The government is failing to fulfil its promises regarding personal accounts, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) claims.

Stephen Haddrill, the director general of the ABI, told the Institute of Economic Affairs’ (IEA) Future of Life Assurance conference that the government must ensure that personal accounts complement rather than compete with existing pension provision.

Mr Haddrill warned that a failure on the part of the government to bring this to pass could result in its entire pension reform programme failing.

"Automatic enrolment should not go ahead if it meant the creation of a two-tier workplace pensions structure," he said.

"The government must re-focus this policy on its target market of low and middle-income employees and pull back from its plans to expand into existing pension savings. And it must re-test its proposals against the benchmark of unfair competition."

It was the tenth anniversary of the IEA's popular conference.