Viscount Thurso (LD)

My Lords, I was not going to take part in this short debate, but I am drawn into it by some of the comments that the noble Lord made. In respect of future funding, it is an absolutely valid point that we should have regard to the liability we are accruing, and we should work out how we want to fund it. That is open for debate, and I do not take issue with it in any way, shape or form. But the central point is that we employ public service workers on a contract which is in part what we pay them now and in part what they will get in the future. There is an obvious trade-off between the fact that they will be earning less during their working lifetime but probably for a better pension. Indeed, I look to my sons, if I may. One is a police constable in Scotland. Before he became a police constable, he ran a hotel and got a degree in hotel management. He is now being paid about two-thirds of what he would have earned as a hotel manager, where he would have been funding his own pension on auto-enrolment. He is doing what he loves doing and has chosen it because he looks at what he will get in retirement as part of the package for the service he gives now. My other son is a primary school teacher in south London, who also has a degree in hospitality and ran a hotel. As somebody in the hospitality industry, I am doing my best to talk the industry down, but I do not mean to do that. The point I mean to make is that they both decided they had vocations and both have given up a considerable amount of current earnings to do something in public service that they like. So, although I agree entirely that we should look at funding, I disagree that defined benefit schemes are inherently wrong. I am a trustee of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund. MPs put in roughly 11%; the Treasury puts in 10%; it is fully funded and all the liabilities are covered. The noble Lord said—I wrote it down—that 20% of the privileged have awarded themselves a pension. I take issue with that. Tell it to the police constable being spat at in the aftermath of Covid on the streets of Aberdeen. Tell it to the primary school teacher who is there for 12 or 14 hours looking after a disabled child and getting them to where they ought to be. Tell it to a nurse who is working a second shift on A&E. If we want public service workers, we either pay them today and tomorrow with a good pension or we up the cost of the public sector by 30% today. It is one or the other.