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Treasury

Answer

Mr. Viggers: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what the Government Actuary's Department's latest estimate is of the net value of the Government's liability for pensions to be paid to its employees; and how much of this sum is in respect of (a) funded and (b) unfunded schemes; [223818] (2) what estimate he has made of the unfunded liabilities of public sector pension schemes; what the liabilities were in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available; and what proportion of gross domestic product these figures represented in each year. [223799] Mr. Timms: The total liabilities of unfunded public service pension schemes at 31 March 2004 are estimated to be £460 billion. The last comparable estimate of total liabilities was £425 billion at 31 March 2003; the estimates for the years prior to 2003 were not made on a comparable basis. Comparable information is not held on the liabilities of the funded Local Government Pension Scheme or other funded public sector pension schemes. Expenditure arising from these liabilities will be spread across many decades into the future. As a proportion of Gross Domestic Product in the financial year in which the liabilities were assessed, the figure of £425 billion can be expressed as 40 per cent. of the 2002-03 Money. GDP figure of £1,058 billion and the figure of £460 billion can be expressed as 41 per cent. of the 2003-04 Money GDP figure of £1,118 billion. However, as detailed in the Long-term Public Finance Report of December 2004 annual expenditure on these pensions was 1.5 per cent. of GDP in 2003-04 and is projected to rise to 2.2 per cent. of GDP over the 50 years to 2053-54.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

432 c947W; 223818;223799

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Civil servants Liability Workplace pensions Pensions Public sector

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk