Automatic Workplace Pension Enrolment

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, it is a tremendous pleasure, as always, to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. Years ago, as one of the original pensions commissioners, she set the agenda for the United Kingdom and that has been pursued on an all-party basis ever since. I agree with most of the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, so that consensus is still clinging on by its fingertips. I hope that the Minister will reflect carefully on the three intelligent and penetrating speeches that we have had so far. I agree and concur with a lot of the analysis and many of the conclusions.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, I was slightly disappointed that the pensions review published at the back end of last year did not have a bit more new thinking. I also reflect some of the disappointment felt by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Primarolo, about the lack of urgency about what happens next. So far as I am aware, next to nothing has taken place since December 2017. One would like to think that the urgency of the issue and the changes we are seeing in our labour market—never mind the pensions environment—would have encouraged our new Pensions Minister, who is an able young politician. I was expecting him to blaze a trail using the pensions policy, even if it was by throwing out new ideas, starting new consultations and getting new lines of inquiry started. There has been a deafening silence since December 2017, which is unfortunate.

We need to concentrate on some of the issues that the pensions review raised. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on underprovision, the trigger level and the overall landscape, but in particular we should focus on the unemployed. The noble Baroness, Lady Primarolo, concentrated on the excellent TUC evidence on women and the gender issues that hide behind some of this important policy creation. They are all very important.

I was glad to see that the chosen subject for this evening directly references the proposed timetable. To aim to get things in place and properly changed by the mid-2020s is far too unambitious. Of course we need to be careful about planning changes in good time. Planning needs to be done and we need to be careful and study how the increased contributions in 2018-19 will affect the success of the policy, because it has been successful so far. But there is a difference between 2019 and 2025, and consultations can be carried out in six weeks. There is a yearning that the Government will be Maintaining the Momentum—a wonderful title—as that cannot easily be done by anyone else.

A number of things are available to the Government to introduce the nudges, the policy developments and the progress that needs to be made through the new single financial guidance body. Financial guidance is an integral part of developing auto-enrolment, because financial education is still deficient and people still do not realise the consequences of undersaving. The progress we should be making on the pensions dashboard is important; perhaps the Minister could say something about the progress that has been made on that. Some issues are emerging, such as some of the split small pension pots for low-income households, which is slightly concerning.

A lot of work needs to be done, but more than anything else we want to see more commitment to making progress faster. It is not about being precipitate but about moving faster and getting some plans that we can all look at and intelligently cross-examine. None of that seems to be happening at the moment. If the Minister is determined to hold on to the all-party consensus—I know that she is—she will need to address some of these things with some urgency and satisfy us that everything that can be done is being done. This is an absolutely crucial part of future public policy for the United Kingdom. I know that she cares about it and that the new Minister cares about it as well. I just wish that we had some more tangible demonstration that the Government are thinking about it and coming forward with the kind of ideas that we all look forward to studying in the immediate future.