B

Baroness Sherlock (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 19 March 2026

Debate

Pension Schemes Bill

Contribution

It depends on how the market is structured. The decision-makers here are employers. Let us look at what happened under the Mansion House Compact, the predecessor of the accord, brokered under the previous Government. The words were that “‘too much focus on cost’ remains the key barrier”. In other words, we have a market in the employment sector where the focus has been for too long on cost, not value. The noble Lord shakes his head, but we have heard this from around the House. Indeed, in Committee many people who do not agree with this power accepted the underlying diagnosis, and that is the basis on which the Government are proceeding. The Government want the industry to invest in the full range of assets. One of the reasons, I suspect, that the Mansion House Accord is moving together is to make sure that it is clear that the market is going in that direction. That is the problem, we think: there is a risk of a failure of collective action. The accord is a commitment. The power gives providers assurance that the whole market will move so that they will not then be in a position where somebody faces a competitive advantage by reverting back to focusing on cost and not on value.

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