Member of Parliament
Torsten Bell
Labour MP for Swansea West
Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)·Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
At a glanceTorsten Bell is a Labour MP for Swansea West, and has represented the seat for 2 years. They currently serve as Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury). They have cast 410 votes in Commons divisions (71% attendance), tabled 9 written questions and registered 2 financial interests.
Attendance is votes cast as a share of the 575 Commons divisions since the 2024 election; Torsten Bell did not vote in 165. A rebellion is a vote against the way most of their own party voted; free votes, where no party line applies, are left out.
Party-loyalty figures are our own analysis of the official voting records (recorded votes only; they do not describe the formal whip). How we work this out.
Biography
He currently holds the Government posts of Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury), and Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions).
Current roles
- Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury) Government post · HM Treasury since 14 Jan 2025
- Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions) Government post · Department for Work and Pensions since 14 Jan 2025
- Swansea West Representation · Elected 1 time since 4 Jul 2024
- Labour Party since 4 Jul 2024
Voting record
Voting alignment
Votes most like
-
Paul Davies
Labour
100.0% · 402 of 402 shared votes
-
Rachel Hopkins
Labour
100.0% · 401 of 401 shared votes
-
Tristan Osborne
Labour
100.0% · 401 of 401 shared votes
-
Chris Vince
Labour (Co-op)
100.0% · 396 of 396 shared votes
-
Steve Yemm
Labour
100.0% · 394 of 394 shared votes
Votes least like
-
Andrew Griffith
Conservative
0.0% · 0 of 261 shared votes
-
Mr Mark Francois
Conservative
0.0% · 0 of 228 shared votes
-
Mrs Kemi Badenoch
Conservative
0.0% · 0 of 118 shared votes
-
Sir James Cleverly
Conservative
0.4% · 1 of 264 shared votes
-
Sir Roger Gale
Conservative
0.4% · 1 of 233 shared votes
Alignment figures are our own analysis of the official voting records (recorded votes only; they do not describe the formal whip). How we work this out.
Register of financial interests
From the official Register; shown as registered.
Employment and earnings1
- Paperback publication - Robert Caskie (registered 1 Apr 2025)
Visits outside the UK1
- International visit to France between 15 January 2026 and 17 January 2026 (registered 14 Feb 2026)
Written questions
Cryptoassets: Capital Gains Tax
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an estimate of the revenue accrued from capital gains tax on the sale of crypto-assets in the last financial year.
Answer · 13 Jan 2025
No estimate of the revenue accrued from capital gains tax on the sale of cryptoassets has been made for the last financial year, 2023-24. From the tax year ending 2025, changes will be introduced to the Capital Gains pages of the Self-Assessment forms req...
Jobseeker's Allowance
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department’s statistics on the ONS Nomis database on Jobseekers Allowance on-flows by occupation and age, what assessment she has made of the potential reason for changes in the nu
Answer · 20 Dec 2024
There have been some changes to the administrative instructions followed by the department’s Work Coaches around recording occupation at the Initial Work Seach Interview. This has led to the observed change in the levels of unknown occupations in the Jobs...
Cryptoassets: Capital Gains Tax
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many tax-payers were paying capital gains tax on crypto-assets in each of the last five financial years; what the size of the gains made was; and how much revenue the Exchequer has received from capital gains ta
Answer · 20 Dec 2024
Income and gains in relation to cryptoassets are currently reported in the same sections with other incomes and gains on the Self-Assessment return pages, and therefore those amounts are not separately identifiable from the data collected via Self-Assessm...
Insolvency: Assets
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 20 November to Question 13792 on Insolvency: Assets, what information (a) HM Land Registry and (b) Companies House hold on the number of registered free
Answer · 20 Dec 2024
HM Land Registry does not hold data on the number of registered freehold titles where ownership has passed to the Crown following the dissolution of a company, where the Bona Vacantia Division has not yet been notified.Companies House does not hold the re...
High Rise Flats: Fire Prevention
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 2 December 2024 to Question 16634 on high rise building remediation taken on by the FSCS, how much and what proportion of the costs covered by East West Insurance Company policies relate to
Answer · 17 Dec 2024
The Joint Administrators of East West Insurance Company (EWIC) published a report in 2021 that confirmed that all of EWIC’s building guarantee and warranty policies originated with Zurich Insurance. As disclosed previously, the best estimate for the costs...
High Rise Flats: Fire Prevention
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate the Financial Services Compensation Scheme has made of the costs (a) of high rise building remediation work taken on by the FSCS and (b) to each insurance company that originally wrote the building ins
Answer · 2 Dec 2024
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) provides protections to the eligible customers of failed insurers regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), subject to the conditions, limits and requirements set out in PRA rules. In the con...
Insolvency: Assets
To ask the Solicitor General, pursuant to the Answer of 25 October to Question 9653 on Insolvency: Assets, in addition to the registered freehold titles that the Bona Vacantia Division is dealing with, how many registered freehold titles are vested in the
Answer · 20 Nov 2024
The Bona Vacantia Division (“the Division”) of the Government Legal Department acts on behalf of the Treasury Solicitor (the Crown’s Nominee for bona vacantia).The Division is not automatically informed of the assets of a company on dissolution and the Di...
Insolvency: Assets
To ask the Solicitor General, how many registered freehold titles in England and Wales are vested in the Crown as bona vacantia as a consequence of companies being dissolved through (a) striking off by the Registrar of Companies and (b) a formal liquidati
Answer · 25 Oct 2024
The Bona Vacantia Division (“the Division”) of the Government Legal Department acts on behalf of the Treasury Solicitor (the Crown’s Nominee for bona vacantia).The Division is currently dealing with 380 freehold titles which appear to have vested as bona ...
Speeches in the chamber
29 Jun 2026 Topical Questions
The hon. Member will know that a judicial review claim has been filed, and that we cannot comment on live litigation. There are legitimate views on raises in the state pension age, particularly the 2011 acceleration put in place by the coa…
29 Jun 2026 Topical Questions
My hon. Friend is a consistent campaigner on these issues in this place and in our regular meetings, and I always learn something from those conversations. I am not going forward with exactly the suggestion he brings forward, but I agree t…
29 Jun 2026 Topical Questions
My hon. Friend and I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions, and she has been an important campaigner for pensioners in her constituency who have been affected by it. Although three quarters of schemes provide some degree of pr…
29 Jun 2026 Topical Questions
I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point, and we need to fund the NHS to stop letting down older generations. Taxes have consequences that affect the whole population, including pensioners. The Chancellor has set out that the level of the pe…
29 Jun 2026 Supporting British Pensioners
I am incredibly hopeful that this Government are doing a much better job than the previous Government in supporting pensioners, not only by driving up the state pension, but by getting on with the much delayed reforms to our defined-contr…
29 Jun 2026 Supporting British Pensioners
That is a very important question. We need to make sure that those who will retire in 2050 can look forward to the same kind of comfortable retirements that many—not all, but many—of today’s pensioners enjoy, and the honest answer is that …
29 Jun 2026 Supporting British Pensioners
I can give the hon. Member the assurance he asks for, which is that this Labour Administration, like all Labour Administrations, are on the side of pensioners. Of course, he only defected earlier this year, so he was a Conservative MP duri…
29 Jun 2026 Supporting British Pensioners
The Government are committed to supporting British pensioners to enjoy a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of work. That is why we are raising the state pension throughout this Parliament via the triple lock. That saw the state pens…
23 Jun 2026 Youth Unemployment
My hon. Friend has done significant campaigning on this issue in recent months, and we all know why. The Government obviously inherited the student loan system situation, and we have already acted to cap the interest rate on student loans.…
23 Jun 2026 Youth Unemployment
The background to this is that employment is up 920,000 since the election. As I just said, there are structural challenges when it comes to youth unemployment. I gently refer the Tories to the fact that we saw a 250,000 increase in the nu…
23 Jun 2026 Youth Unemployment
UK employment levels are strong by historic and international standards. The hon. Member is right, though, to highlight a structural challenge when it comes to young people being out of work and, for that matter, education. That is why we …
16 Jun 2026 Draft Pensions (Abolition of Lifetime Allowance Charge etc) Regulations 2026
I have nothing further to add. Question put and agreed to.
16 Jun 2026 Draft Pensions (Abolition of Lifetime Allowance Charge etc) Regulations 2026
I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Pensions (Abolition of Lifetime Allowance Charge etc) Regulations 2026. I will briefly take the Committee through the background and purpose of these draft regulations, which…
15 Jun 2026 State Pensioners: Personal Allowance
I apologise to the right hon. Member for underselling him, but I think that he is also underselling the work that this Government are doing. Changes to the flawed welfare system that we inherited are already taking place. In April, we redu…
15 Jun 2026 State Pensioners: Personal Allowance
It is for the Chair to decide what is appropriate, but I will come on to the question of fair rates of tax. We should be clear and transparent in how we talk about this issue: any increase in the rate of the state pension is always signifi…
15 Jun 2026 State Pensioners: Personal Allowance
He was not my predecessor, because I am the Pensions Minister and Gordon Brown was never a Pensions Minister. Does the hon. Gentleman know who was? Margaret Thatcher. Gordon Brown oversaw big falls in pensioner poverty. Why? Because he int…
15 Jun 2026 State Pensioners: Personal Allowance
Of course. I look forward to the denunciation of the hon. Gentleman’s previous Prime Minister.
15 Jun 2026 State Pensioners: Personal Allowance
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Our approach is to increase the basic pension and the new state pension in the years ahead, because pensioners, as well as the population as a whole, have seen living standards pressures in recent y…
15 Jun 2026 State Pensioners: Personal Allowance
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for opening it and for rightly highlighting and celebrating the fall in pensioner poverty, …
15 Jun 2026 State Pensioners: Personal Allowance
I will chunter from a standing position shortly.
Source: contributions on parliament.uk.
Full parliamentary career
Committee memberships
- Pension Schemes Bill 15 Jul 2025 – 11 Sep 2025
Expenses
Contact & offices
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about Torsten Bell, answered from official Parliament data.
Who is Torsten Bell?
Torsten Bell is a Member of Parliament representing Swansea West in the House of Commons. See Torsten Bell's official Parliament profile.
Which party does Torsten Bell represent?
Torsten Bell sits as Labour. See Torsten Bell's official Parliament profile.
Which constituency does Torsten Bell represent?
Torsten Bell is the Member of Parliament for Swansea West. See Torsten Bell's official Parliament profile.
How long has Torsten Bell been an MP?
Torsten Bell has served in the House of Commons for 2 years. See Torsten Bell's official Parliament profile.
What registered interests are listed for Torsten Bell?
Torsten Bell has 2 entries in the Register of Members' Financial Interests. See Torsten Bell's official Parliament profile.
Source: this MP's official Parliament profile. Last updated 26 Jul 2026.