There is an inevitable tension between the aim of providing enough income in retirement for those genuinely unable to build up a sufficiently large fund of their own and the aim of preserving people’s incentives to save for their own retirement. The author argues that if the current UK government’s proposals for pension reform are implemented, a significant proportion of the working population will have their incentives for retirement saving undermined and this situation will become a further hurdle in the way of successful pensions reform.