The Minister for Pensions Guy Opperman has admitted that the April rise to auto-enrolment contributions is his “biggest hurdle” to implementing the government’s 2017 AE Review recommendations.

Speaking at the Association for Member Nominated Trustees' Spring Conference today, 28 February 2018, Opperman said his current main concern was making sure the contribution rise from 2 per cent to 5 per cent “went without a hitch”.

Despite this, measures laid out in the government’s AE Review such as reducing the age threshold to 18 and removing the lower earnings limit, will not be implemented until the mid-2020s, at which point an entirely new government could be in place.

When asked on why the recommendations will take so long to implement, Opperman said: “I can give you a simple answer, the biggest hurdle I have in my job is making sure that the April rise goes without a hitch.

“If it happens with low pushback then we’re doing a very good job.”

In April 2019 auto-enrolment rates are set to rise again to 8 per cent of qualified earnings.

“We have taken a long way to get this far and now we have double jump, and once we are through it, it will be enough.”

Opperman went on to give a speech in which he praised the overwhelming success of auto-enrolment in which 9.3 million people have been auto-enrolled into a pension scheme.

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