Who's way is it anyway?

When HM Government issued its consultation paper The Annuities Market at the same time that Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, released the 2006 Pre-Budget Report, it expressed the Government's wish to encourage the development of new retirement benefit products, the so-called "third way" arrangements. I well remember the widespread dismay, when paragraph 5.66 of the 2007 Pre-Budget Report, was discovered: "5.66: following a commitment in the 2006 Pre-Budget Report, the Government has consulted widely with industry on tax barriers to the further development of 'hybrid' de...