Trade unionists have continued their campaign in support of greater pensions rights.

Ahead of a march and rally in the Capital on Saturday, the TUC was campaigning in Westminster on Friday with a huge piggy bank stationed in front of the Houses of Parliament.

General secretary Brendan Barber has warned that there is a £27 billion discrepancy between what is currently being saved towards retirement and what needs to be saved for an adequate income.

The workers' rights group is calling for compulsory employer-based pension schemes in a bid to close the growing savings gap.

It wants employers to contribute a minimum of four per cent of earnings, rising to 10 per cent over time, towards savings schemes.

Unions are also campaigning for the restoration of the state pension link with earnings rather than prices, unless the latter is higher, and reforms that will ensure that women who have breaks in their careers do not miss out.

Pressure is also being applied on ministers not to increase the statutory retirement age, as the Department for Work and Pensions is proposing.

Pension credit

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats have claimed that the government's flagship pension credit scheme is costing more to operate than 65,000 elderly people are actually receiving from it.

The complicated means-tested programme was introduced last year in a bid to top-up the income of the poorest pensioners.

Administration costs amount to £4 per week for each member of the public in receipt of the benefit.

But official figures obtained by the party's pensions spokesman, Steve Webb, showed that 12,000 pensioners are getting less than £1 per week from the scheme.

Webb argued that the money would be better spent on boosting the universal state pension.