Standard Life Signs Open Letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Comments on Proposed Extension to Auto Enrolment

Commenting on the proposed extension of Auto Enrolment, Colin Williams, Managing Director of Pension and Savings at Standard Life said:

“In just short of a decade, Auto Enrolment has helped increase the number of people saving for retirement and embed a saving culture within UK workplaces. While much progress has been made since 2012, some of the measures introduced at launch simply don’t go far enough today to facilitate saving at the level needed to sustain a good retirement, while any delay to proposed reforms could have a detrimental impact on the retirement prospects of Britons in years to come.

“We fully support both reducing the age at which people benefit from Auto Enrolment to 18 years old and the removal of the lower earnings limit, which is why we’ve signed this open letter to the Chancellor as many people are still missing out on the positives of Auto Enrolment.

“However, we would go further and urge the Government to remove the earnings trigger which is currently set at £10,000 as that would bring more people, especially women and part time workers, into workplace pensions. We believe these proposals would allow more workers to benefit from Auto Enrolment for the entirety of their adult working lives, which would improve the retirement prospects of millions of people and further advance a workplace savings culture in the UK.”