Pension Funds

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Manuela Perteghella]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. We need legal reform to ensure that pensions in payment are finally brought under the protection of equality law. We also need greater transparency and accountability from pension providers, especially those entrusted with the retirement futures of hard-working people. HSBC’s clawback policy is discriminatory in its impact, misleading in its language and fundamentally unjust in its effect. I therefore urge the Minister to bring forward legislation to put an end to this outdated practice and to finally stand up for those whose voices have gone unheard for far too long. Clawback is just one part of a broken pension system; we must also ask where our pension funds are invested and what future we are buying with that money.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for laying out the case for change so well. She talks about the investments that pension funds are making. I worked for more than a decade in the investment industry, and many of my clients were big public pension funds. More recently, I served as a trustee of one of the largest public pension funds in the country. One of the things that pensioners contacted me about was where their money was going. They would ask, “Is it being used to fund fossil fuel extraction?” or “Is it being used to support some unsavoury regimes around the world?” Does my hon. Friend agree that pensioners should have more power to have a say over what goes on with their money?

[Manuela Perteghella]

I fully agree. It is really important that pensions reflect ethics and morality and that the people investing in them have a voice. It is no longer good enough to see pensions in isolation from sustainability, ethics or morality. Whether it is because of the way in which funds are clawed back from low-paid pensioners or the way in which they are funnelled into destructive, high-emission industries, the system is crying out for reform.

As we look ahead to COP30, billions of pounds of local government pension schemes are still invested in fossil fuels and in industries that drive deforestation, biodiversity loss and wildlife extinction. If we are to build a just and sustainable future, we must build a just and sustainable pension system that protects not only people in retirement, but the planet and generations to come.