Commenting on today’s Autumn Budget announcement, Ian Bell, partner and head of pensions at RSM UK, said: “The Government recently reinstated the Pensions Commission, recognising that long term pensions adequacy in the UK needed to be addressed. Our Pensions Minister, Torston Bell, was quoted as saying that the commission was going to “finish the job” that had been started by the last commission, building on the success of the introduction of auto-enrolment in 2012.

“The budget announcement today, to cap the NIC exemptions for salary sacrifice pension saving, just four months later, has now made the role of the commission substantially harder. Increasing the costs for an individual saving into a pension scheme will discourage pension saving from 2029, undermining trust in the sector by more tinkering, not to mention adding further NIC costs on to employers, who are still trying to absorb the 2024 NIC budget increases.

“The outcome will most likely be reduced pension saving in the future at a time when the government has already recognised that more action is needed to address future pensions adequacy for private sector employees in the UK. The pensions industry needs and deserves joined up long-term thinking by government.

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