The recent Labour conference has added increased speculation that pensions at work will be made compulsory. Whilst the new pensions minister, Alan Johnson said that people could decide not to pay contributions, he believes in automatic enrolment as the way forward.
Our View:
Human nature is such that people can't be bothered or don't get round to the subject of pensions. It is not always that people don't want to join, more a case of thinking it will be very involved with a vast amount of paperwork. What the Government is suggesting is right, automatic enrolment is the only way to get people to save for retirement. Many people agree that if something is done for them and contributions merely stopped from their wages, they are happy. The Government must take advantage of this if they are ever to get people saving towards retirement.