Health secretary sends letter to Treasury warning the plans will not meet coalition's 'commitment to gold standard pensions'
The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has privately attacked the government's public sector pension reforms.
In a letter to Treasury chief secretary Danny Alexander, Lansley warns that the plans, which were outlined last month, will not meet the coalition's 'commitment to maintain gold standard pensions'.
He describes the proposed measures as 'inappropriate' and 'unrealistic,' and warns they are likely to hit women particularly hard.
He also says they may encourage public sector workers, particularly those on lower pay, to simply stop contributing to their pensions, relying instead on state benefits to keep them afloat during their retirement, which would, he says, 'increase pressure on the social security budget'.
Last month Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, put forward plans to force public sector workers to retire later, contribute more into their pensions, and for retirement payments to be based on an average of entire career earnings, rather than final salary.
The letter, leaked to the Telegraph, was written by Lansley two months ago. In it, he refers to a paper sent to the Cabinet setting out the pension proposals.
He writes: 'The paper … assumes that public sector workers, many of whom are women, will work a 48-year career [to get a full pension] … In the NHS currently, the average full-time career for those taking a pension is only 18 years and it seems unrealistic to suggest that pension scheme design should be based on the assumption that a predominantly female workforce would need to work full-time 48-year careers in future to receive a full pension. It is also difficult to see how this meets our commitment to maintain gold standard pensions.'
In his five-page letter, the health secretary also claims that the reforms would be particularly unfair to NHS workers, many of whom already pay more for their pensions than civil servants or other government employees.
The government is already facing the prospect of major strike action in the autumn on its plans to reform public sector pensions, and the emergence of dissension within its own ranks on the issue is likely to alarm David Cameron. It was previously thought that Conservative ministers were unanimous in their support of the reforms.
Having been told of Lansley's concerns over the reforms, the Labour party has called on him to speak out publicly.
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