Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2019 to Question 219503 on Occupational Pensions, what criteria her Department uses to assess the effect of the (a) 2018 and (b) 2019 increases in the minimum contribution rates.

As part of its 2017 Automatic Enrolment Review the Government committed to build on the success of Automatic Enrolment by continuing to monitor and evaluate the impact of increased contributions in 2018 and 2019, as the contributions rose to 5% and 8%.

In April 2018, the first of two planned Automatic Enrolment minimum contribution increases took place, with total contributions increasing from 2% to 5%.

Following the first contribution increase, the Government did a detailed evaluation in the 2018 Automatic Enrolment evaluation report (published December 2018), which provides early evidence suggesting that the first increase has gone smoothly with no significant change in savings behaviours.

A link for the report can be found here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/764964/Automatic_Enrolment_Evaluation_Report_2018.pdf

The Department is continuing to closely monitor and evaluate the impacts of the phased contribution increases throughout 2019 and will do a detailed evaluation of the 8% rise 2019/2020.