As POLITICO reported this week, the date of the end of this parliamentary session, known as prorogation, could be pushed back due to the hold-up over the Pension Schemes Bill — but with parliament returning from Easter recess on April 13 and possibly being disbanded again two weeks later ahead of May elections, time is running out.
A compromise is needed, but Bell’s digging his heels in, putting the reforms at risk.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Pensions Minister Torsten Bell, second from the right, presenting the budget despatch box on November 26, 2025. | Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images
“It’s pissing everybody off,” said a senior Conservative MP, granted anonymity to speak their mind. “The government’s ass is being whipped in the House of Lords, and Torsten’s making an absolute pig’s ear of this.”
“There’s a worry that we don’t get this bill because 90 percent of it is popular, not from us, but from the industry, and the whole thing falls, and we have to start again.”
It’s now a game of who will blink first, so the bill, which, aside from the reserve power, is mostly supported by industry, peers, and MPs, gets over the line.
“The pensions minister has a reputation for being extremely confident in his own opinion, but this time he needs to think again. Mandation must go,” Helen Whately, the Conservative Party’s shadow secretary of state for the Department for Work and Pensions, told POLITICO.