Oral Answers to Questions

Torsten Bell Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

14. What recent steps he has taken to support British pensioners.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Torsten Bell)]

The Government are committed to supporting British pensioners to enjoy a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of work. That is why we are raising the state pension throughout this Parliament via the triple lock. That saw the state pension increase by 4.8% in April, boosting the level of the new state pension by £575 a year.

[Andrew Rosindell]

I thank the Minister for his reply, but he will know that my borough of Havering has the second largest number of older people in the entirety of Greater London. Nearly a quarter of my constituents are within that age bracket, and they are losing out. I know that the Government’s policy on the winter fuel allowance has changed, but it frightened them and made them ask whether Labour is really on their side. Will the Minister assure my constituents that the next Labour Administration will not target pensioners, but will give them the respect they deserve, and ensure that they have a happy and healthy retirement?

[Torsten Bell]

I can give the hon. Member the assurance he asks for, which is that this Labour Administration, like all Labour Administrations, are on the side of pensioners. Of course, he only defected earlier this year, so he was a Conservative MP during all 14 years of the Conservative party’s disastrous last Government—a Government who saw pensioner poverty rise and left one in five of those aged over 75 on NHS waiting lists. That is what letting down pensioners looks like.

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

Can the Minister set out what plans he has to make sure that today’s workers—tomorrow’s pensioners—enjoy a decent retirement?

[Torsten Bell]

That is a very important question. We need to make sure that those who will retire in 2050 can look forward to the same kind of comfortable retirements that many—not all, but many—of today’s pensioners enjoy, and the honest answer is that we are not on track for that at the moment. This Government are taking a two-stage approach. We are driving up returns on pension savings now—that is what the Pensions Schemes Act 2026 does—but we are also doing the longer-term work through the Pensions Commission to look at exactly the question of how we make sure that tomorrow’s pensioners can enjoy comfortable retirements. I promise that the commission will bring forward its report early next year.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

The Pensions Minister likes to spend a lot of time criticising the previous Government for their actions on pensioners. He also spends an awful lot of time talking up his legacy on helping pensioners, but his actions simply do not reflect the narrative. So far, he has capped salary sacrifice, there have been delays to the pensions dashboards, we have had retrospective changes to inheritance tax on pension pots, and—as we have heard—the Government are chasing hard-up pensioners for their winter fuel allowance. All of this creates uncertainty among savers and pensioners alike, so I will repeat the question asked by the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell): is the Pensions Minister hopeful that his successor will do a better job of looking after pensioners?

[Torsten Bell]

I am incredibly hopeful that this Government are doing a much better job than the previous Government in supporting pensioners, not only by driving up the state pension, but by getting on with the much delayed reforms to our defined-contribution pension system, which the previous Government left on ice. We are also coming forward with something much more important, because the biggest betrayal of older generations in Britain today is the state in which the Conservatives left our national health service.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

15. What recent estimate he has made of the level of fraud and error in the social security system.

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[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

T2. The Minister should know that although the triple lock remains in place, it is not as effective as it should be because of fiscal drag. A lot of pensioners are now paying tax, as the threshold has not been increased since 2021. Will he please do something for the hard-working pensioners of this country, who deserve better in their retirement?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Torsten Bell)]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point, and we need to fund the NHS to stop letting down older generations. Taxes have consequences that affect the whole population, including pensioners. The Chancellor has set out that the level of the personal allowance will remain above the level of the new and the basic state pension—the headline rates—throughout this year. In future years we will ensure that we ease the administrative burden for pensioners who have small amounts of tax due.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

T8. In the consultation on surplus flexibilities for defined pension schemes, the Pensions Minister explained that trustees could offer employers surplus extraction of pension funds on condition of restoring the value of pre-1997 pensions. In drawing up the regulations, will he ensure that trustees are required to commission an independent assessment of pre-1997 pension erosion, ringfence funds to restore full pension value, and restore pension value to members ahead of any surplus extraction by employers?

[Torsten Bell]

My hon. Friend and I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions, and she has been an important campaigner for pensioners in her constituency who have been affected by it. Although three quarters of schemes provide some degree of pre-1997 indexation, there is a very real impact on members of schemes that do not—indeed, we have discussed that with local pensioners in south Wales. The surplus reforms that this Government are bringing forward will make it easier for some trustees to negotiate for additional indexation. We launched a consultation on this issue on 10 June, and it runs until 2 September. I will take my hon. Friend’s comments as input for that consultation.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

T4. One in 50 Londoners, including one in 21 children, are homeless and living in temporary accommodation. London boroughs are spending £5 million a day on temporary accommodation. Although housing costs have skyrocketed in the past 15 years, the temporary accommodation subsidy gap has remained frozen since 2011. Some councils are now struggling to fund other important areas, such as social care. Will the Minister commit to urgently reviewing the temporary accommodation subsidy gap, to ensure that councils are fairly reimbursed?

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[Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)]

The Pensions Minister knows that there is no retirement on a dead planet, so will he commit to writing to the 50 largest UK pension funds to ask them to set out their timetable for divesting from fossil fuels?

[Torsten Bell]

My hon. Friend is a consistent campaigner on these issues in this place and in our regular meetings, and I always learn something from those conversations. I am not going forward with exactly the suggestion he brings forward, but I agree that there is more we can do, not least to provide clarity for trustees. We are working with industry to develop guidance clarifying that fiduciary duties allow trustees investing in members’ best interests to consider systemic risks, including climate change, and we will consult later this summer.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

The increased PIP costs are expected to add an extra £5 billion to the welfare budget this year. As the TaxPayers’ Alliance has highlighted, the number of households earning over £100,000 and getting PIP has doubled to 200,000 claimants. Will the Minister make an assessment of the potential merits of means-testing PIP to ensure targeted support?

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[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

Given that benefit fraud is estimated at around £9 billion, and that the WASPI women are apparently willing to have the cost of their just compensation claim capped at around a third of that figure, can someone from the ministerial team confirm that the Government are willing to change course and negotiate with the WASPI women?

[Torsten Bell]

The hon. Member will know that a judicial review claim has been filed, and that we cannot comment on live litigation. There are legitimate views on raises in the state pension age, particularly the 2011 acceleration put in place by the coalition Government, but the investigation that is being considered by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is not about those increases; it is purely on the narrow point about communication. The Government have made their position clear on that and set it out in the decision document placed in the House of Commons Library.

[Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)]

Safeguarding has been a key focus of the Work and Pensions Committee, so I was shocked to hear that my constituent Barbara Skedd received a letter to her executors, incorrectly notifying them of her death. This resulted in Barbara’s benefits being stopped, including the personal independence payment and all her pensions. My team have been working hard to get those reinstated. Can the Secretary of State outline what steps he is taking to ensure that those kinds of errors are minimised, and that the appropriate package of support is put in place so that when errors do occur, they are dealt with quickly?