Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department made an assessment of the pension liabilities of DP World’s UK subsidiaries during the Freeport bidding process.

The Freeport model includes a broad coalition of local partners, including businesses, local authorities and ports. Trustees and employers have a wide range of legal duties in respect of workplace schemes and are responsible for compliance with legislative funding requirements.

As set out in the Bidding Prospectus, each Freeport proposal was subjected to an assessment against defined criteria that related to the ability to deliver the Freeports policy objectives. This assessment process was led by MHCLG (now DLUHC) with involvement from other government departments.

The Pension Regulator is the regulator of work-based pension schemes and has a range of powers that it may use to intervene, and to take action, primarily against trustees and employers, where they don’t comply with their duties.