Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government is taking to help people who are self-employed save for their retirement.

The Government remains committed to increase retirement saving among the self-employed, and many already do save into a pension. The incomes, assets and self-employment experiences vary widely among this population, with considerable differences in resilience for retirement. Given this diversity, finding effective durable solutions is a long term challenge; there is no straightforward single mechanism, supported by evidence, to bring self-employed people into pension saving, but we continue to urge individuals to avail themselves of the opportunities that do already exist for pension saving.

We commenced a trialling research programme in 2019/20 to test a range of approaches and interventions. This programme includes the role of behavioural messages and savings mechanisms using financial digital platforms and uses relevant behavioural insights from automatic enrolment. This will build the evidence base to find ways to make retirement saving easier for self-employed individuals.

In addition, we have completed a short research project to evaluate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the savings and financial wellbeing and resilience of self-employed businesses. We aim to commence [more widespread] technology trials, testing behaviorally-based savings mechanisms, from this summer. This will build on findings from the first stage of trialing, which were published 16 September and on 14 December last year. In addition to this the sidecar savings project is a potential blueprint for much greater financial resilience in the self-employed world of pensions.