Tax relief on pensions serves to enrich the wealthy. That must change | Phillip Inman

Chancellors have fought shy of reforming a system in which higher-rate taxpayers benefit most. But 10bn could be saved

Pensions tax relief is a juicy morsel for the chancellor should he find a way to make it benefit the exchequer. Even a small slice of the 38bn spent each year subsidising pension saving could help thousands of schools and hundreds of hospitals that would otherwise be starved of cash.

A 10bn saving is not outside the bounds of possibility, and that is without even shaking the system to its foundations. All Philip Hammond needs to do in his autumn budget is take away the tax relief top-up offered to higher-rate taxpayers and the 10bn a year can be his.

Tax reliefs share the same" thinking, which is that people won't do the right thing without a ""huge bung from the state