Experts have slammed today’s recommendations of the Parliamentary Work and Pensions Committee.

Reacting to the announcement by the powerful all-party committee, senior staff from across the sector hit out at the plans, which they said limited choice and would “destroy the spirit of pension freedoms.”

Nathan Long, senior pension analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown said: “The report really is a tale of two halves, striving for more confident pension savers at the same time as tailoring a retirement straight jacket.

“The committee found that pension freedom works well where savers and investors are equipped to make confident financial decisions, with simplicity of information a key ingredient to boosting understanding.
 
“Taking advice and guidance at the point of finishing work can be hugely beneficial, but does not include a complementary time machine voyage to pay more into your pension earlier on.

“The answer remains to encourage personal ownership of retirement planning at much younger ages.”

He added: “How people can confidently navigate their retirement options and not risk running out of money is not answered by charge capping drawdown solutions.

“Life after work can last over 40 years, so income and investment strategies have to be built for the long term.”

Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell, added: “While the idea of default drawdown pathways sounds sensible in theory, it risks hard-wiring inertia into the pensions system when the focus should really be on empowering consumers to make their own decisions and boosting access to advice.

“Indeed, once you start thinking about the practicalities of creating drawdown defaults it becomes clear they are potentially fraught with danger.”

Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London said: “These recommendations would destroy the spirit of pension freedoms.  

“The whole reason for giving people freedom and choice at retirement is that everyone has different circumstances, needs and objectives.  

“The idea of a standard default makes sense when people are building up pension saving, but not in the diverse circumstances of later life.  

“In particular, people may have built up several different pension arrangements with different providers and schemes.  

“It would be impossible for an individual pension provider or scheme to know what was the best option for a saver when they know nothing about these other pensions.”