Civil Service Pension Scheme

Lord Pack Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I gently remind the noble Baroness that this contract and its details were signed by the previous Government. We are now trying to fix, and seek assurances for, a contract that has failed many people.

On the detail and the actions of the Cabinet Office, we have established a pension recovery task force led by Angela MacDonald, the Second Permanent Secretary at HMRC. There are 140 surge staff, the costs of which Capita confirmed in a letter to the Cabinet Office in April it will be funding. Capita has surged its number of support staff as well; 500 people are working on the contract, which is a 50% per cent increase on the previous contract. Clearly, however, too many individuals are waiting.

Regarding the details that the noble Baroness has requested, obviously a Statement is coming. If they are not included in that, I know she will make sure that I write to her with the details as and when we get to that point.

[Lord Pack (LD)]

When I previously asked the Minister in what circumstances a failure by a supplier could result in its being banned from future contracts, she said

“authorities can now also exclude suppliers who failed to rectify poor performance under a contract with a public authority despite an opportunity to do so, provided the issue is continuing”.

That sounds very much like the current situation with Capita, so I ask the Minister: how close are we now to Capita being excluded from future contracts, and what level of further failure on this contract would trigger its exclusion from any future contracts?