Hudd saud: “Further erosion of salary-linked pensions in the public sector will extinguish any hope of reintroducing such arrangements to the private sector.

"The attacks on the public sector come from captains of industries and newspaper proprietors who all enjoy pension and bonus arrangements that make public sector benefits look stingy by comparison.

“The public sector has taken huge strides to contain the cost of salary-linked pensions, for example by linking pensions to average career earnings rather than final salary. This is now the basis on which all new pensions are earned in the civil service.

“Cost sharing and cost capping agreements made in the NHS, civil service and teachers’ schemes mean that unanticipated future increases in costs will be shared between public sector employers and members of the schemes, rather than the greater burden falling to employers.”

PPI says public sector pension costs are set to increase by 40 per cent over the next 20 years. But that in effect amounts to no more than projected inflation increases of two per cent a year over the next two decades, Hudd pointed out.

“Any responsible study of the long-term consequences to society of inadequate pension provision would conclude that we must halt the decline in pension provision in the UK, not accelerate it.

"Instead of stirring up a culture of envy, politicians and the press should be talking about how we create decent retirement incomes for all,” he added.

Many press reports failed to report the fact that recent government reforms have reduced the average value of public sector pension schemes by around three per cent, from 24 per cent to 21 per cent of salary.

“To the armchair critics we would also point out that pensions for public servants are only one part of a benefit package that is almost universally inferior to their private sector counterparts,” Hudd concluded.