2. No index linked pension to be paid to anyone until they reach the age of sixty [or 65?] unless they are deemed medically unfit for work by a doctor chosen by the pensions authority.

3. The maximum pension to be paid to public sector workers to be fixed at say £40k.

When you say you’d leave the NHS after being trained in the UK does the State not require a certain number of years NHS time to be worked in the UK? If not this is a great deal for Australia and the Gulf, it’s no wonder they can pay higher salaries if they don’t have to train their staff. I wonder how many qualified doctors still work in the NHS five years after the end of their UK based training?

I personally think everyone should have a pension but also the choice not to have one. I do have one and have paid in for the past twenty years with a mixture of final salary and money purchase. People if they do save for a pension will have to save more and that is a fact. The Government will have to come clean on it plans for the future of the state pension and must tackle the pension aparthied between the private and public sector which is probably a balck hole of banking crisis size.

No one will end up happy in my view.

Everyone should be on defined contribution, then we all sink together.

Reality is we cannot have an open economy and a welfare state. Not going to work.

Reply: That depends on how many years I work as an MP, as it is a contributory scheme. I support closing the MP scheme to new members and going over to a defined contribution basis. I agree that public sector pension costs need to be controlled.

Reply: Pension funds are heavily regulated to try to stop theft and inadequate contribution levels. There is also a compensation fund.

By axing the pensions regulator tax , ending the £5 billion p/a pension fund raid , repealing stamp duty on shares , axing basic rate tax on share dividends and repealing CGT with gains taxed as income for the first two years & then tax free after that you would boost share prices and thus help pension pots improve.

The MPC inflation target should be 2% on the more accurate RPI-x measure so that people on pensions do not suffer excess price rises. Banks should have to hoard more capital in good times to fund sustaining credit levels during a recession while ensuring no need for dividend reductions and thus helping pension funds.

A Citizenship Pension set at a flat rate for the over 68′s could be brought in to end pensioner poverty and would boost saving. With an end to means-testing you could encourage pension saving & wealth creation which would add more to pension funds due to share prices being boosted and more cash being saved for peoples retirement.

It is unfair that prudent people who have cash in the bank , a dividend income & a private pension should be subject to double taxation by paying tax on that income. They have paid for those things out of taxed income and by providing for their old age in that way they are reducing the burden on the state. Ending basic rate tax on income from pensions , savings & dividends/shares can only help the pensions situation.

Oh & by the way lets end the scandal of excess MP’s pensions. That might give the House of Commons the moral right to legislate on pensions if MP’s renounce this unwarranted perk.

Private pension regulation needs reform so that it is less cumbersome & smarter so that funds are protecting without red tape stifling the sector. There must be a middle way that works better than Labour’s over-regulation.

These reforms might well address the issues that John Redwood raised in his excellent blog. Pensions policy must be at the heart of David Cameron’s first term as PM with a new settlement aimed at making things fairer ( i.e. less feather-bedding for the Client State & MP’s and more help for the suffering private sector worker).