Professor Alan Barrett:

Possibly. It is a pity other Deputies are not here, because this discussion makes us sound socially aware and conscious. We are always eager to do as much as we possibly can. One of the big issues for people in defined contribution schemes, apart from inadequacy and non-coverage, is the instability of not knowing what sort of pension pot they will have. In terms of what the State should be doing for its citizens at the most basic level, to the extent that the State can guarantee financial stability in a way that private companies cannot - because, obviously, the State goes on forever and it has a much bigger borrowing capacity and so on - I believe the State is in a position, if it does not go completely down the defined benefit route, to have a hybrid of defined benefit and defined contribution which would provide a level of financial security that a private system is probably never going to be able to provide. This is another argument for thinking in terms of a publicly based earnings-related system.