When Gordon Brown took money out of the British Rail pension fund to help the government’s finances, my late father, a retired railway worker, didn’t mind. When I asked Dad why the so-called “surplus”, as Gordon Brown labelled it, wasn’t being shared out to him and his former railway colleagues, all my Dad would say was, “It’s all right. It’s for the country.”

Some say that when the cost of Government borrowing goes up from 2% to 5% in 2017 it will run out of money to pay any state retirement pensions.

If that is true, we had better start planning now. Can we cut the higher public sector pensions now and put a cap on these just as we are putting a cap on state benefits?

Haven’t local government officers been awarding massive redundancy settlements and public sector pensions? Aren’t these payable when recipients are only in their early 50s? Is it fair we should have to pay for these through our income and council tax?

Nigel F Boddy, former Brighton resident, Darlington, Co Durham