Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Buscombe on 31 October 2018 (HL10750), how many (1) women, and (2) men, recorded in HMRC’s Real Time Information records, earning below the personal tax threshold, were contributing at work to a Net Pay Pension scheme in the tax years after 2016-17; and how often they plan to update these figures.

HMRC estimate that 1.5m individuals earning below the personal allowance in 2017-18 made workplace pension contributions via Real Time Information (RTI) using net pay arrangements. About 75% of these individuals are estimated to be female and 25% are estimated to be male.

The personal allowance in 2017-18 was £11,500.

HMRC’s Survey of Personal Income (SPI) and administrative data was used to produce the estimates. The 2017-18 SPI data (published in March 2020) is the latest year available. The SPI is updated annually.