Now Pensions, a £4bn master trust, agrees. Lizzy Holliday, director of public affairs and policy, says: "To a certain extent the lifetime provider model would cut the employer out of the equation when people are choosing their own scheme.
"If you're an employer and all your employees are members of 10 different schemes, what does that mean in terms of the engagement and influence of what you're offering and contributing to?
"The employer provides a bit of demand-side pressure in the market and that could disappear – we look at what employers are asking us to do, and we will roll out changes for your entire membership."
Webb says the concept would not necessarily help everyone who is saving either. He says the big providers will gravitate to where the top earners are. "If you are concerned about the 10mn who are auto-enrolled, nobody's going to fight for their business."
Providers may charge 30 bps or less to be the sole provider in a big scheme with higher earners, but may lose interest when those higher earners leave and charge much more to those who remain.
"It's great for the people at the top, but for everyone else, they will be left with an inferior workplace pension."
Encouraging engagement
The Pension and Lifetime Savings Association, which represents pensions schemes and trustees, is also critical.
Joe Dabrowski, deputy director of policy, says that forcing more choice onto the member would mean that many of the pension schemes would have to market themselves to individuals, rather than the system now of going direct to employers.
He says: "The retail market is a lot more expensive than the trust-based market now.
"I'm not seeing any evidence it will be better for members. The evidence from Australia is that marketing costs went up 40-60 per cent and what that leads to is increased costs for savers."
This inevitably turns to the necessity of encouraging consumer engagement with their finances, something that Dabrowski describes as "appalling" in the UK.
He adds that only 5 per cent of UK adults have a serious level of financial education, opening up another area of discussion over who should take up the slack in consumer financial education – something the Financial Conduct Authority is looking at.
So is anyone in favour? Some are suggesting that many in the pension industry are looking out for their own interests, as much as scheme members'.
Peter Glancy, head of policy at Scottish Widows, says support from the pension industry would be like "turkeys voting for Christmas. There's 30,000 pension schemes, and there's a vast pension industry to meet those schemes: the pension lawyers, fiduciary managers, EBCs.
