Pension Schemes: Guidance

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point. He has pointed out a few issues that were in the initial outlines. He mentioned data, which is an issue. Metrics and the use of implied temperature rises—for example, carbon offsetting and scenario planning—are definitely challenges that are being worked on domestically and internationally. As I said, we are the first country in the world to do this. It is good work, which needs to be built on.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund. I hope that those who are members have received the annual report and will recognise the performance of our fund, which grew from 104.3% in April 2020 to 130% in April 2022. However, that is not really the key point. My key point is that a fair number of pensions—though not our pension—have suffered from LDI and the chaos in the financial markets in September last year. Against that background, I suggest to my noble friend on the Front Bench that all those who are affected have more than enough on their plate at this time tackling those challenges, without having any further advice from anywhere else.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Well, I do not really agree with the general points my noble friend has made. The main thing is that the regulator has a particularly strong role here, and it plans to publish its findings on what we are doing soon to provide schemes with examples of good practice. The regulator has found so far that most reports were published on time. This is to do with the publishing of reports. Almost all were substantial documents showing trustee engagement. In terms of my noble friend’s point about LDI, he will know that much progress has been made, led largely by the independent Bank of England working closely with the Treasury.