Public Service Pensions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

It is true that in the private sector an enormous volume of contributions would be necessary to build up the pension pot that is required to fund the pensions that we are discussing today. The equivalent would be a pension pot of £600,000 or £700,000 a year. That is a measure of the Government’s recognition of the commitment that public service workers make.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The Chief Secretary said earlier that the general taxpayer rather than public service workers had been footing the bill. May I point out to him that public service workers are also taxpayers, and that it has not helped that some people have been able to use the high pensions of the best-paid in the public sector as a typical example of those in the rest of the sector? We all know that pensions in the rest of the sector are very low.

Will the Chief Secretary place in the House of Commons Library some typical examples of the way in which the change from RPI to CPI has affected different sectors? Perhaps he could include examples involving part-time workers such as those cited by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass).

[Danny Alexander]

As I said earlier, that depends on a variety of circumstances, but today we are publishing a document that the hon. Gentleman can obtain from the Vote Office, entitled “Public sector pensions: good pensions that last”, and I am sure that it will provide much of the information that he requires.