Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the level of opt-out from auto-enrollment into workplace pensions during the covid-19 lockdown period.

The Department does not yet have suitable data to make an assessment of the number of employees who have reduced their contributions, or have stopped saving, since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown period.

We are monitoring the impacts of covid-19 on workplace pension participation and saving levels and are working closely with the pensions industry and across government to understand the impact of the emergency.

Helping people to save for their futures remains a key priority for this Government. We put in place an unprecedented package of support to strengthen job and income security during the emergency; this included help to ease workplace pension saving for businesses with furloughed workers. As part of the next phase of its response, the Government’s goal is to support, create and protect jobs; and giving businesses confidence to retain and hire workers supports the capacity for retirement saving.