'Dismantle the pensions revolution before it's too late'
The overhaul of the pensions system, which is set to take effect next April, should be binned and replaced, a think tank has said.
The Fabian Society has called for the revolution in retirement income to be ditched, saying the changes are "wrong" and will leave the country "diminished".
The left leaning pressure group said Labour should draw up an alternative to implement instead if it wins the General Election in May.
Andrew Harrop, the General Secretary of the Fabian Society, said: "George Osborne's pension revolution must be dismantled within weeks of Labour gaining power. Otherwise the rot will set in and people's expectations about the rightful role of pensions will be swept away forever.
"The reforms contained in the forthcoming Taxation of Pensions Bill are wrong because they stop pensions being pensions.
"The whole point of the system is to provide secure income for retirement; but these changes put that to an end, by allowing people to take their entire pension as a lump sum and use it any way they want. For when George Osborne declared 'it's your money' and that government should have no say over its use, he turned Defined Contribution pensions into mere savings accounts.
"Before now politicians have always seen DC pensions as part of a strategic framework for retirement incomes, based on long-term policy objectives such as helping everyone to avoid poverty in retirement and replace a reasonable share of their previous earnings. "Policy makers recognised that people are not very good at deferred gratification and designed benign constraints to help us spread money, consumption and wellbeing over the course of our lives."
He claimed the reforms meant the state saying it has no view as to whether people should use their pension pot for its intended purpose of providing income in retirement.
But the society is not against it because of the much publicised fears about retirees blowing their pension pots on world cruises or Lamborghinis.
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He said: "Sadly, the reality is likely to be the reverse: many older people are risk averse and under-consume their savings, partly irrationally but also because of legitimate uncertainty regarding their life expectancy and the unforeseeable costs of late old age."
He claimed the "undermining" of the annuity would also cost billions of pounds because they lead to a cheaper system, with the costs of retirement incomes shared across the population, not borne individually.
He said: "An early death helps pay for someone else's late old age. So when longevity risks are not pooled through annuities, 15 per cent more needs to be spent to buy the same level of retirement income, according to a Deloitte study of the Australian system (on which Osborne modelled his reforms).
He added: "Labour's offer must not be a choice between cash or a pension; but one of managed choice, between a range of credible and diverse retirement income products."