Baroness Altmann – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Altmann on 2016-10-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that workers who are contributing to a workplace pension, and who earn less than £11,000 a year, are able to receive the government contribution to their pension for which they are eligible; and what action they are taking to ensure that such earners are not disadvantaged by losing out on the 25 per cent top-up to which they are entitled.

Lord Young of Cookham

The Pensions Regulator provides guidance to employers on choosing a pension scheme for their staff in order to discharge their statutory obligations under automatic enrolment. This guidance covers the choice between net pay and relief at source schemes, and the implications of net pay schemes for employees who do not pay tax.

The Government’s latest analysis of the eligibility of workers for automatic enrolment was published on 13 October 2016 in ‘Workplace Pensions: Update of analysis on Automatic Enrolment’. Information on age and earnings breakdowns for all workers can be found in table 3a on page 6, and is available in the report titled: Workplace pensions: Update of Analysis on Automatic Enrolment 2016, which is available on the gov.uk website.

The Government does not collect data on the number of workers earning less than the personal allowance who are also members of pension schemes that operate a net pay system. The Government does not hold employee level data on employees enrolled in net pay pension schemes, as such schemes are not obliged to report pension contributions to HM Revenue and Customs. The Government does not therefore hold information on the value of tax reliefs paid out to employees in net pay schemes.