L

Lord Willetts (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 19 January 2026

Debate

Pension Schemes Bill

Contribution

I am not against such payments. As I say, I think this is highly discretionary—there would be a negotiation. I absolutely understand that argument, and we have all received letters from the people suffering financial distress in some circumstances because of not having pre-1997 inflation protection. But I just want to bring in another consideration and try to find out where it would fit in when the employers or the trustees are reaching a decision. The Government have a policy, or rather we now have on a cross-party basis, a successful policy of auto-enrolment. The levels of pension contribution to the next generation, who are not in these schemes, are way lower than the pension contributions that have generated these large surpluses. It would be great if we could see increasing contributions. Where might a decision fall if an employer says, “We have now turned our scheme into surplus because of the work of the company, and one thing we could do with the money is to put some enhanced contribution into the auto-enrolment pensions of the next range of employees, whose pension rights at the moment will be far lower than those of the people covered in this debate”?

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