Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the views of employers and employees on auto-enrolment workforce pensions.

Automatic enrolment is a policy that works. Over 7.5 million individuals have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension by more than 465,000 employers. I am now conducting a review of the policy in order to build on that achievement.

On 8 February 2017 I published a set of initial questions on the main themes, including coverage, engagement and future contributions and invited views and evidence to help inform our considerations. The deadline for responses was 22 March and we are now considering the responses. We are also engaging extensively with stakeholders, and an advisory group of external experts is providing insight, challenge and guidance.

The success of automatic enrolment has been based on a partnership approach and our approach to the review will enable us to understand the views of all stakeholders, including employers and employees.

Towards the end of 2017 we will publish a report to Parliament.