Hello!! Matthew, see you have nothing to say again, whats the matter son your four fingered widowed friend walked out on you again, have you ever thought about keeping sheep.

tacitus. Gordon Brown plundered the private pension prevision, he stole from Peter to pay Paul that political and financial gangster will enjoy his parliamentarian pension. I often wonder if he knows how fucking hated he is, I genuinely thought Thatcher would go down in social history being the most reviled prime minister in living memory until Gordon Brown came along that is.

This is all a none argument.

The average public sector worker is over paid
> they receive on average 19% pension contribution vs private sector 4%
> job security that the rest of us can only dream about
> premium pay for those with less than 10 years service
> the priveledge of having a job that in many cases is a public good but does not does not create wealth

The issue is whether we can afford to spend money on public treats.

We need to shrink the state to the point where we can afford it without borrowing to pay for it.

Lets not forget, before 2008 Labour borrowed £350Bn and spent it on stroking voter and funding lifestyles back then. Labour's deficit reduction approach is to borrow £250Bn more than the coalition to again to bribe voters.

Most of the coalition deficit reduction plans is ultra soft and is funded by slowing (not stopping) the rate of recruitment into the public sector with very few real cuts or redundances except excessive pensions and culling management.

Can't wait for @Matt to say I'm stupid tory. In fact, the Labour elite are on the back foot with public sector pensions as they support the coalition actions as they are in the national interest but know it will damage their popularity if Labour openly support it.

The role of leaders is to lead and do the right thing even if unpopular. Labour should get some leaders.

Luddite, please do not repeat personal. biased opinions time after time. You have already proved that you won't read or will ignore fact-based statements and documents that counter your views. Much like the Government in fact. You're not by any chance "a spokesperson"?

"Even if you accept the £5 billion figure, that's still only around 1/2 per cent of the money that were in pension funds at that time." Pensions Policy Institute. The Money Box pensions special is very good at debunking the idea that GB killed pensions, making it around the same as Lawson's (that no-one apparently has sufficient memory to recall), though Lawson's seems more significant to me in that by allowing companies to not pay in when times were good, their mentality towards pensions changed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b010r7c2

Indu Pendent.
"The issue is whether we can afford to spend money on public treats".
And what will your response be when the bin men, the street lighting, and others post a bill through your door?
Those in public service are less well paid than those in private equalivalance. From that poor pay they contribute to their pension, a double whammy. On retirement they can not claim benefits unlike the slightly better paid equal who did not save for their future.A treble whammy.

Chris M says "when the private sector is paying the tax that pays for the public sector's better renumeration"

Could you let HMRC know they've made a mistake, because I appear to have been paying tax for the last 30 years, and according to you only the private sector do that. When they're not avoiding/evading presumably.

Iain M, stephenH, so you pay more in taxes than you earn in salary? Then maybe you have a point.

On a couple of BBC Television political programmes, we were informed by Libdemocrat MPs that in 1926 there were approximately 9 wage-earners to every pensioner. Suspect, without any actuarial expertise, that somewhere close to 90% of these wage earners would have been fortunate to reach state pension age, 65 or 70.
Also suspect their taxes were utilised to support the occupational and private pensions of their social betters.
In those more tranquil days,Government ministers didn't have to explain matters to these very hard-working families. And they still voted for their betters.
Good, Good Old Times

The affordability thing was always a bit crude, but if you take it in the context that we have to have much better managed public spending to protect the economy than we've had then maybe you can make a case on affordability in part. http://www.homeimprovementfirm.com/

It is worth making the point that the graph shows the amount of pension estimated to be paid out in each year. This is NOT an indication of cos to either present or future generations of providing the benefits

Ultimately, anything is affordable if there is a will to devote the resources to it. But the fact that people are living longer does increase the costs of a pension scheme, all other things remainaing equal.

Mick D. Most public-sector workers are in defined benefit schemes that guarantee a pension equal to a certain proportion of their salary. Only 15% of the private sector workers enjoy such schemes, after Gordon Brown plundered theirs. Working longer and contributing more is simply unavoidable for all. This is about fairness, why should one worker have to work longer and receive less than another. It's alright saying that the private sector pension should be more generous, but where is the money coming from? The previous Labour government ran out of our money, as that departing Labour minster said in his pathetic little note. SORRY!! ALL THE MONEY BEING SPENT!!

@Sam: TUPE? I'm assuming that still applies.

AFAICT most of the teachers/university and local government funds are in surplus - they are in fact funded, which is why teacher friends of mine get an annual statement of the fund's investments.

OK I know about increased lifespan and so on, but I've not seen any convincing argument that these particular funds need to be decimated to the extent proposed. Some fairly modest adjustment to contributions and retirement age would probably cover it.

Why is it that nobody even tries to make the case that it's not public sector pensions that should be made worse, but private sector pensions that should be much, much, better than they currently
are.

Surplus is a bit of an indeterminate phrase as well. Is that on a discontinuance basis only - i.e. if the scheme was wound up today benefits would be fully covered. Is that on the basis of some future date e.g. how well are benefits covered based on assumed salary and investment growth assumptions to cover benefits at a future date. The former is a baseline level of funding and if this is how fully funded is defined then that is a weak position to have. It would be excellent if they were fully funded on the other basis but I'd be extremely surprised if this was the case.

Private sector pensions would be much, much better than they are currently if Brown hadn't almost destroyed them by removing their tax reliefs. There's very few private schemes that are 100% funded on the discontinuance basis as a consequence,and rectifying that is a long, long term task.

Tacitus most private pensions had surpluses before Gordon Brown plundered them. Government pension schemes are in surplus because they are backed by government. What the coalition government are proposing to do is close the inequity chasm between state and private sector schemes.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/a-guide-to-strike-etiquette-2...

Luddite.... The question should be when are these very profittable and hugely successful private companies going to offer a better pension provision to their employees? and not support the decimation of public sector pensions.