Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of people participating in a workplace pension scheme in Bolton North East constituency.

Since 2012 in Bolton North East constituency, approximately 13,000 eligible jobholders have been automatically enrolled.

Automatic enrolment is a great success story. Over 9.8 million employees have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension, and more than 1.3 million employers have met their duties as at the end of July 2018.

Nationally in 2012, the percentage of eligible private sector workers participating in a workplace pension hit a low of 42 per cent. This figure has now risen to 81 per cent. This marks a 39 percentage point increase in pension participation of this group since the introduction of Automatic Enrolment.

Young people have embraced pension saving, with 77 per cent of eligible 22 to 29 year olds working in the private sector now enrolled in a workplace pension. For context, only 24 per cent of this group were enrolled into a workplace pension in 2012, before the introduction of Automatic Enrolment. And the proportion of people earning between £10,000 and £20,000 participating in a workplace pension has grown dramatically, from a low of under 20 per cent in 2012 to over 70 per cent today.