Pension apartheid

His average pension figures are meaningless without reference to the average years of full-time service, and are still much greater than private-sector equivalents.

While he pays lip service to the low private pensions problem, he effectively advocates the continued apartheid between the two sectors, ignoring the public sector’s higher equivalent pay (confirmed by Lord Hutton’s report), and that on average private sector employees pay more in tax purely for public pensions than they can afford to pay into their own pensions.

He also ignores Dr Ros Altmann’s expert opinion, that the pensions deal is a fantastic one-way bet for public-sector employees who should grab it while they can, since they will receive pensions for the next 25 years “significantly more generous” than the private sector’s, as David Cameron and Danny Alexander boasted in the Commons.

But she also said it offers neither certainty nor fairness to taxpayers (the coalition’s objectives), who are even more exposed to risk than under the old system.

By changing the base from 1/80 of final salary to 1/60 of average earnings (inflation-adjusted), many non-promoted employees will now receive pensions enhanced by 30 per cent. Alexander instanced a teacher on £37,800 whose £25,200 pension in the private sector would cost £675,000 after lifetime contributions of one-third of salary. To commit future generations to this is Greekonomics.

Also, why should those at senior levels within ten years of retirement be totally protected from any possible reduction in their pensions arising from the changes? Their accrued rights to date clearly have to be honoured, but millions in the private sector had to accept worse changes almost overnight, without striking.

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews