Pension Schemes: Ministerial Powers

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, I declare my interests as set out in the register.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Pension Schemes Bill contains a reserve power on asset allocation, designed as a backstop to the voluntary commitments made by the pensions industry under the Mansion House Accord. The Government do not currently expect to use this power. Were this power ever exercised, schemes that cannot meet the requirements without causing material financial detriment to their members would be able to apply for an exemption under the savers’ interest test. The power is time-limited and subject to consultation, parliamentary approval and robust safeguards.

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, but I am afraid that if the Government’s main argument for including these powers is that they do not expect to need to use them, and will use them only if pension schemes themselves decide that they do not believe it is wise to achieve the allocations that the Government want them to, I have even greater concerns about those powers. I urge the Government to think again about overriding trustees’ decisions about what assets to invest in.

In particular, the Government are trying to take unlimited powers in the Bill to prescribe a percentage, but we do not know what that percentage might be, and to invest in assets, but we do not know which assets they will be. Even those who brokered the Mansion House Accord, such as Pensions UK and the ABI, are saying that they wish this to be reconsidered. Do the Government really believe that they know better than the investment industry how pension schemes should invest? Do they not consider that this is an example of the problems that the Government might have in excluding from the Bill some of the ideal vehicles which could be used to invest in the very assets that the Government say they want to support?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness well knows, we have been discussing this matter for some weeks now in Committee and will be discussing it again on Monday, when we come to the matter on Report. Let me give her a brief answer to the points she has made. I know that she agrees with the Government’s objectives, because she herself has advocated previously—indeed, in Committee—that we make pension tax relief contingent on 25% of new investment being allocated to UK assets. I know she wants the same thing that we do.

To be really clear, the power is being taken as a reserve power to back the voluntary, industry-led Mansion House Accord, which said that by 2030, 17 of the largest pension schemes in the private pensions sector would be investing 10% of their relevant default funds into private investment, with half of that in the UK. The expectation is that having done that, the industry will do it. The reason for taking a reserve power is, as the noble Baroness knows very well, that the challenge in the UK is too often schemes compete on cost and not on value. There is always a risk that for some small competitive advantage, somebody may want to try to separate off from that, so the reserve power is signalling clearly to the industry: this is the direction of travel, so let us stay with it. All we are doing is backstopping that.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, the Government say that this power is merely a backstop to the Mansion House Accord but that is a gross misrepresentation. The Pension Schemes Bill goes far beyond that and gives Ministers sweeping authority to mandate pension investments to whatever level they choose. The state should not be directing the allocation of private pension assets. Those decisions must be taken by trustees in the best interests of their members, not by Labour Ministers pursuing political objectives. This policy risks undermining confidence in the entire auto-enrolment system, which was built on the promise that people’s savings would be invested in their interests, not the Government’s. I ask the Minister a simple question: will the Government remove this dangerous and unjustified power from the Bill?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

There is a short and a long answer. The short answer is no. The long answer is that the Government have made it abundantly clear, because I have done it myself many times in Committee, what the purpose of the reserve power is: to backstop the Mansion House and trust commitments. My honourable friend the Pensions Minister and I have made it clear—he said it again this morning at a pensions conference—that we would make absolutely sure that the Government’s intention simply to backstop those agreements was there in the Bill. That is what the legislation is for, but I need to correct something in particular. This power does not direct schemes into specific assets or projects. What it does is set a broad framework aligned with the industry’s own voluntary commitments under the Mansion House Accord. Trustees retain full discretion over individual investment selection and the balance between asset classes. The role of a pension trustee has always been to exercise judgment, subject to constraints, and nothing in these provisions changes that.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister perhaps tell us why she thinks pension funds are not currently investing, or have not been investing, in the types of assets that she would like them to? I ask that question because surely the better way forward is to understand what is stopping them doing so and fixing that problem, rather than telling them to do something they do not wish to do.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have said this many times in Committee, as the noble Lord knows, but I am delighted to explain again for the benefit of the whole House. I have just explained what the Government believe the challenge is. By international standards, we are really very low in aiming for 10%. Canadian schemes invest 11% in infrastructure alone. The evidence is clear that investing a small proportion of funds in the context of a diversified portfolio brings better returns for savers over the long run. The aim is to get better returns for savers. There is too much short-termism in our markets at the moment, and the view of the Government—as well as the evidence that seems to be out there—is that this is because we are seen as competing on cost, rather than on return or value. It is much easier to pitch to an employer on that basis. If we make it clear that the whole industry is going in this direction, then we believe that that will be the case. The choices will still be there, the safeguards are still in place, and we believe that this will be in the interests of savers across the long term.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, what timeline are the Government following, given that the Mansion House Accord target is 2030? When will the Government commence consultation, as there has not been any yet, and what analysis has been done about the difficulties now reported daily of private credit funds, and others, not being able to make redemptions or exits? Would the effect be that the Government would be forcing workers’ pensions to be buyers of last resort, and is that fair when private sector workers do not have any guaranteed benefits?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

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 capped at that level and cannot be raised thereafter. This will happen only if it becomes clear that the Mansion House Accord is not able to be delivered on. At that point the Government would consult, they would produce draft regulations, and the process would then happen. As I have made clear, since the only aim is to backstop the Mansion House Accord, the evidence should come from what companies are doing in that accord.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, like my noble friend I am looking forward to discussing these issues at length on Report of the Pension Schemes Bill. Does the Minister agree with me that the real trick is not so much directing the investment as finding the suitable opportunities in which to invest? Her honourable friend the Pensions Minister has talked extensively about the failure of investment in reservoirs over the last 20 or 30 years. There is a failure there that has to be addressed.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My noble friend is quite right; we have had many opportunities. It has been a joy to discuss the Pension Schemes Bill over many weeks, and that joy is set to extend for some weeks to come. My noble friend raises an important point: if the Government want to make sure that people are investing in good projects, they need to make sure that there are good projects to invest in. We also need to make sure that there are vehicles for doing that. The Government have done a great deal already, with the British Business Bank, looking at what has happened with Sterling 20 and at making sure that we work with industry to create the opportunities. But there is clearly money to be made here: if international pension funds are coming to our country and buying up chunks of our infrastructure and our private equity, we should be making sure that these are open to our own pension funds to make money on them. Nobody is making them do it; they are doing it because it is the right thing to do. We need to make sure, therefore, that we enable and encourage it, and the industry has taken the first steps itself. We are simply making sure that the backstop is there to make clear that this is the direction of travel.

[Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of the Scottish American Investment Company. I understand why the Government would want to take a reserve power, given the persistent failure of the City of London—one of the biggest global financial centres—to provide equity finance to British industry over 150 years. Equally, successive Governments’ record of direct investment, or indeed direct intervention, is, to put it charitably, poor. Does the Minister acknowledge that government intervention carries a price in terms of market confidence, and will the Government take that into account before exercising any reserve power?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for an excellent question; with his background I would expect no less. The simple answer is yes. To be clear, the power does not direct schemes into any specific assets or projects. What it does is set a broad framework. It talks about private investment as a whole, not about specific assets. Crucially, the safeguards are really clear. If the power ever comes to be used, a number of things have to happen. First, there has to be a report commissioned and published before the power is used, so as to make sure that the conditions are right, and to show the impact on savers’ interest and on growth. Secondly, there is a savers’ interest test. If the trustees believe that it would not be in the interests of their beneficiaries to follow the direction, not only can they, but one would expect their fiduciary duties to guide them to, make an application for an exemption under the savers’ interest test; that is there to do that job for them. There is also parliamentary scrutiny of any regulations. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

As the Minister herself has just said, the signatories to the Mansion House Accord signed up to a voluntary agreement to invest in UK assets. Does she agree that they were not aware that the reserve power, the so-called mandation element, was going to be in the Bill? Does she therefore agree with me, with many of the signatories themselves, and with those in the pensions industry that mandation goes well beyond the Mansion House Accord?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, to be clear, the Government designed this power specifically to backstop the Mansion House Accord, and that is our intention. I am always open to suggestions of ways to make that clearer than we have tried to do so far. I had a great opportunity to talk to many Members of the House about this and many other issues, and I am happy to carry on doing that. There is a very simple way for any of the Mansion House signatories to make sure that this power is never used: to keep to the voluntary commitments that they have already made. If that happens, there will be no need for the power ever to be used and the Government will not bring it in, so everybody will be happy. That is the simple way forward.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, under the Mansion House Accord, and the mandation that now sits behind it, people on the lowest incomes will find 10% of their pensions put into high-risk illiquid assets. Given that that pool of assets is currently in very serious trouble thanks to illiquidity—this was prior to the Iran war, which is going to burst the bubble—will the Minister say that, if she forces this through, the Government will backstop the losses that will happen for those people on the lowest incomes, so that their pensions are not wrecked when they reach retirement?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, first, as I have said before, the Government are very clear—and the Bill makes clear—that were the power ever to be used, the Government must commission a report that will look at the state of the market and the impact on savers’ interests, as well as wider impacts, before using the power. If what the noble Baroness is describing were to be the case, that would become evident, and it would of course affect the Government’s decision.

Secondly, and, again, just to be clear, it is because we want to look after the interests of savers that we want to tackle the fact that, by international standards, UK pension funds invest tiny amounts of money in private finance, and therefore, as a result of not investing in private assets, it is savers—those savers whom the noble Baroness specifically describes—who are losing out because they are not getting the returns that they need. These are the default funds, so savers who know lots about this, and who will want to make judgments on making sure that their assets are in the right place, are already doing that. It is not serving their interests if these default funds are being put simply into passive investing or things that will not bring the long-term returns.

Finally, this goes back to the fact that the trustees are not being directed to invest in any specific asset or particular project. If the power was ever to be brought in and they were asked to do this, and if they believed that it was not in their interests, then we would expect them to apply for an exemption to protect the interests of their members. If there was something about their members—in the way that the noble Baroness describes—that was relevant, they would simply have to provide that evidence. That is what the savers’ interest test is for.