The government has said it will share further information on the timings and terms of reference for phase two of the pension review in "due course", after it failed to provide updates on the next step for the second phase in its final Pension Investment Review report.

Pensions Minister, Torsten Bell, previously suggested that he would provide an update on the timings around phase two of the review, which is expected to focus on adequacy, in the final Pension Investment Review report.

However, the final Pension Investment Review report has now been published, with no mention on the next steps for phase two of the review.

Asked by Pensions Age whether he could provide any further updates, the Minister said that he was unable to confirm the exact timings, but confirmed that he would be sharing updates "in due course".

"We'll be setting out the terms of reference and the approach for the next phase of the pension review in due course," he stated.

However, the Minister stressed that the “industry would not be waiting forever”, again indicating that reports that have said it will be expected in the far future were “garbage”.

But whilst industry experts have broadly welcomed the government's plans to encourage scale as part of its push to encourage greater investment in UK productive assets, adequacy concerns have continued to grow.

Isio head of DC investment, Helyne Slade, for instance, said that "whilst investment performance is a key growth engine for DC pots, we mustn’t forget that the single biggest factor driving member outcomes is the amount paid in, which these proposals don’t look to address".

In particular, industry experts have repeatedly emphasised the need for the government to push ahead with auto-enrolment reforms in order to address growing adequacy concerns.

However, auto-enrolment reforms are seemingly on hold as the industry awaits the launch of phase two, as when previously asked whether the government would be looking to take forward the Private Members Bill to extend auto-enrolment to lower earners and younger workers, which gained Royal Asset after passing through parliament in 2023, Bell stated: "I want to consider wider questions in the round about the future of the pension system, and that's what Phase two is going to be doing."

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