The cures for pensioner poverty

When Lloyd George introduced the first old age pension, life expectancy was just under 68. The Government could afford it because the Grim Reaper made sure the cost did not run out of control. Today, however, medical advances and better nutrition have made a nonsense of the original mathematics because people are living four or five times longer after 65, and therefore collecting so much more. But our desire for a sunlit old age has outstripped our ability to pay for it.

The fear that pensions will fail to meet their promise means that where once people looked forward to retirement with anticipation, today they do so with growing apprehension. There is no one reason why there should be a crisis in pensions. People living much longer is part of it; so too is the falling stock market, the higher proportion of old people in the total population and an increased burden of taxation on pension funds. But whatever the ills, there is only one cure - we all have to save more.

Whereas the current generation approaching retirement might get a generous pension by saving 10 per cent of their income, their children will have to save 30 per cent. Unfortunately that is more than most of us can afford, so we need to think of something else now and put it in place quickly if we are not to be engulfed by pensioner poverty in years to come. Any credible rescue plan needs three ingredients. First, people will have to work longer to reflect the fact that they live longer. Second, people will have to get used to the idea of doing more part-time work in retirement to top up their income. Third, as the Labour MP and pensions expert Frank Field has said, the state pension needs to be overhauled and made sufficiently generous to provide a safety net for all. The cost of this can only be met by compulsory saving. Persuading people to accept that will be tough - but a lot less tough than the alternative of spending years of retirement below the poverty line.

Fortunately, however, he has now accepted the value of publishing at least partial data, or at any rate seen that to suppress the figures would be more damaging still. Of course, the occasional mistake is inevitable in any system especially one so overburdened as the NHS. Patients are misdiagnosed or left too long unattended; doctors and anaesthetists can make lethal errors on the operating table. But the sheer number of "adverse incidents? in this first proper study of them makes it vital to publish, so that all other NHS practitioners can learn from these mistakes.

The danger, as the British Medical Association has pointed out, is that pinpointing errors can create a blame culture which deters NHS staff from reporting them. The National Patient Safety Agency has met this concern, however, by developing a system which shows patterns of incidents across groups of hospital trusts rather than at individual hospitals, so encouraging staff to come forward without fear of retaliation. The information that emerges should be shared as widely as possible in order to help all hospital trusts improve. However the NHS's tradition of secrecy will not change permanently until studies like this are published in full, not, as today, in partial form.

How absurd that very young children are allowed to buy all the spin-off Spider-Man merchandise, but barred from seeing the film itself. The local councils which are rebelling against the decision by using their unilateral powers to overrule the BBFC deserve support. Better still, the board should think again and give children the opportunity to enjoy one of the most talked-about films of the year.