Badly written law could deprive 4m of their pensions An employee earning £40,000 in a scheme with an employer contribution of 5pc could miss out on £8,000 of employer pension contributions as a result of a delay until 2017. Andy Cheseldine of LCP, the pensions consultancy, said: "This loophole appears to have remained unnoticed until now because of the sheer complexity of the legislation. We estimate that more than 3,000 private sector employers were due to auto-enrol over 4 million workers in 2013 and the majority of these enrolments could be pushed back to 2017 without any compensatory backdating. We understand that primary legislation will be required to rectify this. The Department for Work & Pensions has not contradicted LCP's interpretation of the legislation. A spokesperson for the DWP said: "All new members of staff joining firms with defined benefit or hybrid pension schemes after the staging date will be automatically enrolled, and other members of staff can still choose to opt in regardless of the transitional period." Gregg McClymont, Labour's pensions shadow minister, said: "The Department for Work & Pensions needs to clarify whether this is the case. If LCP are right then employees could lose out on significant contributions to their pensions from employers and the state.