Trust between adviser and customer will be at the forefront of changes to current rules, and the industry will have to up its game to make the transition a smooth one.

With less than two years to the full implementation of the retail distribution review (RDR), the industry is making radical changes to business models and the way it deals with clients. But while this is going on, the debate over the necessity and outcomes of the RDR continues to rage in both the industry and in Westminster.

Shadow pensions minister Rachel Reeves highlights the gains made by Labour in pension reform during their tenure, and how this can be built upon by the current government

Ever since the Beveridge report and its implementation in 1948 it has rightly been accepted that it is the role of the state to provide a basic state pension (BSP) for people in retirement.

There are always arguments about pensions. Unions will always want them to be higher, while those who have to pay for them are usually not so keen.

But there is also much that most pension players agree on. Yet paradoxically, because we take common ground for granted, this is rarely discussed. We focus on the arguments, not the boundaries within which they take place.

Every so often though we should pause and take stock. This is a good moment. The review has left the auto-enrolment reforms in place, and their start in 2012 can be seen as the final step in setting a new pensions consensus.

It is widely known that donations to charity both during lifetime and on death are wholly exempt from inheritance tax (IHT) and many people give to charity in their lifetime or by will to avoid IHT on death.

My shortest lobbying campaign lasted around four weeks on home information packs. My longest has been on annuity reform and has lasted for more than a decade.

It is time to lift the lid on some of the behind-the-scenes work that took place in the campaign for annuity reform and just what the new government’s plans might mean.

In 1999 I started working with Dr Oonagh McDonald and Sir Nicholas Goodison on introducing choice in retirement income needs. We formed the Retirement Income Reform Campaign and secured the support of major asset managers who wanted to have more open competition in the market, and from life companies that could see the impact annuity books were having on their solvency levels.

The pre-election period featured much overblown propaganda designed to pave the way for the destruction of pay-as-you-go public sector pensions in the UK.

This theme had been enthusiastically taken up by the prime minister in opposition and it was echoed by his deputy Nick Clegg in a speech shortly after he took office when he pronounced that public sector pensions were gold plated, unaffordable and in need of immediate but strangely unspecified ‘reform’ by which he clearly meant ‘savage cuts’.

For too long pensions were kept in the backyard of British politics. Complicated, problematic and expensive – pensions were largely ignored.

The state pension system grew more and more complex – a knotweed-like tangle of three separate elements with multiple parts. Without an earnings-linked basic pension, the state pension’s value shrunk so low that for those on the lowest incomes, the government has been forced to top it up by an extra £35 a week with pension credit just to give a decent income. Meanwhile almost two million pensioners remain in poverty.

Whitehall is under new management and, ideally, the new ministers will initially focus on addressing a few crucial high-level questions, such as what sort of society do we want to be living in, in 30 to 50 years? Why do we want people to save for the long term, and what is the purpose of tax relief? If the latter is to incentivise pension saving so there is less pensioner poverty in the future, why not simply redirect the £30bn of annual upfront relief to boost the basic state pension (£50.5bn last year) by some 60%?

The pensions minister highlights Labour’s past successes and lays out the government’s proposals for changes, from the mandatory retirement age to Nest.

The short-termist approach adopted by many asset managers is putting investments at risk, but pension funds could encourage them to address long-term issues

The government believes pensions are the best way to encourage people to save more in the long term, and personal accounts is a cornerstone of these plans for reform

The shift away from DB has arguably gone too far in terms of who shoulders the risk, but working towards a hybrid solution could put pensions back on track

The long-suffering pensions industry and the UK population would benefit most from a little stability at the DWP, rather than the frustration of continuous reshuffles

Many condemn the disparity between public and private sector pension provision, with the former often deemed unsustainable. But the costs can often obscure the truer picture

The cavernous gap between private and public sector pensions must be reduced as the difference in earnings levels has also shrunk, and ministers should lead the way

Ahead of the introduction of auto-enrolment in 2012, the process to procure the administrative services that will form the backbone of the system has now begun.