Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support people in automatic enrolment pension schemes to make additional voluntary contributions to their pensions.

Automatic enrolment was introduced to help people save for their retirement, particularly lower earners and women who were poorly served by existing provision

Over the next two years contribution levels will be increasing gradually; for an individual, these are currently at 1 per cent, rising to 3 per cent in April 2018 and 5 per cent in April 2019. Employers and individuals can already pay in more than the legal minimum should they wish, and some already do.

We are currently reviewing automatic enrolment to build on its success to date; this includes looking at how individuals can be helped to have a stronger sense of personal ownership of their workplace pensions, and be better enabled to maximise retirement savings.

The review work is led by a DWP team and supported by an external advisory group. We will report to Parliament by the end of 2017.