21-05-2025
Should public sector pensions be less generous?
A saver would need to put away £10,500 a year for 46 years to get the £72,000-a-year retirement income that comes with the best government jobs. But salaries in the public sector tend to be much less generous compared with the private sector. So would it be fair to cut back on those generous public pension schemes? We hear two opposing views.
Tom McPhail, an independent pension expert
Yes of course they should, for three reasons. First, we can't afford to keep paying it at the level we are. In fact, there are a lot of things we can't afford, but, like drunken lottery winners, we keep spending money on. The UK's budget deficit this year is about £130 billion; that's on top of the
