Zarah ChoudharySpeaking at an Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) event on tackling poverty at the Labour Party Conference today, Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) Minister Sir Stephen Timms MP, said he would like to see the Government set out a timetable for increasing automatic enrolment (AE) pension contributions from their current 8% minimum.
The current contribution structure is made up of a 5% employee contribution and a 3% employer contribution.
The DWP found that 38% of working age people – equivalent to 12.5 million – were not saving enough for retirement, and increasing the minimum pensions contributions for the AE was widely seen as a key means of solving this problem.
At the Labour Party Conference event, the Society of Pension Professionals (SPP) asked Timms what plans the Government had to increase AE contributions in the future.
Timms said: “I am not the Pensions Minister and I realise we are living through a cost-of-living crisis, but as I said when I chaired the Work and Pensions Select Committee, I think we have got to have a road map so people can see we are committed to doing this and when.”
Sophia Worringer, deputy policy director at the Centre for Social Justice, added: “This is a huge problem that we can’t just keep kicking down the road.”
