PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Workplace Pensions: Canterbury (2 October 2019)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in Canterbury constituency have (a) opted out after being auto-enrolled and (b) saved more than the auto-enrolment minimum contribution in a workplace pension.

Asked by:
Rosie Duffield (Independent)

Automatic enrolment has achieved a quiet revolution through getting employees into the habit of pension saving, and reversing the decline in workplace pension participation in the decade prior to these reforms. Since automatic enrolment started in 2012 participation rates have been transformed with 87% of eligible employees saving into a workplace pension in 2018, up from 55% in 2012.

The Department does not hold data for individual constituencies in relation to opt outs or the number of individuals who have saved above the automatic enrolment minimum contribution level. However, we do know that overall around 9% of automatically enrolled workers have chosen to opt out which is significantly below original estimates; and our latest evaluation report shows that, in April 2017, approximately 5.9 million eligible employees were already meeting the April 2019 minimum contribution rates.

I am providing the following information about the impact of automatic enrolment in your constituency, as of August 2019:

In the Canterbury constituency, since 2012, approximately 11,000 eligible jobholders have been automatically enrolled and 1,830 employers have met their duties.

Automatic Enrolment Evaluation Report 2018, available via the following weblink: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/764964/Automatic_Enrolment_Evaluation_Report_2018.pdf.

Answered by:
Guy Opperman (Conservative)
7 October 2019