Pension Schemes Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 1

On 15 April 2026, the House of Commons voted 278 to 158 to reject Lords Amendment 1 to the Pension Schemes Bill, supporting the government's motion to disagree with the change. The Lords had inserted the amendment to remove ministers' power to direct pension schemes to invest in particular assets, sectors, or locations, reserving those decisions entirely to scheme trustees. By backing the government's motion, MPs voted to strip that protection from the Bill and restore the reserve power for ministers to set mandatory asset allocation requirements on pension funds. The vote determines whether government ministers can, through secondary legislation (regulations passed without full parliamentary debate), require pension schemes to channel savings into specific investments, such as UK infrastructure or growth assets. Supporters of the Lords amendment argued that this power, even if described as a backstop, fundamentally shifts control of pension savings away from trustees whose legal duty is to act in savers' best interests. Opponents of the Lords amendment, including the government, argued the power is needed to support economic growth and improve returns, and is consistent with the Bill's broader goal of ensuring pension savings work harder. Labour MPs voted unanimously for the government's position, with 240 Labour and 26 Labour and Co-operative members voting aye and none voting no. Conservatives (87 no), Liberal Democrats (59 no), Reform UK (5 no), the Green Party (4 no), and the Democratic Unionist Party (2 no) all voted against the government. The Scottish National Party (5) and Plaid Cymru (4) voted with the government. The vote reflects a broader pattern of ping-pong (the process where a bill passes back and forth between the two Houses as each seeks to amend or reverse the other's changes) in which the Lords inflicted twelve defeats on the government during the Bill's passage through the upper House. The government returned to the Commons on 15 April to reverse several of those defeats in a single sitting.