Since the 1980s, we have only had one success in pension policy. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will now lower that with a £15bn tax raid in Wednesday’s Autumn Budget.

Millions of workers will pay the price in lower pensions and incomes, for decades to come.

These are the very “working people” Reeves and PM Keir Starmer claim to protect. Instead, they are launching a shocking attack on their workplace pensions.

Almost everything that could have gone wrong with pension policy over the past five decades has.

In the 1980s, Tory PM Margaret Thatcher encouraged employees to switch from generous occupational pensions to personal pensions, in a bid to make the workforce more mobile.

This sparked the £11 billion pensions scandal, when commission-hungry advisers urged two million workers to switch to worse personal pensions, worsening pensions.

There was a much bigger scandal in 1997, when new Labor chancellor Gordon Brown launched a £200 billion pension tax raid.

This wiped out almost all private final pay schemes in the UK. Today, only public sector workers expect to receive gold-plated pensions, which pay a guaranteed income based on service and salary.

In contrast, private sector pensions are a risky gamble in the stock market. Thanks to Gordon Brown.

I could add a host of pension scandals to that list, including Maxwell pensioners, Equitable Life, British Steel, widow’s pensions and the Waspi debacle.

Personally, I think the jury is still out on the 2015 pension freedom reforms as well. But it has been a great success.

The workplace pension system for automatic enrolment.

Auto-enrolment was launched in 2012 and was designed to give up to 10 million, mostly lower-paid workers, a company pension for the first time.

And that is exactly what it has done. It has been a great success. It’s not perfect and needs to be built on, but instead Reeves brings out his wrecking ball.

Under automatic enrolment, employers are obliged to register all eligible employees for pension.

Employers must contribute 3% of staff earnings, tax credits increase by 1% and workers contribute 4%.

The total contribution is 8% of income. It’s not enough to guarantee a comfortable retirement, but it’s a brilliant start.

It must be untouchable.

Automatic enrollment was set up with party-wide support. Now Labor is fighting for it. Something else Starmer didn’t warn us about in the general election.

It is a pension scandal that is happening before our eyes and must be stopped.

Reeves and Starmer are considering levying National Insurance on employers’ pension contributions.

The effect will be enormous.

Companies will try to recoup the cost by hiring fewer workers, capping future wage increases and only paying at least 3% into pensions.

Former Labor minister David Blunkett has warned it could lead to “rotten pensions” for millions, and he’s not alone.

Former pensions minister Ros Altmann has also criticized this “serious mistake”. Like another former pensions minister, Steve Webb.

We have only had one pension policy success in half a century. And Reeves will crush it in just three months. As with all pension scandals, millions will pay the price long after the culprits are kicked out of office.