National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

Here we have it again: when the Conservatives are faced with any difficult choice, the answer is higher child poverty. It is the answer to every question they are ever faced with. They stand up day in, day out and say that what they want to see is higher child poverty—and they cheered enthusiastically for it just then.

I will move on. Not only can the hon. Member for Wyre Forest not say which bit of the NHS he would like to cut because he opposes these changes, but he cannot even explain why the Conservatives were planning to implement exactly these kinds of changes when they were in government—before their whole giving up on being serious people thing.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the Minister accept that if these changes go through and people save less for their future, we will have pensioner poverty? That is the impact of these measures.

[Torsten Bell]

Absolute nonsense. Members of the House should be reminding everybody in this country that they have a strong incentive to save for their pension, not misleading them by implying that they will somehow lose out by saving for their pension. That is not the case, and it is really important that we are consistent in our messaging to the public about that. I will come back to the wider point about the levels of saving in society.

The hon. Member for Wyre Forest also asked questions about savings gaps, and he was right to do so. Unfortunately, however, he talked nonsense about that. He talked about the self-employed, low earners, women and those working for SMEs, all of whom do have lower pension savings rates, but all those groups who are under-saving are those least likely to use salary sacrifice. He talked about those on lower incomes, but as I said, 95% of those earning under £30,000 and contributing to a pension via salary sacrifice are completely unaffected. He claimed that the impact was largest on those on low earnings. That is nonsense, because 86% of contributions over £2,000 are from additional rate taxpayers. Those are the facts.

The hon. Member for Wyre Forest went on to invent a brilliant story of a young graduate struggling to get by who was somehow putting £5,000 into their pension every year. As I mentioned earlier, 90% of young graduates are saving £2,000 or less into their pensions. Why are they not saving more? Because their wages did not rise under the Conservative party. Why are they not saving more? Because that party did not build enough houses to help them get on to the property ladder. He asked—[Interruption.] I am glad to hear that all Conservative Members will stop opposing the building of homes in their constituencies in the years ahead.

The hon. Member asked about the implementation. As he mentioned, I have set out that it will operate on a per-job basis. He also asked about how it will operate over a pay period basis. As he knows, national insurance broadly operates on a pay period basis, but we are consulting with employers and payroll providers to ensure that we get that right. As is normal with national insurance legislation, we will set that out in the regulations.

I turn to the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard). It is not surprising that he, as a Liberal Democrat, opposes these measures but set out absolutely no ideas for how to pay for that. I look forward to him calling for more spending later this week—again with absolutely no idea how to pay for it. He raised timing. Directly to his two questions, we think it is pragmatic to give employers and individuals time to adjust—that is the basis for the pragmatic point that he raised. He also raised the scoring of that, which is a technical issue reflecting how the national accounts deal with the claiming back of tax relief for some pensions. He also mentioned the OBR. If he looks at its report, he will find that it set out that the Budget measures will have no material impact on savings levels.

To end on a point of wide cross-party consensus, both hon. Members raised the case that people do need to save more for their pensions—the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) just did so, too—and we all agree on that, and particularly those 45% of working-age adults who are currently saving nothing. As I said, that includes in particular groups such as low earners and the self-employed, for neither of whom is salary sacrifice available. The answer to that is the work of the pensions commission, which I hope will continue to operate on a cross-party basis. Its interim report will be coming forward soon, and I will commend its work to the House. For today, I am afraid that the Government will oppose the Lords amendments.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.