Tories vow clampdown on 'fat cat' pensions
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Your support makes all the difference.A Conservative government would clamp down on "fat cat" pensions at the highest level of the public sector, shadow chancellor George Osborne said today.
And he said that MPs should lead by example, by closing their famously generous final-salary pension scheme to new entrants.
Mr Osborne said he would rewrite public sector contracts to end the "abuse" of highly-paid executives retiring with a pension only to be rehired to work for the same organisation and receive a salary on top.
Tories have identified swollen public sector pension schemes - estimated by a recent report to impose liabilities of more than £1 trillion on the taxpayer - as a target for cuts as they seek to reduce the massive state debt they will inherit if they win power in the election expected next year.
But Mr Osborne indicated he was not persuaded by a proposal from the Labour chairman of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee Terry Rooney to impose a cap of £50,000 a year on public sector pensions.
"We need to look at these mega-pensions in the public sector, these fat cat pensions where people are retiring on huge payouts," Mr Osborne told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show.
"What's worse, you get this revolving door where someone retires from a public sector job on a large pension and then is rehired, often by the same organisation, so they get the pay from being rehired on a contract, plus the pension from the previous job with the organisation.
"That is totally unacceptable. We have got to end that revolving door process.
"I think in the contracts we sign with public sector employees we must make it clear that you can't come back and work on a contract for an organisation you used to work for so you can claim a pension and pay."
Mr Osborne said that his proposals would not affect the pensions of frontline nurses, soldiers and firefighters, but he added: "We must lead by example with the highest-paid people in our public sector who frankly are abusing the system - it's not their fault, it's the system that allows them to undertake this abuse."
Conservative leader David Cameron announced last year that he would close the MPs' final salary pension scheme to new entrants and replace it with a defined contributions scheme of the kind now operated by most private sector employers.
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