The Rose Garden speech of Kier Starmer introduced the concept of financial pain in October.

Part of this pain may be about restrictions in the flexibility with which we can withdraw our pensions (without the pain of sharing with the taxpayers). We learned from the Fabian Society that the cost of tax relief has risen by 55%since 2012, my guess is that this is down to an increase in tax-free saving into pots and a decrease of taxable spending of pots. If the Chancellor has her head screwed on, she will demand that more of the money that comes out of pensions is taxed by reducing tax-free cash allowances and re-implementing a default pension option to replace annuities. Getting a stronger nudge on pensions is rather harder and will come in the Pension Schemes Bill but the restriction on tax-free cash can, and I think will, come in the October Budget.

The beer garden is to become a smoke (and vape?) free zone.

The justification for impinging on our liberty to have a fag outside is the cost of that fag to the tax-payer (in terms of the strain smoking it puts on the NHS). There will be collateral damage to pubs and Shish bars and the navigation of the Edgware Road pavements may become even more chaotic. But nudging out smoking (like nudging in saving) is something that the public generally want.

Before fags were banished from pubs in 2007, we still bought a packet of 16 from the vending machine and you could sometimes struggle to see the other side of the saloon. No one seems to pine nostalgically for that. When I worked for BAT (well Eagle Star) , head offices had signs saying “thank you for smoking”, you could pocket loose cigarettes from boardroom tables, trustee meetings were a gasp. No one pines nostalgically for that.

Nor do we pine for the days when we opted-in to a workplace pension for that matter. Most of the successful social and fiscal reforms happen because they go with the flow of popular opinion.

Which is why the Government has got to take seriously the common hatred of smoking – from its smell to the impact it is having on the pensioners  of today (the last generation that will have smoked heavily). I smoked heavily for 30 years, having become addicted to to tobaccos in spliffs. Those who argue that spliff-whiff is preferable forget that most cannabis is mixed with tobacco. “Spliff” is a social evil too IMO.

The parallel of the rose and beer gardens gives me one more insight. Just as smoking is an easy thing to legislate against, so are pension freedoms. While we can tolerate the last smoker in Britain (see Garrison Keillor story below) as we can tolerate those who use pensions to create personal wealth, we want a society that doesn’t smoke and spends its savings. 80% of us, when asked by Scottish Widows, said we wanted a lifetime income and not a great big pot of money from our pension.

So the Rose Garden will lead to pensions (painful as that will be to the wealthy) and the Beer Garden will be smoke free and extend the payment of pensions (by becoming smoke free).

The public usually gets what it wants because clever politicians work out the long-term trends and legislate for the silent majority. We don’t want fags, we do want pensions, we want a long and healthy retirement whether in the rose garden or the beer garden. Neither poverty or ill-health form part of the longer-life equation.

Actuaries who insist on pointing out that suppressing smoking increases the cost of pensions, please hold your fire.