Civil Service Pensions

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The failure of Capita to meet the 30 June deadline is deeply disappointing, but, sadly, not surprising. Behind it sit 1.7 million current and former civil servants who simply want peace of mind that the pension they have earned through decades of public service will be handled competently, fairly and with dignity. Capita’s repeated failures are causing distress and uncertainty for people who deserve better, including several of my constituents, such as Sue from Romiley, Tracy from Offerton and Christopher from Marple.

The Public Accounts Committee did indeed warn that Capita risked not being ready to take over full administration back in December, and it raised serious concerns about weak contract management and poor oversight. Those warnings have now come to fruition as thousands of retired civil servants have experienced delays or complete failures in pension payments since Capita took over. How will the Government restore confidence for the 1 million-plus current and former civil servants who simply want reassurance that their pensions will be administered competently? What assessment has been made of the systemic failures in the administration of this scheme, and what lessons have been learned for future contracts of this kind? How can the Minister ensure that this failure is given sufficient weight should Capita have the brass neck to bid for any future Government contracts in this are or wholly unrelated ones?

The Minister has rightly called the thousands of unresolved bereavement cases harrowing. These grieving families are being denied closure. Will he commit today to ordering Capita to prioritise all bereavement cases as a matter of particular urgency, and will he guarantee that this specific backlog will be zero by a certain date?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

To take the hon. Lady’s final point first, yes, bereavement cases are being prioritised. Capita’s current working assumption is that the remaining backlog of over 6,700 quotations for past retirement dates and the 4,100 actionable bereavement cases will be systemically cleared through the rest of July and August, and I hope this House will hold it to that timetable.

More broadly, the hon. Lady is absolutely right about learning the lessons from this situation and robustly holding Capita to account. That is why, as the House will be aware, I took the decision to end, for example, its contract for the Royal Mail pension scheme. The House can be assured that I will not hesitate to take robust action.

On the hon. Lady’s other point, which I think is a central one, I am always very conscious—contrary to what the shadow Minister says—of the operational position week to week in order to ensure that I am still driving the improvement of this pension scheme to the level it should be at.