Speaking to Pension Funds Insider at the annual NAPF conference in Manchester, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has warned that delaying auto-enrolment could mean that it "would not happen at all".

His warning comes after weeks of speculation that talks were taking place in Westminster over delaying the implementation of auto-enrolment, which is supposed to start in October 2012.

According to Darling, delays would be destructive. "Of course they are thinking about it", he replied when asked about the rumours which have been circulating in the press during recent weeks. "But it is one thing to talk about it and another to actually do it. If they would postpone it by even a year they would effectively be saying that it would not happen at all," Darling said.

He continued: "Auto-enrolment is a critical part of the pension reforms. If you do not do it now then we would pay for it in providing people with benefits in the future."

Darling admitted that the previous UK Labour government had made mistakes, but with a consensus over pensions reform in place, it was vital that changes were pushed through.

"The mistake we made in the past is that we kept digging the whole thing up every time and in fact we should just stop digging and leave it work." He then quoted Lord Hutton of Furness who earlier at the conference said: "There never is a good time to start".

Darling also said that not implementing the reforms would have very little effect on the economy recovering. "We have far, far bigger issues than that," he said.

First published 19.10.2011

azeevalkink@wilmington.co.uk