Pension Schemes Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 77

What happened: On 15 April 2026, MPs voted on whether to reject Lords Amendment 77 to the Pension Schemes Bill, which would have required a formal review of the costs and long-term sustainability of public sector pension schemes. The vote recorded zero ayes and zero noes, meaning the motion to disagree with the Lords amendment was defeated by default, and the Lords amendment therefore passed. This means the Bill now includes a requirement for a review of public sector pension costs and sustainability.

Why it matters: Public sector pension schemes, covering workers such as teachers, nurses and civil servants, are largely "unfunded" in the technical sense: liabilities are met from current taxation rather than from invested funds built up over time. The amendment requires the government to carry out a review that examines the long-term financial sustainability of these arrangements and the costs to taxpayers. Supporters of the amendment argue this is a basic matter of fiscal transparency, allowing Parliament and the public to understand growing liabilities. The government had opposed the amendment, preferring to keep the Bill focused on private sector workplace pensions.

The politics: The vote's zero-zero result is procedurally unusual, indicating that no division was actually called or that the motion was not pressed to a formal vote, and the Lords amendment therefore stood. Elsewhere in the same day's proceedings, Labour and its allied MPs voted in solid blocks to reject several other Lords amendments, while Conservatives, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, Reform UK and the Democratic Unionist Party consistently opposed the government. The Pension Schemes Bill has been one of the most contentious pieces of legislation of the session, with the government suffering twelve defeats in the House of Lords and then seeking to reverse most of them in the Commons.