Twice a year, every year for the last ten years, I have had the discussion with my peers about tax free cash, or to give it its correct legislative name, pension commencement lump sum, and if it will lose its tax free status in the next announcement.

I suppose others may have been thinking it will happen for longer but the change of name from tax free cash to pension commencement lump sum brought it to the forefront of more people’s minds and quite rightly so.

I have been out and about at adviser seminars over the last week or so and it has started to come up again as they try to plan for any surprise we might see from the new Chancellor.

The issue that causes most concern is losing the right to the benefit that has been built up, in some cases for over 40 years. I have been trying to reassure people that in the last ten years although we have seen enormous amounts of changes in pensions, from pensions simplification to pension freedoms, none of the changes have really been retrospective.

This is why we now have primary, enhanced, fixed, fixed 14, fixed 16, individual 14 and individual 16 protections. We also have scheme specific tax free cash protection which didn’t even need an application, just a Scheme Administrator to calculate it according to the pre 2006 rules and roll it forward.

All of these layers of protection meant that things have only changed going forward and although planning may have gone out the window because the goal posts have been moved, the actual historic benefits have been protected, assuming you knew how to do it and that you needed to do it in the first place.

I expect this to be something that will continue if we see more changes.

It is unfair to change things retrospectively and although it adds complexity, it does bring me some comfort going into Autumn Statement day and future Budget days that pension scheme members won’t be left high and dry without at least the benefits they had the day before.

Now, should this be different for any changes we might see in the future then there will be uproar and I for one will be fighting it all the way.

The changes to pensions over the last years have been significant and removed some of the incentives for young people to save but retrospective changes to entitlements would probably just destroy the last remnants of trust and finally switch everyone to ISAs, destroying the pensions industry going forward.