Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

Our success to date in implementing automatic enrolment could not have been achieved without the significant ongoing support of a number of sectors, including the pensions and payroll industries. Friends of automatic enrolment have played a crucial role in bringing together organisations that are playing a key role in its delivery. Together they have helped the Government improve the process of automatic enrolment and ensure that these reforms work. We thank them for their support so far and their commitment to continuing to work with us as we start the process of helping 1.3 million smaller employers implement automatic enrolment for their workers.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

But will the Minister advise the House of his estimate of the number of workers who are excluded from the benefit of auto-enrolment because of the changes in the threshold over the past five years, and of what proportion of those workers are women?

[Justin Tomlinson]

The Secretary of State is required by law to review the automatic enrolment thresholds in each tax year and may take into account a range of prescribed factors. The review can include considering whether to lower or increase the thresholds or leave them unchanged, as was the case for the current tax year. Freezing the trigger for this tax year will result in approximately 14,000 additional women and 20,000 people overall being brought into pension savings. On the hon. Gentleman’s specific point, I am happy to write to him with further information.