National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 3

MPs voted on 23 March 2026 to reject Lords Amendment 3 to the National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill, passing the government's motion to disagree with the amendment by 280 votes to 164. The amendment would have required the government to use the affirmative parliamentary procedure (a process requiring both Houses to actively approve a measure) when making changes to how the £2,000 salary-sacrifice pension contribution threshold operates, beyond the existing affirmative requirement that already applies when the threshold is reduced. The vote means that Parliament will not impose the additional scrutiny mechanism the Lords inserted. Under the Act as passed, Treasury regulations that reduce the £2,000 annual cap on salary-sacrifice pension contributions free of National Insurance contributions must go through the affirmative procedure, but other adjustments to how the threshold works do not face that higher bar. The measure affects employers who use salary-sacrifice pension arrangements, with the broader Act applying NICs to salary-sacrifice contributions above £2,000 from the 2029-30 tax year. The division followed strict party lines. All 277 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted supported the government's motion; no Labour MP voted against. All 87 voting Conservatives backed the Lords amendment, as did all 56 Liberal Democrats, 6 SNP members, 5 DUP members, 3 Plaid Cymru members, and 3 Reform UK members. Four independents voted with the government; three voted against. The government did not lose a single Commons vote during the bill's passage, despite, as the Conservative frontbencher Mark Garnier noted, failing to win a single vote in the Lords.