Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) (No. 2) Bill

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on securing this Bill’s passage through the House.

I wish to highlight the importance of this issue to the whole country in the long term. The UK, like most of the rest of the world, has an ageing population. In the next 25 years, the number of people older than 85 will double to 2.6 million—it is often described as the demographic time bomb. Pension saving is one way to tackle the strain that that will place on the public finances. As we know already, when people’s pensions savings are not sufficient, the Government have to step in and provide that minimum floor and safety net.

Therefore, the more that we can encourage individuals privately to save to support themselves in retirement the less the state will have to do through taxation. That is why businesses can and have embraced these changes. Although they are making a contribution in the short term to pension savings, they will see a lower tax burden placed on them as employers in the long term as we seek to meet any gap that might exist later on in people’s lives when they retire. The policy has already been a fantastic success, as my hon. Friend outlined. This change is an important step forward, which I support.