Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Flight Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I hope we all support these proposals to maintain auto-enrolment for the 26,000 seafarers and offshore workers. Automatic enrolment has been the key success in this country in achieving the 10 million increase in pension provisioning.

There are five important recommendations outstanding to complete the auto-enrolment programme: to lower the minimum age of participation to 18; to implement the proposals to remove the lower earnings limit; to increase consumer engagement with their pension savings and developing appropriate levels of guidance and advice; to increase the auto-enrolment contribution to 12% to achieve the desired retirement income for the majority; and to ensure that any review and changes to the state pension scheme take into account the overall retirement income targets. Can the Minister give us some assurance that these measures will not get interminably delayed as a result of Covid?