National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, support these four amendments and, had it been permitted at ping-pong, I would have added my name.

I am going to be very brief. We are all aware, through freedom of information applications, that the OBR forecasts of the impact of this Bill present us with a high degree of uncertainty. In that circumstance, one would think that an impact assessment was the logical response, particularly since there is a time delay to the introduction of this measure.

Sometimes you come across a Bill and you just know that the Government have misunderstood what its impacts are going to be, and that when it is in force there will either have to be very dramatic changes or the whole Bill will need to be reversed. Frankly, this Bill is one of them.

I am not going to take up any more of the time of this House, but I hope that the Government understand and realise that this is not a Bill that will work in its present form and that an impact assessment would have been an assistance, not a burden.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I was speaking to a young man just yesterday who has done everything he has been encouraged to do. He has studied well and he has worked and saved in order to put a deposit down on a house. He has been helped by people who have been fortunate enough to make some money to be able to help him. He had just moved into his first flat in London, and he could not be happier. Yesterday, he was called into his boss to be told there would be a period of consultation because of the Government’s introduction of various taxes and penalties on employers trying to employ people. He is now in a very difficult and despondent position.

We talk about impact assessments for pension contributions. Has the Minister any idea of the impact on people’s lives when they have done everything right and now find themselves in the most vulnerable position? This may not be completely focused on the amendments that have been laid today, but the principle is the same. The Government are creating anxiety. The whole thing is making people wonder what the point of trying to better their lives is. I ask the Minister to think again. If we want a country that is robust, where people feel that everything is to gain, this is not the way to go about it.