Pensions

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his remarks. Auto-enrolment has proven to be one of the most positive developments for savers and in securing people’s long-term prosperity in recent memory. It was a Labour Government in 2008 who first introduced legislation to require auto-enrolment, and millions of people have benefited since. It is heartening that the current Government appreciate the value of the scheme, and are committed to continuing and, indeed, expanding it.

The current economic climate is a tough one. The coronavirus pandemic has left many employers and employees facing unexpectedly difficult decisions. In this light, it is right that the Government focus on ensuring the long-term sustainability of schemes and helping employers weather the immediate crisis. It is for this reason that Labour will not be voting against the statutory instrument tonight, even though it only represents a relatively small real-terms increase in the number of employees set to be automatically enrolled by their employers into pension schemes and a small real-terms increase in the earnings that employers must pay contributions on. I would like to take this opportunity to urge the Government not to abandon the ambitious spirit in which the original legislation was introduced in 2008, and to make sure that, once the economy has regained its strength, the Government do all they can to ensure workers are saving more and are saving earlier for their retirement.

Many experts have made the case for lowering the qualifying earnings threshold and, indeed, the minimum age. The People’s Pension, for example, has endorsed proposals to do so. It argues that millions of new savers would be created, many of whom would be women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Similarly, the Association of British Insurers found that employees would be able to save an additional £2.6 billion a year if the earnings trigger was scrapped. At a glance through Hansard, we can see that a large number of colleagues, many of whom have expertise in this area, from all major parties and in both Houses have also called for these changes. In fact, I remind the Government that they made a commitment themselves in 2017, in the review of auto-enrolment, among other things to remove the lower earnings limit and to reduce the age threshold for automatic enrolment to 18 by the mid-2020s. It would be disappointing if this goal could not be met on time or soon after, and I urge the Government to clarify their position on this issue.

It is also important that the Government are clear about the implications of freezing the earnings trigger and only modestly increasing the upper limit for the qualifying earnings band. Labour has pushed for this in previous years, pointing out last year, for example, that 37% of female workers and 28% of black and minority ethnic workers are still not eligible for the scheme. This is an area of pensions policy that I urge the Minister to look at most closely.

I would like to use this opportunity to provide some context for the decision that we are being asked to make tonight. We will see how the roll-out of the pensions dashboard in the not-too-distant future may benefit savers and we must do all we can to ensure that this service lives up to its potential. Similarly, it is right to work hard to continue the fight against pension scams, to increase the take-up of pension credit and to give savers more transparency around their investments. I would also like to take this opportunity to remind the Minister of a commitment that he made to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), about meeting the Allied Steel and Wire pensioners group, which is very concerned about its pension scheme.

I should also say that Labour supports the pensions triple lock as a way of ensuring a fairer state pension, and that we will be working hard in the coming months and years to continue to push the Government to take bold steps to use the economic might of pension funds to support the fight against climate change. I have raised these points to emphasise that there is much to do in the pensions and savings sector, and because I believe that it is important to consider the whole picture when taking big decisions such as the one being made today.

Labour wants to make this the best country in which to grow old. If we are to achieve that goal, we must be ambitious and build on the success of auto-enrolment to make it as good as it possibly can be. We should address the other issues that I identified earlier as part of that work.