Clegg zeroes in on public sector pensions, including MPs'

Deputy prime minster Nick Clegg has vowed to axe MPs’ ‘very generous’ final salary pensions as he promises value-driven cuts to confront a 'bigger than expected' deficit.

Today’s Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) report put the national deficit at 8% of GDP or £118 billion - £11 billion more than the previous government’s estimates.

Clegg (pictured) promised to address the ‘unfair’, ‘gold plated’ and ‘unaffordable’ public sector pensions.

‘Private sector workers have already seen final salary schemes close, while returns from defined contribution schemes fall. So can we really ask them to keep paying their taxes into unreformed gold-plated public sector pension pots? It’s not just unfair, it’s not affordable,’ said Clegg.

The OBR report showed expenditure on public sector pensions will rise from £4 billion in 2010-11 to over £9 billion in 2014-15. 

While promising to take the needs of different parts of the country into account when cutting pensions, Clegg said MPs would be the first to have their pensions cut.

‘This government strongly feels that it is right that there is an end to the very generous final salary pension scheme currently enjoyed by MPs.’

Clegg attacked the previous government of denying the scale of the problem ‘Tweaking, hesitating, hoping growth will magically return.’ However he also said  the coalition’s cuts would be guided by values, ‘not just by fiscal arithmetic’.