I suppose that people in the Treasury usually read articles in the Financial Times, a fortnight before the Budget. But this year the Treasury from Ministers down , will be paying especial attention. The Pensions Minister is said to be organising the Budget on behalf of the Chancellor and he has a background working in policy research, now it is “get real” as he told an audience in Edinburgh in April. Torsten Bell is likely to read “the Pension Panic” by Mary McDougall with quite a lot of interest.

I won’t go through the article other than it talks about the tax threats to pensions that create panic in FT readers. If you read this blog you’ll know that they focus on tax free cash, NI avoidance (salary sacrifice) , death taxes (inheritance) and the taxation of our income (not the rates now but the bands for different rates).

The question is “who are pensions for” and for a very large part of the population who aren’t FT readers , pensions are mysteries, a deduction from the payslip and a pot of money that is very different from the state pension which is now dominated by a “triple lock” which people know is important though few know how.

It is odd but true, the talk we are engendering about workplace pensions is about tax and not about benefits while with the state pension it is the other way around. Which is why people get into a pension panic.  I had a lady complaining to me this week that she had lost a third of her pension because she was in a DC LDI fund that went down 30% in a few months in 2022. Actually, she probably had the same annuity coming her way because the conversion rates went up 30%. But she was only interested in the pot value and I don’t blame her.

As well as obsessing about tax on our pot, we worry about the next bubble (this time it’s the technology stocks which have a quarter of our savings). Whether the bubble is LDI or techno or something we’ve never heard of, we are terrified that our retirement is in the hands of an algorithm that controls the value of our pot and almost certainly has it in for us.

Without being too nice to the Pensions Minister (he’s a cocky fellow without me) I do think that the panic of the lady above who is afraid of paying a lot of tax and national insurance should really not be a worry. I would argue that the scale of privilege offered to higher rate tax payers is and has been out of control for some time. If it’s clipped in the budget, the scale of privilege is not going to decide whether rich people stop being productive in this country.

Without being nice to the Chancellor (she comes across as a bit bossy but also a little strung) I would say that she is doing her best to please a lot of people in her party and to keep just about everyone keen to have a go (but most especially politicians and journalists). She should not be worrying about what the FT forum is going to moan about.

The 2025 Budget: What does it mean for your money? The event will start on 28 November at 13:00-14:00 UK time/ GMT.

I know these three journos and I am quite sure it will be a moan-fest with a large number of panickers – even pension panickers.

Despite the Government being criticised for not having policies, with pensions that’s not fair. It is not fair to say the Government’s without a pension policy, I can remember it because it is easy.

1. The State Pension is going to continue to go up because of the Triple Lock.
2. Public Sector pensions are locked in by a treaty that only Reform UK would take on.
3. That auto enrolment rates aren’t going up now or in the immediate future
4. That the Government is going to turn pots to pensions unless people demand pension freedom.

None of the above is tax-dependent, there is nothing in the pension policy about how taxation impacts pensions but I am pretty sure that Torsten Bell is not worried by the 2025 Budget review I’m going to on 28th November!

I don’t think the Pension Minister’s got a Wealth Management brief yet.