Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update

Debate between Lord Scriven and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

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

Again, I put on record my thanks to my noble friend for the many hours he has spent looking at documents, for changing the way his committee is working in terms of the number of meetings, and for all the work that has been done in this space. On setting a deadline for the challenge meeting, I will speak to officials as soon as I have finished the next Statement and make sure that that date is in the diary before the House prorogues.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, today, we learned of an un-minuted meeting at which senior advisers to the Prime Minister bypassed Civil Service oversight to green-light a known high-risk appointment. Can the Minister tell the House how this meeting was within the normal due process and who gave the order to exclude the propriety and ethics team from such critical discussions?

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

I am going to thank the noble Lord for the question; maybe I should not. He will have to bear with me, because he, like I, will have watched some of the hearings as they were happening. I will write to him with the detail about who, what, when and where.

Pension Schemes

Debate between Lord Scriven and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

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

The noble Lord is aware that I have been a fan for many years and would listen to him with interest on every position he takes. I do, however, find it a little rich, given the positions that he previously held, to be lectured by him about a contract that was signed by the previous Government, following many contracts, not least the ones he talked about in defence, that were signed by the previous Government. I have already talked about how we will seek to move forward with insourcing.

I should put on record the fact that I am an honorary captain in the Royal Navy and was a member of the Defence Select Committee when some of these issues were being discussed about the Capita contract and the impact it had on recruitment into our Armed Forces. I believe and hope, however, that Serco is going to benefit from some of the changes that we as a Government undertook with Capita on the defence recruitment contract, which moved to Serco last month.

At the heart of this are—as I think we are all aware—our responsibilities towards taxpayers’ money and making sure that it is spent well, and that, whenever we choose to outsource, it is because we need to bring in different expertise that is not typically appropriate for us to hold centrally. But we need to make sure that this works and works for us, and I hope we will see that going forwards. But Capita is a supplier in more than 80 government contracts.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I am agnostic about insourcing or outsourcing. What I want is good service for the pensioners. Just to give an example of how insourcing might not always go right—and I appreciate that the Minister will probably have to write to me on this, because I am going slightly tangentially—the NHS Business Services Authority is an insourcing organisation for NHS pensioners. Given the failure that we have at the moment in that scheme, I ask the Minister: what steps could the Government take to ensure that the significant delays that NHS Pensions, in applying the annual inflation increase to pensioners who have been flagged for manual reconciliation due to their lifetime allowance, can be dealt with and solved, so that those pensioners who are waiting for their annual increase this year and from previous years get that annual increase, which they are entitled to under the 1971 Act?

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

As I said, I am very clear that pensions are deferred income and pensioners are entitled to them. In a previous iteration, I was a trade union officer who negotiated part of the Agenda for Change agreement. In terms of access and impact, it is key. The noble Lord will not be surprised that I do not have the detail of that pension scheme in front of me, but I will write to him with an update.

Exercise Pegasus 2025

Debate between Lord Scriven and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent

Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

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

I was hoping I looked a bit skinny today, but maybe not.

The noble Lord raises an important point about how we ensure that the general public are as well as they can be, given that we do not know what the next threat may be and how it will touch society. That is why this Government launched their 10-year health plan, which includes how we engage with those who have health inequalities and wider inequalities, to ensure that every member of the general public is best placed to deal with the threat.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Feedback from local resilience forums suggests that they are now clearer about their roles thanks to this exercise but lack the surge funding to maintain the staff trained during Pegasus. Will the Government be looking to commit to a multiyear resilience funding settlement for local resilience forums, to ensure that the lessons of Pegasus are not lost to pressures on local budgets?

Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Debate between Lord Scriven and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Lords Chamber

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

I thank my noble friend for her work in getting us to this point. We put on record our thanks to her, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, as the leading negotiators making sure we got to this point. My noble friend was not allowed to say sorry, but I can say sorry to those people who have been affected by this. I get to do that because of the fights that she had. For that, I am grateful; I do not have to have so many fights with my civil servants.

With regard to transparency, noble Lords will appreciate that we are talking about a cohort of people who have been affected by infected blood and who have no trust. Rightly, there is no reservoir of good will. We have to be as transparent and open as we possibly can to make sure that they know what is happening, why it is happening, at what speed and in what process. While the speed may be a challenge, we have to make sure that it is in place.

One thing that I have not said yet but wanted to put on record is that, as of 1 October, staff at IBCA are now directly employed and are no longer seconded civil servants. They are now public servants who work for IBCA. I think that helps lead to transparency of and trust in IBCA. In addition to the fact that we publish everything—the reviews are making sure that we are able to do that, including transparent publication in relation to the technical meeting group—everything we are doing is trying to rebuild trust with that community.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I listened to the Minister carefully with regard to inheritance tax. I am sure that she will agree that for those who are affected by this scandal, it will be generational rather than just stop at the end of the life of the person who was infected. Let me give an example of the generational issues: a child of somebody who was infected has been affected, and that may pass down to their children in terms of them not having a full education or not being able to work fully in light of the issue they were dealing with in respect of their parents. What would the Minister say to citizens and individuals who have been affected, where it goes to their children’s children, and they may have to pay inheritance tax? What can the Government do in terms of speaking to the Treasury to ensure generational fairness as well as fairness for those who have been infected when it comes to inheritance tax?

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

I truly appreciate the strength of feeling in your Lordships’ House about this issue. I have said as much as I can without getting myself into even more trouble, but what I will say is that it is a fair point. Noble Lords will be aware that I also talk about issues pertaining to Northern Ireland and legacy, intergenerational trauma and making sure that we have the right support structures in place and the right answers for people so that they can perhaps turn the page—I do not know if they can ever shut the book—on what happened to them and move forward. While I appreciate noble Lords and I have probably already got myself in trouble with my colleagues in the Treasury, I have heard and will continue to listen to noble Lords’ contributions on this issue.