Lords
Committee Stage
1 July 2026
Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]
My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment 123 in my name. As I have said before in Committee, when we have been talking about proportionality, it is at least possible to look at rules and assess whether they appear proportionate and growth-friendly, but it is far harder to …
Lords
Committee Stage
24 June 2026
Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 48. It addresses a simple but important point: the quality of regulation depends on the quality of consultation. At present, consultation periods vary unpredictably. Some run for many weeks; others, even on significant policy shifts, have been compressed into …
Lords
Committee Stage
22 June 2026
Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]
My Lords, this and the following group dwell on the same territory; I will make my main intervention in the next group alongside my detailed amendments. I am sorry that I had to separate them out, but that was only because of the Chief Whip’s speaking-time restrictions on non-movers, which ironicall…
Lords
Debate
28 April 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, the amendments brought forward by the Government today, in lieu of those proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, go some way towards addressing our more fundamental concerns about the mandation power. In particular, the shift in the test—from requiring schemes to show that compliance
…
Lords
Debate
27 April 2026
3 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
I support the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. I point out to the Minister that the Mansion House Accord had two parts. The second part had government obligations, on the basis of which the industry voluntarily agreed to invest in the private assets that the Government favour. None of the Government’s o…
My Lords, I declare my interest as an employee of Marsh, whose sister company Mercer is a pension consultancy, master trust provider and, importantly, a signatory to the Mansion House Accord. What would the Noble Baroness the Minister say to firms that signed the Mansion House Accord last year in go…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
22 April 2026
3 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, briefly, I support everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, said. I also thank the Minister: I recognise that there has been significant movement on the part of the Government on some of the other issues.
Unfortunately, although just constraining the mandatory power in the way the…
My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, in insisting on the omission of mandation in Motion A1. The proposal has made the Government unpopular in the City and, as an ex-businesswoman and ex-pension trustee, I urge Ministers to think more radically and get rid of the power altogether, ev…
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Lords
Debate
20 April 2026
3 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, it is utterly ridiculous that only 5% of UK pension funds are invested in the UK. The figure was 50% when I was a pension fund manager. The difference is entirely down to us as politicians. The solution is not to compel financial managers to do things; it is to understand what we did to ma…
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their comments. Having spoken at some length at the start, I will not respond at length. I shall just pick up a few points.
On the question on fiduciary duty, nothing in the Bill disapplies trustees’ existing duties of loyalty, prudence and acting in m…
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Lords
Debate
26 March 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I did not expect to be back moving amendments quite so quickly, but despite the 20 consequential amendments that I moved on Report, four more have come to light. They are printed on the Marshalled List. They are entirely consequential on Amendment 52, which deleted mandation. All I seek to…
Lords
Debate
19 March 2026
2 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, we debated Clause 40 and the new FSMA Section 28C issues thoroughly in Committee. I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed and to those who have spoken to me since. The amendments in this group would remove the reserve power that would allow the Government to mandate asset allocati…
My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken. The overwhelming view is still that this power goes too far. Many of the issues on which the Minister comments are around cost but, as I said, the whole focus on cost has been brought about by regulation. Changing to value for money will, I hope, adjust t…
Lords
Debate
16 March 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 2 and 5, which address the same underlying issue—whether pooling and expertise in the Local Government Pension Scheme is intended to support good investment decisions or to constrain them. I will speak in support of Amendment 4, to which I have added my name.
No…
Lords
Oral Questions
11 March 2026
Pension Schemes: Ministerial Powers
My Lords, the Government have not set out a timeline for using the power precisely because we have made it clear that we do not wish to use it, and do not expect to use it. The timeline for Mansion House is clear: the power expires if it is not used, and if any requirements are in place, they are ca…
Lords
Committee Stage
23 February 2026
3 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, I will say only a couple of things. The first is that this is asking for a review and transparency. It is necessary for us to know the liabilities that are stacked up; there is no getting away from that. My experience in this came in the financial crisis, when I was in Europe and chair of …
My Lords, I am introducing Amendment 219A on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. She regrets that she is unable to be here, but I think she is somewhere on a plane at the moment, and I know she considers this a matter of great importance.
The amendment seeks to enhance the framework for def…
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Lords
Committee Stage
5 February 2026
4 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
I have a couple of questions. I must confess that these stem from previous occasions when promises to be at least as good do not appear to have happened, as in the AEA transfer. I am a little suspicious of this, as it seems to be in the same kind of area.
My Lords, this Bill is removing the requirement for the Pension Protection Fund to charge a levy each year, and the PPF has said for some time that there will not be one this year. Indeed, our discussions on other issues today have taken us into speculation as to whether there would ever need to be …
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Lords
Committee Stage
3 February 2026
6 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
I do not think I was suggesting that it was an anti-competitive move by the pensions industry, but there are segments in it that are advantaged by it. The other concern is that the meetings that took place prior to the signing of the Mansion House agreement were very particular to certain types of o…
If this is such a good idea, why not just mandate it for all pension funds?
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Lords
Committee Stage
26 January 2026
7 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, Amendment 111A would add the words
“as determined by the underlying assets in any structure or fund”
after “qualifying assets” in new Section 28C(1). Its purpose is simple: to ensure that when measuring investment in private markets via collective investment vehicles, we look at the unde…
May I intervene so that I do not have to take up time later? I cannot see the difference between the follow-on funding that you get with a listed investment company, if you have an IPO, and the subsequent follow-on funding rounds. With an LTAF, you have initial fundraising and subscriptions. With a …
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Lords
Committee Stage
22 January 2026
7 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, those noble Lords who have examined the Marshalled List will know that Amendment 46A constitutes what was in Amendment 46 but with an extra paragraph (e) in the proposed new subsection; that is the difference. The amendment proposes a small number of matters that value for money “must”, ra…
My Lords, it falls to me to do the summation as a stand-in. I thank the Minister for her comprehensive reply. I wish I could speak that fast. It answered quite a lot of the points that I raised. It is obviously quite irritating for us when we commence a Bill and then consultations that provide a lot…
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Lords
Committee Stage
19 January 2026
Pension Schemes Bill
I am quite pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, because I feel that we are fishing slightly in the same pond. I added my name to the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and I support doing something for the pre-1997 people. When you look at something as long-term as p…
Lords
Committee Stage
12 January 2026
6 contributions
Pension Schemes Bill
I no longer have any financial interests to declare, having retired from the board of the London Stock Exchange at the end of 2025 after a long tenure, although that indicates that I have some history in that regard. I also have a history of policy engagement with local authority pension funds, the …
My Lords, I share some of the concerns that have been expressed. I added my name to Amendment 6, and I could have added it to Amendment 5 as well. Before I go further, as it is an early part of discussing this Bill, I should say that I am a great supporter of the notion that there should be investme…
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Lords
Debate
18 December 2025
Pension Schemes Bill
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. She speaks with great experience and knowledge, and I certainly very much agree with the points she made on fiduciary duties and the need for clarity on them.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady White of Tufnell Park, who is not in …
Lords
Oral Questions
18 December 2025
Jobs Market: Wider Economic Implications
My Lords, I think I might save the pension fund for the extensive debate we will have later, which is my Christmas present from the Chief Whip. That is all I can conclude. The noble Baroness makes a very important point. One of the things that the Government as a whole are doing is looking across th…
Lords
Oral Questions
25 November 2025
Forthcoming Fiscal Changes
As the noble Baroness knows, and as I think I have made clear, I am not going to comment on speculation ahead of the Budget, neither am I going to comment—I never do—on market movements.
Lords
Oral Questions
10 November 2025
National Insurance: Partnerships
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question, the first part of which I agree with. On the rest of it, as she knows, I am not going to comment on individual tax measures right now.
Lords
Debate
14 October 2025
Renters’ Rights Bill
My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford. As previously, I declare my interest as a private landlord. In the context of this amendment, I had a relative to whom it would have applied; that interest no longer applies, as the Bill has caused plans to b…
Lords
Oral Questions
2 September 2025
Gilt Yields
As the noble Baroness knows, the Government do not comment on specific financial market movements, but it is very clear that we have created space for the Bank of England to cut interest rates five times since the election. That will absolutely help those people taking out a mortgage.
Lords
Oral Questions
10 July 2025
Primary Stock Exchange Listings
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. I do not necessarily share the overall pessimism that she started her question with. Of course, reform is necessary and that is why next week at Mansion House the Chancellor will publish the 10-year strategy for financial services, which I hope w…