Timms Review: Interim Report

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I pay tribute to her work as the chair of the APPG on disability, and I am grateful to her for her welcome to us the other week. She is absolutely right. I very much hope that people with sight impairments and others looking at the review will feel that the Government have listened to the points that have been made for a long time. I assure her that co-production will be at the heart of the rest of the work as well. It was, of course, a decision of this House that the review should be co-produced. We have worked very hard to ensure that we are properly co-producing it. I think we are gaining the benefits of that approach and that the outcome from this exercise will be significantly better because it is a co-produced review.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the review plan to look into the question of what happens when something goes wrong in the arrangements for a disabled person receiving PIP or universal credit? This time last week I raised with the Leader of the House at business questions the fact that my casework team had been trying for six months to get an answer on behalf of someone who lost PIP and UC. We had a holding letter in February, but we have still had no substantive reply and this lady is getting more and more desperate. We did write to the Minister on 8 June. I know he has been very busy, but he should be receiving a letter, if he has not already, from the Leader of the House. When he deals with that individual case, will it perhaps serve as a guide to what is needed more generally to be able to communicate on behalf of our constituents?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Yes, I shall look out for the right hon. Gentleman’s letter and I hope he will receive a reply in short order. He is right that the system needs to work well for people to be confident in it. One thing he may welcome is that we have just started recording by default the assessments for PIP—the focus in the review is on PIP specifically—partly so that when something does go badly wrong, and his constituent’s case may well be an example of that, we can look back at what happened in the assessment and ensure that that mistake does not happen again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

As Alan Milburn pointed out in his recent report, the UK’s NEET crisis is much more long-term and deep-seated than any decisions taken in the last few years. There are 400,000 more people in work than last year. The number of young people in employment is up by 74,000 since the election. It only went up by 1,000 during the Conservative party’s 14 years in power. From tomorrow, we will open a process of hiring incentives of £3,000 for any business that wants to take on a young person who has been out of work for six months or more. Shame is not the emotion I feel; it is passion for opening up work and opportunity to more young people, and that is what we are doing.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

With the impeccable timing of an Olympic medallist and world record beater, the inspirational Fatima Whitbread is in Parliament today in room U in Portcullis House till 4 pm, stressing the importance for people like herself brought up in the care system of wraparound local authority hubs working with and including the education, sport, police and charity sectors. Will a member of the ministerial team—preferably more than one—take the trouble to leave this Chamber when questions end and go over and talk to Fatima about her interesting and constructive ideas in this important field?

Milburn Review: Interim Report

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western]

My hon. Friend asks an important question and underpins it with an extremely important statement: this is not the fault of young people. They are not lazy. They have been let down for years by a system that does not serve their needs. The Government are putting in place £2.5 billion for the youth guarantee. We continue to work with employers and employment support providers to talk about how we can tailor support to the specific needs of young people to get the number of young people not in education, employment or training down.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Returning to the important points about mental health made by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), I draw the Minister’s attention to paragraphs 424 and 425 of the report, which states:

“It is mental health conditions that are now the most commonly reported health condition among NEET young people…This explosion has primarily been in mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, rather than in serious mental illnesses”.

We can all have our different ideas as to what might be causing this upsurge—I think there has clearly been a loss of mental resilience among young people—but does the Minister agree that, given that this is such a large part of the problem, further detailed research and analysis need to be done on why so many young people are so much more anxious and feel that they cannot cope?

[Andrew Western]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right to highlight the importance of that point, and the Department of Health and Social Care is undertaking a review of mental health provision, the causes of poor mental health and so on. I agree that 40% of young people citing mental health conditions as a driver for their not being in employment, education or training is a concerning increase—it has almost doubled in recent years. That is clearly unacceptable. That is why some of the interventions being led by the Department for Education are so important: more mental health support in schools, getting those CAMHS waiting lists down and ensuring that children and young people get early intervention when they need help, because, as we see in those numbers and this report, poor mental health blights them not just at school, but in later life.

National Savings & Investments

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

My hon. Friend is completely right. I am sure that she speaks for many people today. The experience of administering estates is challenging for us all at the best of times, and it is of deep regret to me—and, I am sure, to everyone at NS&I—that we are putting anybody through complications. I can give her the reassurance that everybody will be paid all moneys due and held by NS&I. We will make every endeavour to reconnect people to their funds. That will include, as I say, directly contacting the representatives of estates, who will have contacted NS&I in the first place to notify it of a death. Were that not to be successful, we would then put in place a chain of contact below it. The details will be set out in the plan in May, but I can give a reassurance that that is already being worked through. We will use the time between now and May to continue to examine the data that NS&I holds—I have said that we are reviewing over 34 million cases—to ensure that we have the absolute best contacts and are able to go as soon as the delivery report plan has been set out.

My hon. Friend rightly raised the question of distress. I can absolutely give her the reassurance that everybody involved understands how they should be handling matters. As I said, for the Treasury’s part, that includes recognising that there will be worries about the implications for some estates of taxes due. I will set out how we intend to address that in May.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for making this statement today, and welcome the appointment of Sir Jim Harra, who did indeed have an excellent record at the head of HMRC, as interim chief executive.

I think we ought also to have a word of praise for the consumer affairs team at The Daily Telegraph, who have drawn welcome attention to unwelcome statistics, such as £116 million in unclaimed premium bond prizes, £3 billion spent on digitisation and £43 million spent on consultants for doing we know not what. Given that the Financial Ombudsman Service can award only token sums by way of compensation for maladministration, can the Minister assure NS&I savers that, when it comes to the question of compensation that must be paid to them by NS&I, there will be some dedicated method whereby those who are already severely out of pocket can have speedy resolution of their claims and recompense?

[Torsten Bell]

Let me try to take the right hon. Member’s questions in turn. I would think of compensation as two buckets. There will be automatic compensation relating to the withholding of funds. The FCA provides guidance on how that should be administered, and we will ensure that is put in place in full. More complicated cases—he has given examples in which the deprivation of funds has had implications—will be considered on a case-by-case basis, rather than by using the FCA formula that I have mentioned.

I am keen to praise journalists where we can, but I am afraid that, in the case of The Daily Telegraph in recent weeks, praise needs to be caveated. It is important to raise cases brought up by members of the public, but some of the reporting I have seen in the past 48 hours has been incredibly inaccurate. I will give the right hon. Gentleman two examples. The Daily Telegraph has published a piece claiming that 160,000 cases relating to NS&I have been brought to the Financial Ombudsman Service, when in truth that number is in the hundreds. That was printed on the front page of the newspaper without basic fact-checking taking place. Today, the paper has talked about taxpayers’ money being used to reunite people with their funds. That is entirely inaccurate for the reasons that I have set out. I worry that that will have worried some MPs and members of the public. It is important that we raise questions of customer service, in which NS&I has fallen short, as I have said, but we should not be blind to what has been inaccurate journalism in the past 48 hours.

Pre-1997 Pensions: Discretionary Increases

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Luke Akehurst]

I will give way to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) first.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent presentation. Rather curiously, up until 2023, ExxonMobil pensioners got automatically indexed uplifts to their pensions, but for some reason from that date onwards, the company changed its policy and now they are not getting the discretionary uplift. The trustees there say that they have no power and that it is up to the company to decide whether this discretionary uplift occurs. Is one way forward perhaps to ask the Minister to give an undertaking that the trustees should have the power to award such discretionary uplifts linked to indexation?

[Luke Akehurst]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to that particular anomaly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Torsten Bell]

I hear the right hon. Member’s point. I am not going to comment on individual legal cases, obviously, but the basis of the distinction at 1997 reflects the decisions taken in 1995 by a previous Conservative Administration to introduce statutory indexation, but not wanting to do that for accruals that had already taken place. The Pensions Act 1995 brought in statutory indexation from 1997 onwards. 

We can recognise the underlying reasons for this situation—not retrospectively changing the basis of scheme rules—while sharing Members’ huge frustrations with it. It is why I continue to encourage trustees and sponsoring employers to think carefully about the effect of inflation on member benefits when making decisions. The Pensions Regulator already sets out that trustees should consider specifically—not just generally—the situation of those members and whether the scheme has a history of making such awards.

Pensions legislation sets minimum legal standards that all schemes must meet, and they are designed to strike the balance between fair and workable, and having a stable DB landscape. I completely recognise the case for change that the right hon. Member for New Forest East has made today and in the past. The challenge is that it would be unreasonable to retrospectively change long-standing rules in blanket terms in a way that would put some schemes’ stability at risk, whether that is today by fundamentally changing their funding position, or in future, when we do not know what the world will look like.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

If the Minister would follow the recommendation of at least giving the trustees the full power to make the decision over discretionary awards and taking it away from the company, one could be pretty sure that if the scheme went into deficit, the trustees would act accordingly.

[Torsten Bell]

I will come in a second to the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making, which is about where power lies in the system.

Fuel Duty

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

Our position is to deliver a stable transition. That was the position of the Conservative party. It is the party that introduced the energy profits levy. [Interruption.] I will answer the question. Gas and energy from the North sea will be part of the energy transition in the UK for some decades to come, as several Members have mentioned. That is why the Chancellor met the industry in recent days, and why we are setting out proposals to allow tiebacks that will help us get gas out of the ground in the near future. Longer-term changes will take significantly longer, but none of what I have heard from Conservative Members is an excuse for rejecting the tens of billions of pounds of renewable energy investment that is important for delivering domestic energy security for this country.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I like the Minister very much, not least because he represents the Welsh seat of my birth and upbringing, and because I have such respect for him, I am going to try to make the point to him that I have so far made with zero success to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, among others. It is all well and good to talk about the greatest increase in spending on defence since the end of the cold war if we are comparing the post cold war period with what is—shall we say?—a quiet defence period, but we are not. What we need to spend now is not to be compared with what it was like after the end of the cold war, but what it was like during the cold war, and during the cold war we regularly spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence. If he recognises that there is some merit in that argument, could he try to persuade his colleagues to stop making that false comparison?

[Torsten Bell]

I thank the right hon. Member for his kind remarks, even if they were driven by geography rather than personality. I will take what I can get in today’s debate! Since we are being kind to each other, I recognise the point he makes about the significant uncertainty we face in this world today. That uncertainty always existed to a significant extent, if we are honest, and I think most Conservative Members realise that defence cuts year after year in the last decade were a mistake—

[Sir Julian Lewis]

indicated assent.

[Torsten Bell]

The right hon. Member is nodding. So I would offer that by way of comparison.

Pension Schemes Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

My hon. Friend has discussed this challenge with me many times and is a powerful campaigner for his affected constituents. I give him absolutely that assurance, and I extend to him the same offer I have given to other hon. Friends: I will be happy to meet him and affected constituents, or trustees who have been affected by this issue.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The Minister has indeed been most accessible, and I am extremely grateful to him for the meeting he held with members of the ExxonMobil pensioners group. I am still being lobbied very hard by ExxonMobil pensioners who are concerned that whereas changes introduced in the Budget will benefit members of the FAS and PPF schemes, private defined-benefit scheme members will not benefit. He knows far more about the subject than I do, but can he not see that there is a feeling that they are being discriminated against? Is there nothing he can offer to make them feel somewhat more included in the beneficial steps being taken for members of other schemes?

[Torsten Bell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that and for our conversations on this matter in recent months. Although I think it is completely reasonable that people would feel like that—so would many of us if we had seen the high inflation of recent years eat into our non-index-linked pension payments—let me explain the consistency of the Government’s position. We are providing pre-’97 indexation on compensation relating to pensions now held within the PPF to those who were in schemes that did provide for indexation. There is no question of retrospectively changing the entitlement within the schemes; we are simply requiring that the compensation within the PPF and the FAS recognises that the schemes that people were in did previously recognise the need for indexation.

Other schemes within PPF and outside the PPF, including the one that the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) mentioned, did not provide for indexation in their scheme rules. He is right to say that, on those matters, the changes that I have outlined today on the PPF do not provide relief. I have gone on to say that because of the changes we are bringing forward in the surplus rules, I think the trustees—as was discussed with some of his trustees—do have more ability and more leverage with which to ask for those discretionary increases, but I completely appreciate that that is different in form from the compensation indexation that we are providing within the PPF.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

The problem, as the Minister knows from our meeting, is that the trustees are rather hemmed in by not having the leverage or the freedom to act if the company itself—particularly if it is headquartered abroad—is disinclined to pass on any surpluses that it might have available.

[Torsten Bell]

I recognise the right hon. Member’s point. I think the level of pessimism may be overstated. My view is that our changes on surplus, which put trustees clearly in the driving seat, provide for more ability for trustees to seek to change that balance of power within their relationship. I do not want to prejudge the individual discussions between all trustees and their employers—those will be different in different circumstances—but trustees are in a stronger position given the changes on surplus release that we are introducing through this Bill. But I am not pretending for a second that that solves overnight the points that the right hon. Member is making.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Nia Griffith]

I rise to speak to my new clause 22. There is a group of pensioners who have worked hard for very prestigious companies, and those companies have grown rich and successful on the back of the work that those pensioners have done. These are companies with good reputations. People think of them as being honourable and successful. Many of us will have a computer with “HP” on it. Companies such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, 3M and a number of others that have already been mentioned have treated their pensioners very shabbily indeed, because they are refusing to index-link the pensions of former employees that were accrued before 1997. In other words, people who worked hard to help build up the success of those companies have had no increase for as long as 23 years. Just imagine how much less they can buy with that pension now compared with 23 years ago. The cost of living crisis over the past few years has exacerbated their problems, eroding their pensions at a frightening rate. What is absolutely terrifying for many of those pensioners is how on earth they are going to manage in the next few years.

Through new clause 22, we are asking for the index-linking to take place from now on, not retrospectively for all the years when there have been no increases, nice though that would be. This is not about some form of compensation for the past. It is about going forward and trying to future-proof these pensions so that they at least they maintain the value they have now. It would not be a retrospective measure; it is about how we want the companies to behave from now on in respect of their pension funds, just as any other legislation would apply from now on.

When the employees were recruited to these companies, they would have thought, “Oh, this is a good job. It’s a good company and it’s got a pension scheme.” They would have assumed that any pension scheme worth its salt, particularly from a reputable company, would be index-linked. Sadly, however, these companies have found a loophole in the Pensions Act 1995, because it refers to 1997 as the start date for its provisions. In other words, the companies have been able to say that, according to the letter of the law, they do not have to index-link pensions accrued pre-1997, even though it would be in the spirit of the Act to do so. New clause 22 would amend the Pensions Act 1995 by removing references to 6 April 1997 from section 51 of that Act, thereby requiring annual increases to pension payments in line with CPI and RPI to apply to pensionable service both before and after that date.

Why do we need to legislate? We need to do so because efforts by trustees over many years have failed. We have had instances of unanimous votes by trustees for inflation-based rises being rejected by companies. We have had trustees appointed by companies. Essentially, the power structure is such that the company has the final word, no matter how healthy the pension funds are.

A recent newsletter for 3M pensioners said,

“Given that the Scheme’s financial position is very positive, and the funding level exceeds the regulatory expectations for solvency levels… we had hoped that the Company would permit some discretionary increases to affected members. Sadly, the Company did not agree to this and has not changed its position on the matter.”

Time and again, pensioners have been given that type of answer to a very reasonable, rational request.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

May I applaud the hon. Lady’s speech? That is exactly what has happened to so many ExxonMobil pensioners in my constituency and beyond.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

Indeed, the right hon. Member mentions yet another world-renowned, multinational, household name.

Our Labour Government have just announced that we will change the law to enable the payment of inflation increases on the pre-1997 pensions to Pension Protection Fund and financial assistance scheme members. That is an important principle. If we are doing it for pensioners whose companies have gone bust, we should ensure that successful multinationals like Hewlett Packard Enterprise and 3M pay up for former employees.

--- Later in debate ---

We also welcome the British Coal staff superannuation scheme carve-out announced in the Budget last week. I suggest that the Minister ought to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) and other colleagues. My hon. Friend’s new clause 1 relates to the AEA Technology. There is a strong case for that, as the National Audit Office has confirmed. I ask the Minister, with all due respect, to reflect on that and see it as an opportunity for another carve-out. Politics is about remedying such injustices.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I applaud what the hon. Gentleman has said about the AEAT pensioners’ difficulties. It is quite shocking that, despite the fact that a previous Conservative pensions Minister, Paul Maynard, said that he would instruct his civil servants to work on a redress scheme, changes of Minister and Government have meant that the machine has carried on as before, even though a parliamentary Committee did an investigation, found in favour of the pensioners and said that they should get redress.

[Steve Darling]

The right hon. Member makes a powerful point. I am sure that the Minister will take note and reflect on it further.

I would like to reflect on the proposals to enhance pre-1997 pensions by up to 2.5%, which the Chancellor announced last week. Amendments providing for those measures have now been tabled. We know that there is significant surplus in the Pension Protection Fund. We question whether it is right for the Government to balance their financial books on the backs of that pension pot. I understand that their argument is that, because those billions are taken into account as far as Government finances are concerned, it is not possible to release as much as could be released from that pot to support pensioners with the cost of living crisis, but I urge Ministers to reflect on that.

Colleagues have also highlighted new clause 22 and pensioners who worked at American Express, Esso and Hewlett Packard. Those companies—strangely enough, it seems to be overseas companies—have left pensioners out in the cold. I hope that that consultation is able to pick up on that and give clear guidance to trustees on how they ought to support those members.

Surplus funds is another area that the Bill addresses. It is about getting the balance right. In winding up, will the Minister reflect on how surplus funds could support members and oil the wheels of the economy? That is important. Pensions should be about driving the economy. They are a big beast that should be an engine for change. In fact, the last area that I will touch on is how pensions should be the engine for change. As colleagues have alluded to, mandation feels a bit like the cold hand of Big Brother on the economy. I trust the Minister implicitly in respect of mandation, when he says, “Honestly, guv, it’s not really something I want to do,” but who knows who will walk in his footsteps? We need only look to the other side of the Atlantic, and at the gentleman in the Oval Office, to see the extraordinary things happening there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I can assure my hon. Friend that there will be no changes to the eligibility conditions for the mobility component of the personal independence payment, or indeed other aspects of PIP, until the conclusion of the review, which I will be leading and co-producing with disabled people. That is expected to report in autumn next year.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

When severe mental illness strikes, it can be devastating and totally debilitating, but the problem from the Department’s point of view is that its symptoms are invisible. There have been reports of people faking mental illness in order to gain benefits. Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that his Department has appropriate checks in place?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Yes, appropriate checks are in place. As I have just mentioned, we are undertaking a review of the PIP assessment, and we will need to look carefully, together with disabled people, at the way in which those decisions and judgments are made.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We have announced that Zara Todd will be the chair of the Department’s disability advisory panel. The panel was announced in the “Get Britain Working” White Paper last year. Separately, we will set up a group to work with me on the review of the PIP assessment. I will, of course, talk to the disability advisory panel about the arrangements, but they will be separate structures.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Despite his new role in riding to the rescue of the Treasury, is the Pensions Minister still available to fulfil in principle the undertaking he gave me before the recess to have a meeting about the plight of ExxonMobil pensioners and the difficulties in them getting the discretionary surplus benefits to which I think they should be entitled?

[Torsten Bell]

Absolutely.

Pension Schemes Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for taking my intervention and for the very helpful letter he sent me on 30 June about schemes of this sort, and in particular the ExxonMobil pension scheme. His letter encouragingly states:

“Following our reforms, trustees will continue to consider the correct balance of interest between members and the sponsoring employer when making decisions about the release of surplus funds. Trustees will be responsible for determining how members may benefit from any release of surplus…and have a suite of options to choose from—for example, through discretionary benefit increases.”

The trouble is that these pensioners have received a letter from the trustees of the ExxonMobil pension fund stating:

“The power to award discretionary increases is held by Esso Petroleum Company Limited (the “Company”). Whether or not any discretionary increase is provided is for the Company to determine: the Trustee has no power to award discretionary increases itself.”

This may be a loophole that the Minister needs to address. If the trustees cannot award the surplus as benefits and the company says no, that is not going to benefit my constituents.

[Torsten Bell]

I thank the right hon. Member for raising that specific case. I will look at it in more detail for him as he has kindly raised it here, but he has raised a point that will have more general application, which is that lots of different schemes, particularly DB schemes, will have a wide range of scheme rules. He has raised one of those, which is about discretionary increases. One thing that is consistent across all the schemes, with the legislation we are bringing in today, is that trustees must agree for any surplus to be released. It may be the case that the employer, in the details of those scheme rules, is required to agree to a discretionary increase, but the trustees are perfectly within their rights to request that that is part of an agreement that leads to a surplus release.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

What if it is the other way round?

[Torsten Bell]

In any circumstances, the trustees would need to agree to a surplus release, so they are welcome to say to their employer: we are only going to agree to it on the basis of a change to something that the employer holds the cards over. I am happy to discuss that with the right hon. Member further, and there may be other schemes that are in a similar situation.