It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hosie. I welcome this debate in which I speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). I congratulate the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) on securing the debate and on his broad-ranging opening remarks on the need to support pensioners and on the uptake of pension credit, the scourge of pensioner poverty, the sufficiency of pension savings and many other issues.
I thank other Members for their contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) spoke powerfully about the plight of the WASPI women. I also thank the hon. Member for Southport
(Damien Moore), my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain).
Hon. Members are right to say that pensions are all too often seen as a distant, complex topic. It is vital to make them easy and accessible to understand, particularly to engage younger people in savings choices early in their life. A pound saved at 18 is worth much more in retirement than a pound saved at the age of 30 or 40, or later. I welcome the many contributions on the importance of lifelong financial learning and literacy.
Ensuring that everyone, no matter their background, occupation or gender, has dignity and security in old age should be the fundamental objective of pensions policy. However, the complex and long-term nature of pensions policy decisions, and the long-term careful planning of public finances, mean that those ambitions are best realised through political co-operation and consensus. That is why, in government, Labour introduced the Pensions Commission in 2002, to provide a comprehensive analysis of the UK pensions system, assess how it was developing over time, and make recommendations on the long-term funding of pensions. Indeed, the commission charted a new direction in UK pensions policy and gained widespread consensus on reforms that might previously have been regarded as unthinkable.
I am proud that, for instance, it was the last Labour Government who created auto-enrolment, which has transformed the lives of millions, with 10 million more people now saving into a workplace pension. I give credit to the Government who took office in 2010 for their work to drive forward auto-enrolment. However, I think that we are all concerned that an estimated 12 million people may still be under-saving for retirement. We welcome the review of the policy that was commissioned in 2017 and its recommendations that the age threshold for auto-enrolment should be lowered from 22 to 18 and that the lower limit of the qualifying earnings band should be removed so that contributions are payable from the first pound earned by an employee. The Minister told us in Committee that the review will be implemented in the mid-2020s; but could we have confirmation that the intended legislation will enact those two proposals? If possible, can we have further detail on the timeframe?