Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to minimise the number of people (a) pausing or (b) reducing their employee contributions to workplace pensions.

We closely monitor workplace pension participation, and it has remained resilient during what have been unprecedented economic times. We regularly publish the Workplace Pension Participation and Savings Trends data on gov.uk which shows that the proportion of pension savers who actively cease saving each month remains below 1%.

If an individual makes the decision to pause or cease contributions, the AE framework requires their employer to re-assess and re-enol their eligible employees every three years, which prevents individuals from falling out of pension saving in the medium to long term.

If savers are considering reducing or ceasing pension contributions, then guidance is available before taking action, services such as MoneyHelper are available to provide support and guidance.