Public Sector Pensions

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury have made it clear that the meetings are ongoing on a regular basis in respect of the specific schemes. I am sure that I will be able to give the hon. Gentleman the information he requires.

Our objective remains to agree reforms of the main schemes—those for teachers, health and the NHS, the civil service and firefighters—by the end of the year, and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary will update the House in due course. The Government’s preferred scheme would produce better pensions for those on low and middle incomes who have devoted a lifetime to public service. At the same time, public service pensions will remain considerably better than those available in the private sector, as my hon. Friends have suggested. A primary school teacher earning £32,000 per year could receive a pension of £20,000 under our proposals. To earn the equivalent pension in the private sector, an employee would have to pay in more than one third of their salary.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Several of my constituents who work in the private sector have told me that they totally agree that public sector workers should get sustainable, affordable and fair pensions, but they are concerned that for them to have a similar pension they would have to increase their contributions by a factor of three or four. They do not think that that is fair in the current circumstances.

[David Mundell]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and I empathise with it as the MP for a constituency that has some of the lowest private sector wages in the UK.

Only 10% of private sector workers have access to the type of scheme that I was describing, which is at a guaranteed level and is inflation proofed, while only one third of private sector employees currently get any contributions from their employers.