Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

We are absolutely working across Government; we also have our enhanced DWP youth offer, which is a programme of 13 weeks of intensive support to address key barriers and drive positive outcomes, including kickstart. I know that, as we speak, job offers are being made in my hon. Friend’s constituency and in his jobcentre. Crucially, we have also recruited 150 youth employability coaches who specialise in supporting young people with significant complex needs, to help them into work.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

22. How many people have been auto-enrolled in workplace pensions in Crawley constituency since 2012.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for Crawley. It is fantastic news that 35,000 people have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension in the Crawley constituency as a whole. That is also thanks to the 1,600 employers who have supported them in their auto-enrolment duties.

[Henry Smith]

Those are very impressive statistics that prove that this Government’s policy of auto-enrolment has been a great success. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to auto-enrolment pension providers such as B&CE—The People’s Pension—which is based in my Crawley constituency?

[Guy Opperman]

I was delighted to meet The People’s Pension with my hon. Friend a couple of years ago and see the fantastic work that it does. It has more than 5 million members and is one of the largest providers in this important market. I am sure that we will continue to work with it as we expand automatic enrolment, take it to the first £1 earned and lower the entitlement age as we bring forward the 2017 automatic enrolment changes.