B

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 23 February 2026

Debate

Pension Schemes Bill

Contribution

It is very easy to cherry-pick individual schemes that have taken action but, as I said in my initial comments, the Financial Innovation Lab says that there are still more than £10 billion in thermal coal investments. Some industry research due to be published shortly by Corporate Adviser Intelligence shows that seven of the largest 19 schemes used for automatic enrolment, including Aviva, Royal London and Scottish Widows, remain invested, via their default fund, in one or more of thermal coal, tar sands and Arctic drilling. Another, SEI, reported that it has excluded these sectors but, last summer, it still had holdings in Glencore, which mines around 100 million tonnes of coal a year. So, although there are these nice examples, such as those just provided by the Minister, surely the Government must look at this as an overall whole and see not just some good case studies but the norm and the rule right across the industry.

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