A leading pensions analyst has welcomed the abandonment of what he branded the “perverse policy” of pot follows member.

Tom McPhail, head of retirement policy at Hargreaves Lansdown, backed the decision by Pensions Minister Baroness Ros Altmann, who has shelved plans for further reforms including this policy.

She said it was important to ensure Government, providers, employers and members were able to focus on the changes already implemented to ensure their success, before introducing more.

She said: “That is why we have decided that the time is not right to implement Defined Ambition, Collective Benefits and Automatic Transfers. The time is not right to ask the pensions industry to absorb the new swathe of regulation that would be needed to make such further reforms work effectively.

“The market needs time and space to adjust to the other reforms underway and these areas will be revisited once there has been an opportunity for that to happen.”

Mr McPhail said: “Pot Follows Member is a policy solution which would disrupt individuals’ savings journey and discourage them from engagement with their retirement planning. It is a perverse policy, which is fundamentally at odds with the pension freedoms. We have consistently called for its abolition.

“We believe that once someone has a pension, they should be encouraged to take ownership of it and to take an interest in what it will produce for them.”

While he supported the pension reforms already introduced, he said the Government had “in the end tried to do too much” with these further plans.

He said: “Given the challenges in communicating the hugely complex changes to the state pension, the DWP’s limited resources are far better employed getting this right than on trying to introduce Defined Ambition pensions for which there is no apparent market appetite.”