Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

Let me refer briefly to the initial waiting period. As Ms McFadden said, putting a new employee who will be progressing to an occupational scheme after a probationary period into an auto-enrolment arrangement for six months, which may entail the only six months of contributions of their career, seems entirely illogical to us. We just cannot see the sense of it and believe it will be counterproductive. It would just create a negative approach to and negative sentiment regarding auto-enrolment within places of employment and among our members. We definitely believe this should be considered.

The other issue we would raise is that people who may be in very transitory employment, such as students and those in short-term work, will not establish a savings pattern until they settle in their careers. We believe, based on data we have seen on churn rates in employment, that contributions should start from the age of 23, just to try to minimise the impact.

On the question on additional voluntary contributions and the gender challenge it will bring, we know pensions coverage and pensions adequacy among females are significantly substandard by comparison with those among males in the working population. We hope auto-enrolment will help to address that. Definitely from a coverage perspective, it will, but the lack of flexibility on additional contributions will not help in terms of pension adequacy where people may have had several years out of employment and are trying to play catch-up. We realise there is a commitment to examine this on another date but stress the urgency of addressing gender inequality in pensions adequacy, notwithstanding that auto-enrolment will be a significant support in terms of pensions coverage from a gender perspective.