The Chancellor announced the ‘pot for life‘ or portable pension pot, subject to another consultation. This is to address the many small pension pots that exist as workers move from job to job, leaving different unconsolidated pensions.

Now, employers are obliged to automatically enrol workers into a scheme chosen by the employer. As workers move on, this has increased the number of small pots being left behind. The proposal is that the worker will automatically ‘take’ their pension pot from their former employer’s scheme to the new employer’s scheme, subject to criteria, of course. There will be a legal obligation for the new employer to pay into a pension pot that is from a former employer.

Workers will still be able to opt out of this portable pension and leave their pension pot in the former employer’s scheme.

State Pension
Included in the Conservative Party Manifesto pledge in 2019 was a promise to maintain the Triple Lock, the mechanism by which the State Pension is raised each year. Convention had it that the pension would increase by 8.5% (earnings inflation), though this was inflated by one-off payments and bonuses paid to employees in the NHS and civil service. True earnings inflation was a lower 7.8%, and, possibly, the government would use this lower figure to inflate State Pensions.

But the Autumn Statement announced that the Triple Lock commitment would be honoured, and increases would be at 8.5%.