saving will remain highly tax-advantaged after these changes. I have seen some deeply misleading comments in the media and otherwise on wider changes to pension tax relief, saying that people will not be saving as much as they previously were. The public should be clear that we are spending over £70 billion per year on pension tax relief, and that will be entirely unaffected by these changes. Employer contributions will continue to be the most tax-advantaged part of the pension tax system, being made entirely national insurance contribution-free.

These are necessary changes that everyone who has thought about this subject knew would be needed, and they are changes being implemented in a pragmatic and balanced way. They are also consistent with the longer-term approach to reforming the pension system that is now in train.

There is cross-party agreement that the work of the Pensions Commission is important as it examines questions of adequacy and fairness. We all know too many people are under-saving. Many commentators have called for higher minimum saving rates within automatic enrolment, including some on the Opposition Front Bench. The commission is crunching the numbers and talking to employers, trade unions and the pensions industry. We should not prejudge its work so I would now simply note that higher savings rates means pension tax relief costs rising further. If we combine that with the reality that if pension salary sacrifice remains unreformed, the end point could be all employee contributions being funnelled through this route, it implies costs at least doubling again to well over £15 billion a year, which means £15 billion in higher taxes elsewhere or cuts to public services. That is the logical conclusion of the arguments from those opposing today’s Bill.

Then we come to the real problem of some groups disproportionately under-saving, which, again, Members on both sides of this House have rightly raised in debates on pensions in recent months. The Pensions Commission is focused on groups we know are most exposed, including low earners, some ethnic minorities, women and the self-employed. This is a real challenge for our pension system but the data is entirely clear that today’s salary sacrifice is not the answer. That is true whichever group we look at. Let us take them in turn. The self-employed are a top concern, with only one in five saving into a pension, but they are entirely excluded from pension salary sacrifice. Low earners are most likely not to be saving, but it is higher earners who are most likely to be using salary sacrifice. And many more women are under-saving for retirement, but many more men use pension salary sacrifice.

These are fair and balanced reforms. They protect ordinary workers, they give employers many years to prepare, and they ensure both our pension system and the public finances are kept on a sustainable footing. Opposing them is not cost-free: the savings from this measure are equivalent to over 250,000 knee and hip operations every year. The truth is that they are inevitable, which is why at least one party opposite was planning to introduce them. I gently suggest to some Members that they can, of course, take the easy route of opposing this change, but the truth is that they will be doing so with their fingers crossed behind their backs, because many know this change needed to come one day, and I suspect not one of the parties opposite will promise to undo it in the years ahead—but we will see.

The Budget delivered badly needed tax reforms ducked for too long by previous Chancellors. Whether it is the pragmatic reform in front of us today or ensuring that everyone driving on the roads contributes to their upkeep, these reforms are what it takes to keep cutting waiting lists, cutting borrowing and cutting energy bills, and I commend them and this Bill to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

It is always a pleasure to meet my parliamentary neighbour from Dudley. She is absolutely right to draw attention to the role of allied health professionals, because there is a strong link between good health and employment, and this problem has to be seen across departmental boundaries.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Following the Budget, a furious Labour voter, 30 years old, texted me to say, “I am furious about the salary sacrifice thing. I give up a lot of things to put 20% of my salary into my pension. That’s going to cost me almost two grand a year for being responsible.” Why are the Government so keen on punishing savers?

[Torsten Bell]

We are taking a pragmatic approach to reforming pension contributions made via salary sacrifice, the costs of which are set nearly to triple to £8 billion between 2017 and the end of this decade. The case for change was made powerfully by a previous Chancellor:

“The majority of employees pay tax on a cash salary, but some are able to sacrifice salary…and pay much lower tax… That is unfair”.—[Official Report, 23 November 2016; Vol. 617, c. 907.]

So said Baron Hammond of Runnymede.

Pension Schemes Bill

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

In any circumstances, the trustees would need to agree to a surplus release, so they are welcome to say to their employer: we are only going to agree to it on the basis of a change to something that the employer holds the cards over. I am happy to discuss that with the right hon. Member further, and there may be other schemes that are in a similar situation.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

The way in which the Minister is talking about insurance buy-out suggests that, in the Government’s mind, insurance buy-out is still in some way a gold standard. Can he reassure the House that he is seeking to flatten the playing field, such that the increased choice available to defined-benefit pension schemes will mean that for perpetuals who run on—such as OMERS, which started off as the Ontario municipal employees retirement system and is now worth 140 billion Canadian dollars—there is as much safety in superfunds as there is in insurance buy-out?

[Torsten Bell]

I shall come on directly to the question of superfunds, which I know the hon. Member has a long-standing interest in. There is obviously a distinction between closed and open defined-benefit schemes, which I think is relevant to the point he is raising. It is also important for trustees to have a range of options.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) on her speech. I am afraid, however, that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will have to forgive me for puncturing the air of bonhomie and positivity about the Bill, because I am really not content with it.

Frankly, I feel it is my duty as an Opposition Back Bencher to be suspicious of consensus, particularly when the City of London is conspiring with a Labour Government to muck about with our pensions. We have seen that before. I am old enough to remember Gordon Brown’s so-called reforms in 1997, which struck a hammer blow to the British people’s pension funds. You will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the late, great Frank Field—who was then the Pensions Minister—later called those changes a spectacular mistake that struck a hammer blow to the solvency of British pension funds and drove a dagger deep into the heart of the defined-benefit landscape, resulting in its extinction.

As such, I am afraid that must rise to raise some very significant reservations about this bit of legislation—and not just its technical execution, but the political instinct that it betrays. While the Bill is wrapped in the warm words of reform and modernisation, what it actually does is centralise control, unsettle previously settled rights, and risk disenfranchising precisely those people whom it purports to help.

To begin with the Bill’s technical aspects, I reiterate my point of order. I am a member of the local government pension scheme through my membership of the London Pension Funds Authority, and I am uniquely affected by this legislation, as are 6.5 million other former and current public sector workers. My view is that, under this Bill, those people’s rights are being denied, and that through the hybrid legislation process, they or their representatives should have the right to petition the Bill Committee and explain why they feel they are affected by investment pooling, the changes to fiduciary delegation and the asset consolidation. They are uniquely affected by this Bill, which strikes profoundly at the governance of the pension funds they have paid into in a way that it does not for other pension funds in this country. That is the definition of hybridity—if that is a word—so if we are going to stick to the rules in this House, we really should stick to them. I look forward to getting the letter that you promised me, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I know that you have asked me not to refer to procedure in the other place, but this is not the only Chamber that will be looking at this legislation.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who is just about to leave—I am sorry to detain her but will be brief—asked the Minister what the problem is. I repeat her question, but in relation to the local government pension scheme, I also ask what it has to do with him. It is my money, not his, and it is for scheme members to make decisions about how they wish their money to be used. It is not taxpayers’ money; it is my money. It is a defined-contribution and benefit scheme, and we have all paid into it. He is the second Minister in the space of 18 months to try to interfere with the local government pension scheme, and I stood in this Chamber and opposed Michael Gove, now Lord Gove in the other place, when he attempted to manipulate the local government pension scheme for political reasons. I urge the Minister to think twice before he does so.

Secondly, I believe that this Bill is conceptually flawed. If we are being generous—[Interruption.] By all means, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth is free to go—I will not be mentioning her again. She was hesitantly rising to leave. If I am being generous, the ambition behind this Bill is to unlock capital that can be invested for the purposes of growth, but the methods it proposes are chillingly dirigiste and make the dangerous assumption that Whitehall knows best and that central direction by the Government can outperform the dispersed judgment of hundreds of experienced trustees managing diverse funds in varied contexts. Essentially, with this Bill the Minister is turning the pension fund industry into an element of Government procurement by the back door.

There are three further points that I want to put on the radar on Second Reading. I understand that the Bill will go through, but I hope the Minister will take them into account. First, it is simply not true that megafunds perform better. There is plenty of academic and empirical evidence that the picture is much more mixed. Often, smaller funds with better governance and a more focused investment strategy can perform better. These supertanker monopoly funds lose agility, lack accountability and become distant from pensioners and members of the fund. Their investment discretion and their ability to move quickly on investment decisions becomes sclerotic and bureaucratic. In particular, it is true that these megafunds specifically underperform when they invest in exactly the kind of illiquid assets that the Government are hoping to push them into: infrastructure and private equity. I urge the Government and the Minister please to examine carefully the evidence from the United States and elsewhere that shows that these very large funds do not necessarily produce better returns for investors. They may well be able to reduce costs because of scale, but I am afraid that the evidence is just not there on fundamental investment returns.

My second point is on the danger of politicisation. We have seen elsewhere in the world where pension funds have been pushed into the Government’s priorities to their own detriment. In Canada, large pension funds have come under significant Government pressure to invest in state infrastructure. In France, pension fund surpluses have been directed into Government bond-buying programmes effectively against their will. Once those assets become controlled and directed into state-favoured investment vehicles, which is what the Government are proposing through this Bill, the temptation for Ministers—not necessarily this Minister, but future Ministers—is to go further and push funds into politically convenient infrastructure projects that may prove to be financially disastrous. If that power had been available to the political team that decided to instigate the frankly financially disastrous HS2, and my pension fund had been put in it, where would I be now? I urge the Minister to think carefully about the responsibility for my retirement and my future. By me, I am referring to myself as a member of the local government pension fund. I am everyman for these purposes.

I am afraid that essentially what has happened in France and in Canada, and what may happen under this legislation in the UK, is that the pension fund system effectively becomes a tool of Government fiscal policy. Effectively, absent capital spending available directly from the taxpayer, the Government direct capital spending from pension funds—from private money—and plug holes that they create by writing cheques that they cannot fulfil. I would be interested in the Minister’s response to that.

[Lincoln Jopp]

I was just googling “dirigiste” and my right hon. Friend’s everyman quote. Will he comment on the fact that OMERS, which he would probably agree is one of these megafunds that he thinks are slow and unwieldy and invest in infrastructure and illiquids, returned a 7.1% net return over the last 10 years and the London Pensions Fund Authority returned a 7% return over the last 10 years?

[Kit Malthouse]

As I said, the evidence about performance across the population of funds is mixed. Some smaller funds do extremely well, because they have strong governance and a focused and nimble investment strategy. Some megafunds do reasonably well, because they can spread their risk across a variety of asset classes, but it is not a given that a big fund will perform better than a smaller fund. In fact, in certain circumstances smaller funds, because they have better accountability and can have a more focused investment strategy, may well perform better.

Frankly, and this speaks to my hon. Friend’s point, it is for me as a member of the pension fund to decide what I want to do, performance or otherwise, because it is my money. Given that I have contracted with this pension fund under circumstances made clear to me when I contracted with it as part of my employment or otherwise, it is not necessarily for the Government to steam in and tell me what I should or should not do with my own money. That means I carry a certain element of risk—absolutely—but unless we are going full-throated for the total financial infantilisation of the British people, I cannot see that we have any other way to preserve our financial freedom and autonomy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I regret that the Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell), is no longer in his place; I wanted to pay him something of a compliment for getting the Bill here today with typical ambition and enthusiasm. I should, however, remind him of my grandmother’s favourite saying: an ounce of experience is worth a ton of enthusiasm.

I stand here to talk about part 3 of the Bill on the basis of about four years’ experience as a director of the first pensions superfund, having attempted to get it through the Pensions Regulator and the interim regime put up under the last Government. That was ultimately unsuccessful; part of the reason why we are going to need the Pensions Minister’s enthusiasm and ambition is that he will come up against a series of vested interests. When we attempted—[Interruption.] I welcome the Pensions Minister back to his place and am grateful that he is here to listen to this.

When we attempted to launch the pensions superfund, we were bombarded by people who wanted to strangle the superfund industry at birth: the Association of British Insurers; an extraordinary intervention by the Governor of the Bank of England—I am not sure whether the Minister has had a chance to reprogramme the Governor of the Bank of England recently, but I hope he is more enthusiastic about the Minister’s proposal than he was about the last Government’s—and lastly, the Pensions Regulator itself.

I think the Minister wants to create a thriving market in superfunds. However, under the current interim guidance, capital requirements for superfunds are about twice those for insurers providing buy-outs, so it is hardly surprising that we have seen a number of recent new entrants to the insurance market but no new superfunds. The Solvency II regime—apologies for the slightly technical language, but the Minister will appreciate it—that applies to insurers works off a one-year 99.5% confidence level, but over time the industry has been allowed to apply a number of important adjustments, including diversification, matching adjustments and deferred tax credits. All have had the effect of effectively reducing the capital requirement for insurers. In combination, that means that the capital buffer for a buy-out provider is approximately half that of a superfund under the current interim regime, even taking into account the fact that superfunds are proposed to have a one-year 99% confidence level.

The Bill must address that inherent unfairness if, as the Minister wants, the superfund market is to grow. At the moment, it is the proverbial baby who refuses to put on weight. Can the Minister assure me that the Bill will address the problem and create a more level playing field that will allow superfunds to offer the 10% to 15% pricing discount to insurers that his Department has said it is seeking? As the Minister knows, there are a number of techniques for achieving that. He might consider: specifying that superfunds should apply a 98% one-year confidence threshold; the creation of a rule similar to the matching adjustment that applies to insurers; extending a VAT exemption to superfunds for essential pension services, such as admin, actuarial and investment, including scheme origination and transfers of the scheme to superfunds; or—I suppose this is an “and/or”—allowing superfunds to use structured capital instruments such as subordinated debt and preferred shares to lower the cost of capital and enhance investment flexibility, without compromising quality.

Lastly, I turn to the Pensions Regulator’s process of assessing superfunds and giving them a licence to operate—this is the bit where I have the scars on my back. Will the Minister take a close personal interest in this and change the way that the Pensions Regulator works, so that there are stricter and shorter time limits for assessing suitability—shorter than the limits currently in the Bill, which are six months as a default and nine months as a stretch? In the case of the pensions superfund, we had three applications and a similar timescale was used. One can just imagine why the investors’ patience finally ran out and the whole thing was wound up.

I do not want the Minister to be in the position of his predecessor, Guy Opperman, who stood in this place and said that greenlighting superfunds was his greatest achievement during lockdown, yet as a result of a combination of the regulatory environment that was put in place and the vested interests of those who argued against the birth of superfunds, the whole concept was strangled at birth. I want the Minister to avoid that, so I encourage him to look back at the first efforts to produce superfunds and tell the Pensions Regulator a great deal more about how it should do its business.

The reason why the Pensions Regulator became risk averse was because the last Government refused to cover superfunds in their Pension Schemes Bill, now the Pension Schemes Act 2021. The Pensions Regulator did not see why it should take any additional risk if politicians were not going to. I encourage the Minister to have the strength of his convictions to use primarily legislation to tell the Pensions Regulator the market that he wants it to regulate. Then he will give pension superfunds a fighting chance of coming into existence and consolidating. Notwithstanding some of the concerns that others have had, 5,100 of anything is not a working marketplace; it is ripe for consolidation—it was then and it is now.

Winter Fuel Payment

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

I am glad to hear about my hon. Friend’s previous role, and it is encouraging to see what charities representing older people have put out over the last few hours. As I said earlier, Age UK has said that this is the right thing to do and that it will bring much-needed reassurance for older people and their families.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I appreciate that the Minister did not get a chance to spend long on the Back Benches—such has been his accelerated rise up the ministerial pole—but would he like to spare a thought for his former Back-Bench colleagues and join me in thanking and congratulating the small band of Labour Back Benchers who went public, broke cover and opposed this dreadful policy?

[Torsten Bell]

I agree that we should welcome all Labour Back Benchers, because they are the people going through the Lobbies every day to keep in place a Labour Government who are saving public services, taking tough but fair decisions on tax—decisions that are opposed by all the Opposition parties—rescuing our public services and driving down poverty. That is what a Labour Government is about, and that is what everyone on the Labour Benches agrees on.

Mansion House Accord

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Some 5,500 defined-benefit schemes have £1.6 trillion-worth of assets. The trouble is that the regulatory environment is skewed toward buying an insurance policy at the end of that journey. In order to change the way in which trustees and fund managers invest, the Minister has to change the end state. What discussions has he had with the Pensions Regulator and the Association of British Insurers about changing that particular game?

[Torsten Bell]

We have discussed some of these issues in the past, and I look forward to the conversations that I am sure we will have in future, not least around the pension schemes Bill. It is true that for many in the industry, buy-out of their defined-benefit scheme is the end point they are looking to reach, and the number that can reach that point has risen significantly in the recent past as more schemes have moved into surplus. Our job is to provide a range of options for those DB schemes. We have discussed the superfund regime that we will bring forward regulations on through the pension schemes Bill. We have also talked in the last few months about the role of surplus release, which can benefit both employers who want to make investments but also scheme members. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that there are a range of options available to schemes, and they can take the one that is in the best interests of their members.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I remember extremely well when the right hon. Lady was a Minister in the Department—it was very striking how the disability employment gap, which had been falling up until 2010, suddenly stopped falling and plateaued from that moment on. We will deliver a decisive shift to early intervention, helping people to stay in work, and renew fairness and trust in the system. We will provide personalised support so that those who can work can get the jobs that they want.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

7. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of incentives to seek employment.

[The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)]

The introduction of universal credit and the policy choices of the last Conservative Government seem to have had some effect on people’s propensity to be in work. In January, the Department for Work and Pensions published data showing that of the increase in the incapacity benefits caseload since the 2018 universal credit roll-out, 30% of the rise in claims could be explained by foreseeable demographic change and the effect of the structural alterations to the benefit. That leaves 70% of the increase that we do not have data to explain, but the Office for Budget Responsibility and others have drawn attention to the structure of social security and the changes over the past decade. On publishing the analysis I just mentioned, I told the House that the previous Conservative Government took decisions on social security that

“segregated people away from work and forgot about them.”—[Official Report, 29 January 2025; Vol. 761, c. 366.]

I stand by those comments.

[Lincoln Jopp]

The people of Spelthorne are very hard-working and do not mind their taxes being paid for a safety net for the most vulnerable in our society, but they really do get annoyed when they see their taxes going to people who are scamming the benefits system. What assessment have any of the Ministers on the Front Bench made of so-called sickfluencer sites—social media platforms where people are shown how to game the benefits system? Have any of them looked at those sites? Are they a good or bad thing?

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill is going through the House at the moment. The issue that he has raised is at the forefront of the attention of the Minister for Transformation, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), who will take every step he can to deal with issues in that area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I think my hon. Friend will greatly welcome the youth guarantee announced in the “Get Britain Working” White Paper. We want to ensure that every single young person gets the same chance. We have seen a dreadful increase in the number of NEET young people over the past few years, and we are getting to grips with that and tackling it.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

6. If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Pensions Regulator on economic growth.

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

The Government are looking across the piece at how the important work of our regulators supports economic growth, and the Pensions Regulator, which oversees the third largest pension system in the world, is no exception to that.

[Lincoln Jopp]

The then pensions Minister, Guy Opperman, said that green-lighting defined benefit pension superfunds was his greatest achievement of lockdown. The unelected Governor of the Bank of England then unhelpfully intervened and said that superfunds would be a risk to financial stability, and as a result the Pensions Regulator has authorised only one pension superfund to come into existence. Can the Minister be a little more specific and tell us what exactly he is going to get the Pensions Regulator to do differently in order to support the growth mission?

[Torsten Bell]

That is an important question. The Pensions Regulator does recognise its important role in supporting growth; indeed, it has statutory duties not just to protect savers but to minimise the impact on the growth of employers. Superfunds have an important role to play in ensuring that we have larger pension funds that are able to invest in a wider range of assets. As the hon. Gentleman says, on an interim basis the Pensions Regulator has authorised one such fund, but we will take measures in the pension schemes Bill to make further progress in this regard.