Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to encourage young people to save for a pension; and if he will make a statement.

Automatic enrolment into workplace pensions was introduced to enable more people to save for their retirement. So far over 8 million people have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension, reversing the decline in private pension saving, including amongst younger workers, seen in the decade before the reforms were introduced in 2012.

In March this year, the Office for National Statistics published an estimate that around 160,000 employees aged 16-21 and 2.7 million employees aged 22-29 were contributing to a workplace pension in 2016

We are looking at how we can build on this success over the longer term. Our current review of automatic enrolment is looking at the existing coverage of the policy and the needs of those not currently benefiting; strengthening the evidence base concerning future contributions; and how we can encourage greater personal ownership of work place pension saving, including by young people. The Review will report at the end of 2017.