Employer pension contributions should not be delayed - Laws

9.38.45pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 1st Sep 2006

Commenting on today's report by the TUC that employer groups are lobbying ministers to add a waiting period of a year before employers would have to make compulsory pension contributions, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, David Laws MP said "There is no logical reason why employers should be allowed to defer contributing to an employee's pension for a year. This would hurt the very people who could benefit most from increasing their pension savings.

"Many people move jobs regularly in the early part of their career, yet this is exactly the time when pension savings are most valuable. This proposal would seriously damage the incentive for these people to save.

"If smaller companies need assistance to meet the costs of employee pensions this should be done through funding as proposed in the Pensions Commission's Second Report, not by creating some arbitrary cut-off point to the detriment of its employees."