Pension Schemes

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Public Accounts Committee has had a number of hearings on this issue, and I am sure the Chair, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), will want to ask some questions. First of all, there is a shared responsibility here. MyCSP has responsibilities, but I have to say that the Cabinet Office oversaw this, and there are real questions that the Minister should be asking officials in the Cabinet Office about their degree of responsibility.

We have had so many assurances on this. Are the June assurances really going to be kept to? This is not a one-off issue, is it? The civil service pension scheme has had at least three different problems with three different providers in the past. We have had the teachers’ pension scheme, the Royal Mail pension scheme—an awful lot of them. We asked the Cabinet Office permanent secretary whether she would go away and look at having an in-house team built up to administer public sector pensions in a way that might prevent these recurring problems with a variety of private sector providers, whose arrangements always seem to go wrong.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend can rest assured that I have interrogated officials on the situation that I inherited. On the point about assurances and promises not being met, I think the House can say today that when assurances are not met, I take decisive action, including commercial action. My hon. Friend will have seen that with regard to the Royal Mail statutory pension scheme, but also in our withholding milestone payments from Capita. He talked about whether we are looking at insourcing more things. That clearly is the Government’s pledge, and our policy going forward. With regard to the Royal Mail statutory pension scheme, we will look at a range of options in both those categories to ensure that we get the very best possible service for those who deserve it and rely on it.