Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Agnew of Oulton on 31 March (HL2729), how many people, recorded in HMRC’s Real Time Information records as earning below the personal tax threshold, were contributing at work to a pension scheme using the Relief at Source method of income tax relief in the tax years after 2016; and, of these, how many were (1) women, and (2) men.

HMRC estimate that 1.3m individuals earning below the personal allowance in 2017-18 made workplace pension contributions via Real Time Information (RTI) using relief at source arrangements. About 65% of these individuals are estimated to be female and 35% 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.