Ensuring current and future pensioners have adequate retirement income is a key priority for this Government.

Despite the success of Automatic Enrolment in transforming workplace retirement saving with over 23 million employees participating in 2024, we know that 45% of working-age adults are not actively saving into a pension.

That is why the government is taking action to reform the pensions landscape. The Pension Schemes Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April and will play a huge role in strengthening the private pensions market, providing better outcomes for pension savers and supporting UK growth.

We have also revived the Pensions Commission, to explore how to improve retirement outcomes for future generations. The Commission published their interim report on 19 May 2026, setting out areas of focus on the longer-term challenges around retirement adequacy, especially for those at the greatest risk of undersaving. The Government will set out its plans following the Pensions Commission’s final report, which is due in early 2027.

Automatic enrolment has succeeded in transforming participation in workplace pensions savings, with over 23 million employees in Great Britain participating in 2024.

However, despite this success, the Government recognises that millions are still not saving enough for their retirement. That is exactly why last year we revived the Pensions Commission. The Commission is exploring how to improve retirement outcomes, especially for those on the lowest incomes and at the greatest risk of poverty or under saving.

The Pensions Commission published their interim report on 19 May 2026, setting out the key challenges facing the system and where it will focus its work next. It will publish a final report and recommendations in 2027.

The Pension Schemes Act 2026, which received royal assent on 29 April 2026, will also bring about major reforms to transform the pensions landscape, ensuring every pound saved delivers stronger returns while driving investment in the economy.

The Government is committed to incentivising greater saving and investment to help people save for their future goals and build greater financial resilience and to supporting people of all incomes and at all stages of life to save.

The Lifetime ISA is designed to encourage younger people to get into the habit of saving for the longer term. The Help to Save scheme also supports low-income working households to start a long-term savings habit.

The government encourages pension saving through generous tax relief on pension contributions and investment income and growth. These reliefs were worth £78.2bn in 2023/24. Individuals can also save in a range of Individual Savings Accounts each year, such as cash and stocks & shares and any savings income within it is tax free.

The Department’s 2017 Review confirmed that the Automatic Enrolment (AE) framework cannot be straightforwardly extended to people who are self-employed, as by definition there is no employer to enrol them into a scheme; select a scheme or make contributions.

We remain committed to enabling self-employed people to achieve greater financial security in later life. Finding effective and enduring solutions is a long-term challenge given the highly diverse nature of this group, with varying incomes, assets, and employment experiences.

The learnings from the recent trialling and research programme delivered through Nest Insight have provided a useful platform to move forward, helping us to build the evidence base. We are working with software providers to explore the feasibility of building and testing retirement savings solutions in digital platforms, such as accountancy software and payment platforms, used by self-employed people to manage their money.

There are various types of deadline that may relate to single premium pension payments.

If the deadline is set out in the contract of the personal pension plan, this is a contractual issue between the individual and their pension provider.

In relation to tax matters, the Government allows up to three years of unused annual allowance to be carried forward, if individuals have not used up their whole annual allowance in previous tax years.

The estimated cost to the Exchequer from tax relief on pension contributions may be found in the published National Statistics produced by HMRC here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/registered-pension-schemes-cost-of-tax-relief

Estimates of the number of people making contributions into personal pensions and the value of their contributions by different income levels can be found in Table 3.8 at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/deductions-and-reliefs-2010-to-2011

From April 2015, individuals aged 55 or over have had the option to flexibly access their pension.

The latest estimate of the tax revenue from the introduction of pensions flexibility was set out in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook in March 2017^[1]. This stated, in paragraph A.23, that £1.5 billion of tax revenue was received from pension flexibility in 2015-16, and £1.1 billion is forecast to be received in 2016-17.

[1] http://cdn.budgetresponsibility.org.uk/March2017EFO-231.pdf

Automatic enrolment was designed to help more people save for their retirement, including groups who historically have been less likely to save, such as women and lower earners. The policy is working, with over 7.3 million people enrolled by the end of January 2017. Around two thirds of women are in the eligible target population for automatic enrolment and 10 million workers are estimated to be newly saving or saving more as a result of Automatic Enrolment by 2018, of which 3.6 million are women.

Since the introduction of automatic enrolment, the private sector has seen the largest increases in participation in workplace pensions and by 2014 there was no gender gap in participation. As of 2015 female participation in the private sector had actually risen to a slightly higher level of 70 per cent compared to 69 per cent for male eligible employees. This represents a 30 percentage point increase for women from 2012 (whilst participation for men has increased by 26 percentage points) continuing the upward trend since the introduction of automatic enrolment.

In addition, the Government’s decision to freeze the value of the automatic enrolment earnings trigger at £10,000 in 2017/18 is estimated to result in around 70,000 extra people being brought into automatic enrolment of whom around 50,000 (75 per cent) are women.

As part of my Department’s review of automatic enrolment, which we have embarked on this year, we will look at how we can build on its success so that it continues to meet the needs of individual savers, including women. In addition to considering those not currently benefitting from the policy, this review will look at strengthening the evidence base concerning future contributions, and how we can maximise engagement with work place pension saving.

The government believes that employee share ownership in its various forms can help drive productivity and increase employee engagement. To support employee share ownership the government provides four tax-advantaged employee share schemes, which provide certain tax benefits for individuals acquiring shares in the company they work for.

Government has already assessed, and continues to assess, the impact of the pension freedoms.

In advance of the introduction of the freedoms a Tax Information and Impact Note was published by HM Revenue and Customs. This is available on the Gov.uk website.

An impact assessment was also published for amendments to the 2015 Pension Schemes Act which covered transfers from private sector defined benefit schemes. This is available on the Parliament website.

Looking forward, HMRC publishes quarterly releases on flexible withdrawals from pensions, and the Financial Conduct Authority also produces regular bulletins on retirement income market data. My Department regularly meets with other government departments, non-departmental public bodies, regulators, think tanks and industry representative groups to consider how industry and individuals are responding to the freedoms.

The Government committed in its response to the Work and Pensions Select Committee in December 2015 to publish findings from the Pension Wise evaluation research in 2017. This work is now underway with Ipsos MORI and the early findings covering customer experiences of the service were published in October 2016 on the Gov.uk website. Further publications from this programme will follow in 2017 including a comparison between users of the service compared with non-users to identify the impact of the service on understanding of the new pension freedoms.

The government takes the issue of pension scams very seriously and is currently considering ways to protect consumers from pension scammers.

The government continues to monitor the pension freedom, and where evidence of specific issues come to light will not hesitate to act to protect consumers.

The government is committed to making sure that people can access high quality, affordable, tailored advice and guidance to help them make informed financial decisions.

The government set up Pension Wise to offer free and impartial guidance to those eligible to access the pension freedoms, to allow them to make confident, informed choices about how to use their retirement savings. The government has also extended access to the service, allowing those aged 50 and above to use guidance sessions to help them plan for their retirement. In addition, the Money Advice Service provides guides to help people improve their finances; tools and calculators to help them track and plan ahead; and offers support in person, over the phone and online.

The government recognises that there is a potential “advice gap” for people who do not have significant wealth. The government launched the Financial Advice Market Review (FAMR), which is being led jointly by HM Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority, to look at how best to increase the accessibility and affordability of financial advice. The government also launched the Public Financial Guidance consultation to look at how the provision of public financial guidance could be made more effective for consumers. Both FAMR and the Public Financial Guidance consultation will publish their recommendations in time for Budget 2016.

The Government will launch a consultation next month on options to address any excessive early exit penalties. This will include, if there is evidence of such penalties, the option of imposing a legislative cap on these charges for those aged 55 or over.

Under the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) consumer protection remit, it has already responsibility for ensuring that regulated firms treat their customers fairly and communicate in a way that is clear, fair, and not misleading. The FCA also has powers to take action against firms which engage in unauthorised business.

The evidence we have suggests that high exit charges when transferring out of a pension are not common, and usually apply only when leaving a scheme early.

Figures for 2013-14 are not yet available.

The latest available estimates (from 2011-12) of the number of people receiving income tax deductions for their personal pension contributions and the value of deductions by different income levels can be found in Table 3.8 at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/276037/tables3-1_3-11.pdf

The Money Advice Service (MAS) was set up by Government to promote understanding of the financial system and raise levels of financial capability across the UK. It offers free and impartial information and advice on money matters to all and provides advice on a range of savings products, including ISAs.

The latest available statistics show that as of 5 April 2011, of the 24,356 adults with ISAs, 11,861 (48.7%) were female.

On pensions, 2 million to 3 million are women will be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension where they will benefit from an employer contribution and tax relief.

The state pension reforms will benefit women who have historically done poorly under the current two-tier system. The Government expects that in the first 10 years after implementation, over 650,000 women will benefit from the single-tier valuation of their pension at 2016, receiving on average £8 a week more in state pension.

The Normal Pension Age for Firefighters report contains a number of recommendations which I am currently considering carefully. The Government's response will be published shortly.