Neurodiversity in the Workplace

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered neurodiversity in the workplace.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. Neurodiversity is still too often misunderstood, overlooked or treated as a marginal issue, when in reality it affects millions of people across our workforce, across every sector and across every part of the country. This debate is about fairness, dignity at work and whether our workplaces are genuinely designed for the people who work in them.

I also requested this debate for a more personal reason. I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as an adult, and like many people who are diagnosed later in life, that diagnosis did not change who I am, but it clarified things. It helped me understand why some environments drained me, why others energised me, and why I had spent years adapting myself to systems that were never designed with people like me in mind.

Since I became a Member of Parliament, many constituents have written to me with experiences that echoed that same story. This included people who have spent years masking, people who have been labelled difficult or unreliable, and people who have quietly left jobs they were good at because the barriers became too much. So when we talk about neurodiversity at work, we are not talking about abstract theory; we are talking about real people, real workplaces and real lost potential.

Around one in seven people in the UK are neurodivergent, including autistic people, and people with ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and other conditions. Many neurodivergent people will qualify as disabled under the Equality Act 2010, which means that they are legally entitled to reasonable adjustments at work.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this matter forward, and I spoke to her beforehand. By way of encouragement, in Northern Ireland, we have done a lot of work on this issue, and I am very impressed by what we have done. There has been a significant push towards neuro-inclusion through governmental toolkits and specialised training programmes. That fits in well with our legal landscape in Northern Ireland, as it should, but there is one thing that we fall short on, and the hon. Lady might wish to ask the Minister about it. Small businesses do not have human resources sections and, as such, they are unable to do the work that HR departments do. Does she feel that that is something we could improve on, not just here but back home?

[Sarah Hall]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention; I absolutely agree. I echo his comments about the fantastic work that is being done in Northern Ireland on inclusion, and I am sure that the Minister will address the points he made in her closing remarks.

It is also important to say this clearly: not all neurodivergent people have a diagnosis, and many are diagnosed far later in life. In some parts of the country, people wait years for assessment. During that time, they are still expected to work, cope and perform, often without any understanding of why things feel harder than they should. We cannot design workplace support around a system that is already overstretched and inconsistent. Support has to be based on need and not on paperwork.

Window Cleaning Industry: Workplace Safety

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

On 6 April last year, my constituent Jason Knight was cleaning the last window of the home of a regular customer in Westbury when he was electrocuted by 33,000 V from an overhead cable. He was blown 7 feet across the garden, waking up on a patch of scorched grass with catastrophic injuries. Found by his customer, he was airlifted to hospital in Bristol in 12 minutes and placed in a coma. He woke up surrounded by his distraught family. He was very lucky to survive.

Jason was left with life-changing injuries. He has lost his left arm below the elbow, several toes, and a great deal of leg musculature. He has undergone over 20 sets of surgical intervention, suffered severe burns all over his body, and can walk or stand only with the utmost difficulty. Now he is losing his sight as a delayed effect of the electrocution. He is just 34 years old with three small children. He had started his own business that was growing and he was providing for his young family. He is a real doer, but his injuries are such that it is going to be extremely difficult for him to work again.

What happened was this: 33,000 V leapt, without physical contact, about 2 metres from an overhead power cable to Jason’s telescopic water-fed cleaning pole. The Health and Safety Executive made inquiries, of course, but concluded there was no breach of regulations that warranted investigation. Indeed, an HSE spokesperson told the BBC that the overhead powerlines involved in this incident met national safety standards. In the UK, we tolerate high tension power cables that are slung surprisingly close to commercial and residential buildings.

However, it was not the overhead powerlines that failed Jason; it was the cleaning pole. As Jason said to his father, John, shortly before he was taken to theatre to have his forearm amputated, “I don’t understand, Dad—I bought an insulated pole.” It should not have mattered that he was close to a power line, because the pole should have been fully insulated, but it was not. Jason was using a telescopic pole that could extend and retract. The handle section at the bottom was insulated, but the extended section was not. He was electrocuted when he reached up to retract the extended section.

I have to say that before Jason came to see me, I knew very little about window cleaning. As he and John recounted the story, I assumed that it was the water from the water-fed pole that was the culprit, since tap water, being impure, conducts electricity perfectly well. Jason and his dad put me right: window cleaners, including Jason that day, use pure water, or what is often called “zero water.” This kind of water has been filtered to remove all or nearly all dissolved solids, so that it leaves no watermarks on windows after cleaning. Ordinary tap water does not have that property. At that moment, I realised why my own attempts at window cleaning at home invariably left the glass looking worse. The crucial point is this: pure water is non-conductive, so the water in Jason’s pole was not the culprit. What caused this accident was inadequate insulation in a tool designed to be used at height, even in proximity to overhead power lines.

This is not a new, unforeseeable risk. The first water-fed poles, developed in the United States in the 1950s, were made entirely of aluminium. When window cleaners started to be electrocuted, the manufacturers simply slapped on some warning labels. At that time, the greatest hazard to window cleaners in Britain was falling off ladders, but when pole technology crossed the pond in the 1990s, its safety issues came with it. One British manufacturer, Craig Mawlam, head of Ionic Systems in Swindon—whose expertise I have drawn on extensively—recognised that danger early. He sought out non-conductive materials, developing composite glass-fibre and carbon-fibre poles. He prioritised insulation in the handle, and worked with the Health and Safety Executive to introduce training and guidance as the industry moved away from ladders and towards working from terra firma. Critically, however, this was voluntary, not required. There was, and remains, no mandatory British standard governing the electrical insulation of telescopic cleaning poles.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for raising this subject. I was sitting here and thinking to myself that years ago I lived on a farm, and years ago farmers were not aware of the dangers of telescopic hydraulic lifts touching cables, just as they were not aware of the dangers of falling off roofs. A campaign was started to ensure that farmers took greater care of themselves by following health and safety regulations. My sympathies, concerns and thoughts are with his constituent as he deals with the challenges of the life he is now leading. Does the right hon. Gentleman feel that a campaign might now be necessary to protect those who could be affected by workplace safety issues—such as those who use water-fed poles in the window cleaning industry—like the campaign to protect the farmers many years ago? Today, farms are very safety-conscious.

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, quite right. Occupations that are not predictable are particularly dangerous. Agriculture is clearly one, as is construction, and window cleaning is plainly another. The window cleaning industry, as its association will say, is a particular issue, because many in the industry are essentially start-ups. They are often one-man bands—they are usually men—and they do not necessarily undergo training. They are probably not aware of the need for it. That is why it is so important to make the changes that I am suggesting we make, and to engineer out the problem so that people are not exposed to the hazards that I have mentioned and to which, sadly, Jason has fallen victim.

The omission of any recognition of the issue in British standards matters now more than ever, because the poles that I have described are no longer specialist equipment; they are used everywhere. They are used on residential streets beneath overhead cables; they are used near rail infrastructure; they are used in airports, hospitals, schools and industrial sites. They are used not just for window cleaning but, increasingly, for solar panel cleaning, gutter clearing, roof treatment, camera inspections, and building maintenance. They are available online relatively inexpensively, and they are available for use by amateurs and DIY-ers. Moreover, they are increasingly imported cheaply from overseas, especially from China, meeting no enforceable UK electrical safety standards at all.

In 2011, a British standard was published that could have changed everything: BS 8020. This standard governs insulating hand tools used near live electrical conductors up to 1,000 V. It requires rigorous construction standards. It requires batch testing at 10,000 V, providing a 10:1 safety margin. It mandates clear marking and verification. As an example, it covers narrow bladed shovels that might be used close to where underground cables could be—they are the ones sold at builders’ merchants or DIY shops, typically with a yellow or orange plastic section in the shaft or handle. Some pole manufacturers chose to apply BS 8020 to the handle section of their poles. Since 2017, at least one UK supplier has done so as a matter of course: Ionic Systems in Swindon, Wiltshire. But here lies the problem: BS 8020 is not mandatory for cleaning poles, and it does not require insulation of the section immediately above the handle. That is why Jason Knight was injured.

The UK remained free of fatal water-fed pole electrocutions until 2022. In that single year, two window cleaners were killed while working at residential properties. In 2024, Jason was very lucky to survive. Window cleaners now account for a significant proportion of overhead powerline electrocutions, yet unlike in agriculture, construction or scaffolding, there is no targeted awareness campaign, no mandatory training requirement and no enforced equipment standards for this trade. That is why I have brought this matter to the House.

The Federation of Window Cleaners, the Health and Safety Executive, the British Standards Institute and representatives of the energy networks have begun discussions on what to do. Some suppliers have engaged constructively, but others have refused entirely. The manufacturer of the pole that Jason was using when he was electrocuted claims that its products are “tested to 5,000 V”, without reference to any recognised standard. That figure is arbitrary; it is meaningless without methodology, certification, or context. A pole tested informally to 5,000 V may be vastly less safe than one certified to British standard 8020 to 1,000 V but good for 10,000 V with a 10:1 safety margin, yet the higher number sounds more reassuring to a sole trader or DIY-er choosing equipment online. That is exactly why British standards exist, and why we need one for telescopic water-fed poles.

This debate is not about banning water-fed poles. They have made the industry safer, because they have reduced the need to use ladders and to work at height. Nor is it about blaming workers, many of whom are sole traders operating on tight margins, without access to formal training or industry bodies. This debate is about designing danger out of tools in the first place, not just warning people to be careful while continuing to sell sub-optimal equipment.

The remedy is simple, proportionate, cheap and immediately available. First, British standard 8020 should be amended or extended to cover telescopic cleaning poles explicitly, and to require that both the handle and the first telescopic section above it meet the insulation standard and are marked accordingly. That single change would ensure that an operator’s hands remain on verifiably insulated material throughout normal raising, lowering and operation of the pole. It would create a safe clearance of 3 metres to 4 metres in most real-world situations.

Secondly, compliance with the standard should be mandatory, whether through regulation, conditions attached to limited liability insurance, or the procurement requirements imposed by major building occupiers. It is worth admitting that products would become about 70 grams heavier and slightly less rigid, but that is completely tolerable. On the flip side, glass-fibre insulation is cheaper than the carbon fibre it would replace.

I am pleased to say that the British Standards Institution, after a bit of encouragement, has seen the merit of the case. Its director general, Scott Steedman, kindly wrote to me earlier this month to say that he is working up proposals that will determine if there will be an amendment to the relevant British standards, drawing from the guidance published by the British Window Cleaning Academy. However, I remain concerned that the right British standard is amended. BS 8020 is an equipment-based British standard. It appears to me to be the more appropriate target, rather than the BSI’s current suggestion, which is BS 8213, a British standard which deals largely with safe systems of work. It could be that both standards need to be amended. Nevertheless, Mr Steedman’s news is most welcome, as is his assurance that a draft of the proposed changes will be published for public consultation in accordance with the BSI’s normal practice.

Britain has led the world in industrial safety by setting clear, enforceable standards. Given British manufacturers’ global exports, a UK standard in this could well become an international benchmark, saving lives, limbs and livelihoods across the world. Jason Knight, his father John and Craig Mawlam are not campaigners by choice. They have become campaigners because they do not want what happened to Jason to happen to others, and I pay tribute to them today. We cannot accept a system in which warning labels are seen as a substitute for a simple engineering solution that removes risk at source. I feel sure that the Minister will agree with all this, and I hope he will use his good offices to encourage the BSI and the HSE to bring forward the changes I have outlined as quickly as possible.

National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is a short and simple Bill. It is a stocking filler to yesterday’s Finance Bill. [Interruption.] There are just three clauses for the chuntering Opposition Members to enjoy. They focus on amending the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, and they do so to create a power to apply national insurance contributions to salary sacrifice pension contributions above £2,000 a year from April 2029.

I will focus my remarks on three areas: first, why Government action in this regard was inevitable; secondly, the case for the pragmatic, balanced approach that we propose to take; and thirdly, how this sits with wider, crucial questions about pension savings on which the House rightly focuses.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

My intervention will be very brief. The Federation of Small Businesses in Northern Ireland has told me of its concerns about national insurance contributions, but it has also told me that utility prices are up by 52.7%, labour costs by 51.5%, and taxes by 47.2%. I ask the Minister respectfully how he and the Government can expect small businesses to survive increases at that level.

[Torsten Bell]

I will come to the exact point that the hon. Gentleman raises. The main answer to his question is that we are introducing this change with a very long implementation period—it will not come in until 2029—in order to give businesses and others time to adjust. Businesses have welcomed that across the board, but I will come on to it shortly.

It is always important to keep the effectiveness and value for money of tax reliefs under review; after all, their cost is estimated to be over £500 billion a year. That is always true, but it is especially true when we see the cost explode. That is why we acted in the Budget to reform employee ownership trust capital gains tax relief, because the cost was set to reach more than 20 times what was intended at its introduction.

That is what we see happening in the case of pension salary sacrifice: its cost is on course to almost treble between 2017 and the end of this decade. That would take it to £8 billion a year. For some context, that is the equivalent of the cost of the Royal Air Force. I will repeat that: the cost of pension salary sacrifice was due to rise to the equivalent of our spending, in real terms, on the Royal Air Force. The growth has been fastest among higher earners, with additional rate payers tripling their pension salary sacrifice contributions since 2017. While those on higher salaries are most likely to take part, many others are unable to do so at all.

Budget 2025: Impact on Graduates

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of the Autumn Budget 2025 on graduates.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the Minister for taking time from his busy schedule to attend the debate today. I will start by painting a picture of two graduates at two different points in their lives—both taxed to death. Let us start with Nick, now 30. He has done all the right things. He got his GCSEs and A-levels, went to a Russell Group university, secured a place on a decent graduate scheme—in London and the south-east perhaps—and has even got himself a lovely girlfriend. Yet Labour’s most recent Budget will see his student loan repayments increase. His rent will go up. He will end up paying more tax because of the freeze on income tax thresholds. At work, his company is making redundancies and blaming rising employer’s national insurance. He cannot buy a house. His finances are pushed to the edge every month, yet a family on his road receiving benefits seem to enjoy the same quality of life without ever leaving the house.

The Centre for Social Justice found that someone would need pre-tax earnings of £71,000 a year to match the disposable income of a family with three children and receiving benefits. Even if Nick earns more, as a headline figure, than someone on benefits, he faces so many extra costs—for commuting, council tax, rent and suits for work—that his disposable income will end up being very similar to, if not less than, that of someone who sits at home. In my view, Nick has every right to feel aggrieved. Writing in the Telegraph at the weekend, I estimated that a young person earning £40,000 a year and renting in my constituency is left with less than £500 a month in disposable income after reasonable expenses.

Then there is Henry, or Henrietta—a high earner, not rich yet—who is perhaps slightly older, and might have excelled working in engineering or a tech start-up. Yes, they may have more disposable income, but often they are still far from financially free. We are seeing a bubble in the data for younger professionals earning just under £100,000, because crossing that threshold, for a parent of two, could well mean a £20,000 tax hit due to the high income child benefit charge and the withdrawal of child support.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate to the House. The plan 2 student loan repayment threshold was frozen until 2030 under new announcements in the Budget. That means that graduates begin repaying sooner, but it is also almost like a hidden tax on career incomes, whereby students will pay more over their working life even if their earnings stay the same. Does he agree that for many students, who could be paying up to £40,000 in student debt, there could be a significant impact on their early month-to-month salary, which could put people off attending university and pursuing their academic dreams?

[Jack Rankin]

I intend to get to the implications of plan 2 loans—both the freeze in the threshold for repayment and the freezing of the interest rates in a falling-interest-rates environment. I think the hon. Gentleman will find in the Budget papers that that raises about as much money as the mansion tax does, for example. I think that is deeply unfair.

More broadly, what is the incentive structure here? Are we not punishing some of our most productive people? Of course many people across the country have it worse, but the point is that Nick, Henry or Henrietta should not have to apologise for striving and being ambitious. After all, it is their tax money that is used to prop up the welfare state, whether that involves benefits, pensions or housing illegal migrants. But they are the lucky ones; we now have about 1 million young people not in work, education or training. Worse still, we have 400,000 graduates claiming out-of-work benefits.

I hear from graduates in my constituency who have applied for hundreds of jobs but get rejected or hear nothing at all. At the end of 2024, the Institute of Student Employers found that, on average, organisations were receiving 140 applications per job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Jim Shannon to show us how to ask brief questions.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The highest level of pensioner poverty in the UK is in Northern Ireland. One way of lifting pensioners out of poverty is through pension credit applications, which require a one-to-one conversation. Will the Minister undertake to ensure that pensioners are able to have such conversations during the term of this Government, so that they can be lifted out of poverty?

[Mr Speaker]

For Jim, that was brief.

Pension Schemes Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

I rise to speak to two new clauses that stand in my name. The first is new clause 3, which concerns the use of the special rules for end of life form to ease the burden on people with a terminal illness seeking support from the Pension Protection Fund or the financial assistance scheme; the second is new clause 19, which deals with fossil fuels and climate risk. Those issues are very different in nature, but they share a common thread: both seek to improve the governance, fairness and long-term resilience of our pension system. I will also speak in support of new clause 11, as it seeks to remedy HSBC’s unjust clawback policy that the Midland Clawback Campaign has been fighting against.

New clause 3 concerns terminal illness and the use of the special rules for end of life form, or SR1. This amendment was born out of the experience of one of my constituents, Nigel. Nigel was diagnosed with incurable stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He told me about the issues he faced in providing several forms, applications and other bits of paper to providers just to demonstrate eligibility and his terminal illness. He told me his story and about the hurdles he encountered following his diagnosis, at what was a very stressful time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I have been contacted by some Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly about this issue—the thresholds in cases where a death occurs unexpectedly or suddenly, or when an illness comes on very quickly. When the Minister sums up at the end, I hope he will address that issue, for the sake of those Northern Ireland Assembly Members who asked me to raise that very question today. The hon. Lady is right; well done to her for highlighting this issue.

Budget Resolutions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

I will in a moment. It is there in black and white in the OBR’s report. The reason for that forecast is £26 billion of additional taxation in 2029-30, and, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury will know, an additional £12 billion of tax take that will occur because of fiscal drag. Those higher inflationary numbers in the forecast are dragging ever more people into paying ever more tax.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

While I am not churlish about the extra money that the Labour Government have given to pensioners, the fact is that they have pushed more people beyond the threshold, meaning that pensioners will pay more tax than they have ever paid. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that when it comes to helping people, unfortunately this Government have given with one hand and taken away with the other?

Young People not in Education, Employment or Training

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) for setting the scene so well. Education and career prospects are so important. They affect confidence, mental health, opportunity and long-term economic wellbeing. It is imperative to get this right and provide the necessary support, if possible, and I look forward to the Minister’s answers to the questions posed.

To give an example from Northern Ireland, in 2023, 15,000 were not in education, employment or training; today the figure is 22,000 and rising. In particular, I refer to the underachievement of young Protestant boys. The potential impact on their future education, training or employment must be noted.

Why has this happened? It has happened because of economic hardship, poor mental health, unstable home life, deprivation in isolated areas and a lack access to transport. There are long-term risks for young people, including future unemployment, higher welfare rates and poor health. Those are the outcomes of the society we live in. The former Member for Harlow, for example, always used to refer to males between 16 and 21; I remember when I was young—not yesterday, by the way—we left school on a Friday and got a job on the Monday. That is the way it was, but it is not that way anymore. It is not the end of everything if young people reach the age of 17 or 18 and are still unsure, but further education, apprenticeships, placements and working opportunities will give them the tools they need to find out what route they might like to go down.

The opportunities available to young people in Northern Ireland and here on the mainland—and especially in my constituency of Strangford and also that of the hon. Member for Amber Valley—must be realistic and accessible in terms of finance and transport. I believe in greater careers guidance both inside school and outside, where people can avail themselves of advice and support. I again commend the hon. Lady for bringing this debate forward—and my two minutes are up.

Pension Investment in UK Equities

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Glen]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my right hon. Friend anticipates an argument that I am going to move on to about the wider culture of awareness of where investments are happening in our pensions, how important that is, and how we need to be cognisant of the gap that exists.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. The right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) referred to the impact on Britain, but there is an impact regionally as well. Many workers in Northern Ireland are enrolled in UK-wide pension schemes and equity systems, and their long-term financial security depends on those schemes being able to generate strong, sustainable returns. When the right hon. Gentleman presents his proposals and asks to the Minister, can he try to obtain an assurance that whenever legislation comes through, similar things will happen in Northern Ireland, including for my constituents, thereby giving us all the equality we should have in this system?

[John Glen]

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. In a moment, I will speak about what needs to change and where we need to get to.

Returning to my argument, the Pension Schemes Bill, which will have its Report stage next week, has made some welcome progress—I have to acknowledge that to the Minister. It has received significant cross-party support in many areas. The consolidation of DC schemes to provide greater scale and move away from a fragmented system has long been a journey that most people would see as desirable, but we must think about the scale of capital that our growing companies need. I am concerned about how quickly some of those changes will take place. Having been in intense dialogue with the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority when I was in the Treasury, I know that these things do not happen quickly enough. I urge the Minister—though I know he does not need much urging—to be robust in ensuring accountability on the delivery of some of these things.

To advance our understanding of the shift away from equities and towards bonds, let me note that in 1997, UK pension funds held 73% of their portfolios in equities and 15% in bonds. Those figures now stand at 34% and 43% respectively. I have talked about the particular aversion to UK equities, with UK pension funds investing 4.4% of their funds in domestic equities, compared with an international average of 10.1%. However, at the same time, the UK provides pension tax advantages worth more than £48 billion. That is £48 billion of taxpayers’ money that is essentially there to enrich our contributions and lay down a marker for the future. At the moment, though, there is no expectation that any of that is invested in the UK—this relates to mandation, which I will discuss now.

Around half of DC funds are in global allocations. My concern is that outflows from UK equities will continue as that global allocation continues and relative growth is seen in other markets, such as the US. As other economies grow, the UK part of the pie will automatically shrink, which means less money going into UK firms from these sorts of investment funds. As that passive fund practice becomes more prevalent, businesses such as the ones in Northern Ireland mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) are simply off the radar. They do not receive any analysis, and mid-cap and small-cap firms lose out, with pools of capital never being available to them. As such, that 4% investment in equities is likely to continue to fall.

The big point I want to make is about what people think of their pension schemes. New Financial, a well-known and respected think-tank connected with the City, did a survey of 1,000 working adults in the UK with a pension. That survey graphically highlighted what a “low level” of understanding people have of their pensions and the

“disconnect between their expectations and the industry.”

It said:

“On average, people thought 41% of their pension was invested in UK companies or the UK stock market (out by a factor of five to 10 times)”,

and, staggeringly, that

“two-thirds of people said pensions should invest more in UK equities even if the returns might be lower than investing in other markets.”

There is clearly a gap in knowledge and understanding. I advocated against the Department for Education’s backstop; I did not make much progress when I was in Government, but I am glad that this Government have made progress on financial education in the Department for Education and that it has now become part of the curriculum. This is a key chapter that is needed in that textbook.

I am anxious that the answer should not be for the City and pension fund managers to say, “We know best, we have a fiduciary duty—don’t worry about it.” Auto-enrolment has helped provide them with enormous funds to invest, but the disconnect between public expectation and what they are doing with those funds must and should be addressed. The vast majority of consumers investing in DC schemes do not change from their default allocation, although they are of course able to do so. Those defaults require approval, so alongside a campaign to get people to understand what is happening with their pensions and where their money is being put, it is worth asking people to verify what proportion of their pension savings are being invested where. They have that discretion; if they do not exercise it, that investment will default to whatever the scheme is going to do, and the scheme will likely continue in a similar way.

The London Stock Exchange Group tells me that by 2030, overall investment in UK equities by DC pensions would increase by around £76 billion—potentially as much as £95 billion—if this option were used. That is not mandation; I think that would be overreach, but I am sympathetic to the disconnect that exists. We must find a way to open up a proper discussion and increase awareness of the gaps where money is currently not being invested. I recognise that the Government have maintained a reserve power to mandate, although I doubt they will ever use it. However, I believe that individuals should be more empowered to take decisions, and I think they would be more empowered as active members of a DC fund. At the moment, they are not exercising that right. Consumers do and must have a choice about how their pensions are invested, and proposals to amend how default funds are allocated do not, and should not, prevent people from choosing exactly how they want to invest their pension pots.

There are so many opportunities in this country, such as in life sciences—my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) has a great understanding of that sector. When we are looking for that scale-up capital, the lack of funds in the UK to provide options for series B and sometimes series C funding is manifest. I just feel that we are missing an opportunity. I will understand if we do not go for mandation—I am sympathetic to that decision—but we should do something in between.

I know we are on the eve of the Budget, and as the Minister said to me as we entered the Chamber, there is little opportunity for him to adjust anything. I do not know what changes will be made tomorrow to pensions. There is obviously a lot of speculation about a reduction in ISAs, but let us get that in perspective as well. Only about 7% of those who have ISAs use the £20,000 limit. I do not believe that if there is any sort of mandation of the use of equities, people will go out and invest in them overnight, because the vast majority of people who have an ISA are at a later stage of life, and their ISA is in cash, so they will not do that anyway.

Let us get it in perspective. Last year, around £750 billion was invested in ISAs: £461 billion in stocks; £289 billion in cash. Last year, the Pensions Policy Institute estimated that there is a total of £3 trillion in UK pension assets across annuities, DC funds and DB funds. That is where the pools of capital can be opened up for investment in the UK economy. We need a greater focus on the public markets, and a vibrant, active, engaged and informed investor base to change the way that we move forward.

I have a couple more points to make. It is salutary to reflect on what happened with Arm Holdings: a British success story founded and built in Cambridge. As we know, it is a producer of semiconductors and software originally listed in London. The company was taken private because it felt that the public markets in this country could not support it; there was not enough liquidity in the markets. Arm was subsequently re-listed in New York, and since being taken off the London Stock Exchange, its valuation has grown by £112 billion. Of that growth, only £825 million has gone to UK investors. Had it stayed listed in the UK, that number would have been £43 billion. That would have meant higher pension valuations for a lot of people in this country, and more revenue for the Treasury from capital gains. It exemplifies the problem that we have: the lack of active, open markets where investors take risk and adopt a profile similar to those seen in the US. The FCA is disempowered and discouraged from trying to offer consumer redress. Through better financial education, we could get people to engage with the significant obligation that they have to save for the future, to take decisions that are in the interests of the UK economy and to pump more money into UK companies.

In conclusion, I welcome many provisions in the Pension Schemes Bill. Poorly performing pensions need to be challenged. I welcome the consolidation and scale-up of the pots, which will take too long and should be encouraged to move forward swiftly. But I have an anxiety that in a legitimate effort to hold back from mandation, there is a gap in thinking about how we open up the public’s understanding and imagination regarding where they can invest. I urge the Minister to move forward with some tougher rules around how people verify the choices that they are making so that the powerful voices who run the pensions industry do not default to saying, “We know best; we have fiduciary duty, and we will do it better than you could dream of doing.” The evidence is that that is not what people want. A golden thread of careful and delicate interventions is needed so that we can transform public behaviour and outcomes for our pensions industry.

Level 7 Apprenticeships

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Gibson]

I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s congratulations to Yeovil college.

The option to study while earning is crucial to reduce barriers, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is distinctly the case for architecture—an industry that historically has been run by a narrow, predominantly male, section of the middle class, and where the apprenticeship route has begun to make a real difference. Benchmarking by the Royal Institute of British Architects shows that apprenticeships have achieved a far better gender balance than the wider profession has ever seen, with level 7 entrants last year almost at parity.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate, and I reiterate her point from my experience with level 7 apprenticeship funding at Queen’s University in Belfast. It was disappointing to hear that, from January 2026, public funding for many level 7 apprenticeships will be removed for those aged 22 and over—a blow to the industry. Does she agree that further financial constraints on universities only hinder opportunities for our constituents, and that more must instead be done to support them in advancing their educational skills?