Member

This matters all the more because switching is not equally easy for everyone. The Government’s mandation power is not applied across the pensions landscape as a whole; it is targeted very narrowly at automatic enrolment default funds, as has been said. These are the schemes that are relied on disproportionately by those with the least means and the least financial confidence, who, therefore, depend most heavily on the neutrality and integrity of the system. Those with greater financial knowledge are able to opt out, to switch funds or to make alternative arrangements, but those without that confidence are not. It is as simple as that. The most financially engaged can navigate their way around mandation, while the least engaged are locked in by default. We believe that that is the central difficulty with this approach. Mandation does not apply to defined benefit schemes, self-selected investment choices, SIPPs or bespoke arrangements; it falls with notable precision on default savers in automatic enrolment schemes, who are the least likely to have made an active choice and the least able to respond if policy decisions lead to weaker outcomes.