Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to encourage people to save for their retirement.

Automatic enrolment has reversed the decline in workplace pension saving. Latest figures show that over 10 million workers have been automatically enrolled into workplace pension by more than 1.5 million employers. In 2018, eligible employees saved a total of £90.4 billion into their workplace pensions.

In 2018, 87% of all eligible workers in Great Britain were members of a workplace pension scheme, this is a 32 percentage point increase compared with 2012, when automatic enrolment was introduced. The greatest increases have been among those who have historically had least access to workplace pensions, such as women, younger people and lower earners. In 2018, workplace pension participation levels increased to 85% for eligible male and female workers in the private sector; this represented a 45 percentage point increase among eligible women compared to 2012. For eligible 22-29-year-old workers in the private sector workplace pension participation increased to 84% – up from 24% in 2012.

With record numbers of people saving for retirement, it’s more important than ever that people understand their pensions and prepare for financial security in later life.

Government is committed to facilitating industry to make pension dashboards a reality and that is why we will compel pension schemes to make consumers data available to them via dashboards, when parliamentary time allows.