Lord Ashcombe — Hansard — Westminster Brief

Lords Committee Stage 1 July 2026 3 contributions

Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

My Lords, I declare my interest as an employee of Marsh, an FCA-regulated entity. These amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe, Lord Altrincham and Lord Holmes concern Clause 21, which I very much welcome in principle. The improvements to regulators’ approval timelines are a …

The wording in the Bill is “changing”, so it can go up or down, but we are asking for it to be reduced. That is significantly different.

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Lords Committee Stage 30 June 2026

Register of Overseas Entities (Protection and Trusts) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Company Law) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak to these regulations, which form part of the ongoing work to strengthen and refine the register of overseas entities, a register introduced by the Conservative Government to bring greater transparency to overseas ownership of UK land and to protect our ec…

Lords Debate 27 April 2026

Pension Schemes Bill

My Lords, my speech says, “I would like to thank all noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate”—but that will not take long. I will not hold us here for a long time, tempting though it is to go over the arguments in considerable detail, but I will say a couple of things. We need to remember tha…

Lords Committee Stage 13 April 2026

Energy Prices Act 2022 (Extension of Time Limit) Regulations 2026

My Lords, I will respond to the Energy Prices Act 2022 (Extension of Time Limit) Regulations 2026 and the related Utilities Act 2000 (Amendment of Section 105) Order 2026, which has already come into force as a companion SI. I thank the Minister for his introduction. These instruments are technical…

Lords Debate 19 March 2026

Pension Schemes Bill

My Lords, I declare my interest as an employee of Marsh, whose sister company Mercer is a pension consultancy, master trust provider and signature to the Mansion House Accord. I speak in strong support of this group, beginning with Amendment 52, which would remove the power to mandate asset allocati…

Lords Statutory Instrument 12 March 2026 2 contributions

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026

My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to follow the noble Lord in what may be his valedictory speech. It is perhaps a little disappointing that it was on this SI, which seems to have been based on false premises. A range of factors that were not available in the other place were introduced only …

The noble Lord did not address the main point in the debate at all, or the fact that his document says: “The exact impact is difficult to quantify, given the lack of data about the contents of containers travelling between Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. That was not mentioned. This is not be…

Lords Debate 5 March 2026 4 contributions

National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill

My Lords, this is a very large group with a number of issues to address. First, I support my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lord Altrincham in Amendment 1 in this group. I remind the House that the Department for Work and Pensions has acknowledged that, as of 2025, around 14.6 million working-…

My Lords, very briefly, I support Amendments 6 and 22 from my noble friends Lord Mackinlay and Lord Fuller. As we have heard, the practical application of the £2,000 cap per person must be clearly defined in primary legislation. Leaving such a significant distinction—whether the cap applies to an in…

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Lords Committee Stage 24 February 2026 4 contributions

National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill

My Lords, clearly there remains a tension within government between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury. As we heard at Second Reading, the DWP is focused on encouraging people to save more for their retirement, yet the Treasury continues to pursue measures to fill its coffers, whi…

My Lords, the amendments in this group either increase the level of pension contributions exempt from national insurance or seek to prevent fiscal drag. Both aims are very welcome. In many respects, the higher the exempt amount, the better; on the face of it, Amendment 9, in the name of the noble Ba…

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Lords Debate 4 February 2026

National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill

My Lords, I raised the topic of today’s debate, salary sacrifice, in the Budget debate on 4 December. I am grateful to the Minister for his comments on my questions in summing up that debate. He felt that the changes to salary sacrifice pension arrangements were a proportionate measure that would ma…

Lords Committee Stage 26 January 2026 2 contributions

Pension Schemes Bill

My Lords, I remind the Committee of my interest as an employee of Marsh, which owns Mercer, a pension and investment advisory management company. I did not intend to speak on this group but I do not believe that financial size is the be-all and end-all. In my world, working for a very large insuran…

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, after that. I support Amendments 115 and 152, in the names of my noble friends Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lady Stedman-Scott, concerning the Government’s draft powers to mandate. The matter before us is not, in essence, a que…

Lords Committee Stage 6 January 2026

Nitrogen Reduction, Recycling and Reuse (Environment and Climate Change Committee Report)

My Lords, I am pleased to say that it is a great pleasure and privilege to sit on this committee. I thank our chair for her huge amount of hard work and excellence in chairing; I also thank the clerking team, our policy analyst and Mark Sutton, our expert adviser. There is a notable irony to the is…

Lords Debate 18 December 2025

Pension Schemes Bill

My Lords, we have had a wide range of expertise in the speakers today, although I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, might be the only one of us who could not think of a better Christmas present than a pensions Bill. I am also conscious that my remarks stand between the House and t…

Lords Debate 15 December 2025 2 contributions

Crime and Policing Bill

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 416B, tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, which concerns the issue of uninsured drivers and to which I have added my name, as this is a serious crime. I declare my interest as an insurance broker with Marsh Ltd. Within the motor indu…

Before the Minister goes on, I think there is a real worry about the current situation on the face of a previous Bill and the insurance that is paid by law-abiding citizens today. I would like some reassurance that that is going to be seriously considered when this comes forward. It is way too far a…

Lords Proceedings 24 November 2025

ExxonMobil: Mossmorran

My Lords, last week was another sad one for the UK oil and petrochemicals industry, as well as for the company employees, contractors and those in the general supply chain who rely on it. The imminent closure of Mossmorran comes in addition to the Grangemouth and Lindsey refineries. What comes next?…

Lords Debate 21 November 2025 2 contributions

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I just want to raise one point. We have heard an awful lot today, but I very much support what my noble friend Lady Berridge and the noble Baroness, Lady Rafferty, have just said about training. I do not believe a doctor, or any form of medical practitioner, can spot coercion with one disc…

I would like to go back to our noble colleague from Yorkshire—I am afraid I do not know the noble Lord’s name and I apologise. He talked about working in the communities in the East End. We are short of GPs as it is, and most of our GPs come from an Anglo-Saxon background still. The noble Lord refer…

Lords Debate 14 November 2025

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, I will keep this brief. I was not going to share this at this point because it is quite personal and because it takes a lot for me to counter the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for whom I have huge respect. She was the first person to invite me to the House of Lords for tea, many years ago.…

Lords Debate 12 September 2025

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London said this morning that to change the law is to change society. The reality is that society has already changed, and it wants us to change the law. When the House of Commons passed the Bill, the Daily Express newspaper hailed the success of it…

Lords Debate 10 September 2025

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I, too, would like to speak in support of Amendment 448A, which I believe represents a significant step forward in promoting fairness within the teaching profession. Just as there are many reasons why an individual may choose not to join a political party, there are likewise numerous legit…

Lords Debate 16 July 2025 4 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral, as well as those proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden. Throughout our debates, one thing has become clear: Clause 23 is one of the more troubling areas for the business community…

My Lords, I shall speak to these amendments, to which I have added by name. What we are dealing with here is a basic question of fairness. Currently, the law recognises the importance of accompaniment at disciplinary and grievance hearings, yet it narrowly limits who that companion can be. Unless an…

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Lords Debate 14 July 2025 3 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, this first group of amendments, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, and my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral, is significant and I am pleased to support it. I declare my interest as an employee of Marsh Ltd, a large insurance broker. Noble Lo…

My Lords, I support Amendments 10 and 11 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goddard. We all understand that in shift-based work there is an expectation that, if someone is on the rota, the shift will go ahead, but life is not always so predictable. In my experience, unexpected changes happen, often…

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Lords Debate 18 June 2025

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral in some of the amendments in this group, and my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Jackson of Peterborough in their opposition to Clause 113, which I must describe—much as the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, did—…

Lords Debate 5 June 2025

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, I had no intention of coming here today to speak until I had dinner last night. Having put in a day’s work, I thought it was time to come here and express an opinion. I would like to describe that situation last night. It follows on from a lot of what my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley …

Lords Debate 3 June 2025 2 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, it seems that, yet again, the noble Lord, Lord Barber, and I are not going to quite agree. I support both these amendments, particularly the one in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. I would like to look at the amendments from the point of view of the employee. When an employee find…

My Lords, I appreciate what the noble Baroness said, because this is about fairness and making sure life works. There are a lot of companies, big and small, where, to a great extent, what has been proposed is already working. However, there are a number of instances—including somewhere like where I …

Lords Debate 21 May 2025 2 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, I stand with some trepidation at this stage to support very much the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, and indeed I support the other amendments in this group. We have to think that any company—large, small, charity, whatever it may be—that hires a new employee…

I am aware of a case of a small company that has got rid of four individuals in view of the legislation because those individuals are not doing a good enough job, but it could live with them if it had the ability to get rid of them. What it cannot face the thought of is having to go down any form of…

Lords Debate 19 May 2025

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 83, in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Acton, and others in this group tabled by my noble friend Lady Noakes. I would like to reflect on the practical implications of these amendments for companies that regularly receive visitors in the course of their b…