Personal pension payments record fall

Total contributions dropped by £2bn from £20.9bn in 2007/08 to £18.7bn in 2009/10.

A report on pension trends by the Office for National Statistics suggested that the drop in the number of people contributing to personal and stakeholder pensions was due to financial pressures during the recession.

Similarly, the number of people who paid into personal and stakeholder pensions decreased from 7.6 million in 2007/08 to 6.4 million to 2008/09, because many people who had been making small contributions stopped doing so as their income shrank.

However, total contributions to private (non-state) pensions rose to £85.6bn in 2009 from £83.2bn the previous year.