Mention the word "pensions" to most people of working age and their eyes glaze over.

They either dismiss the subject as being "too complicated" or as not something they are thinking about, well not yet anyway.

For those who are lucky enough to belong to a generous occupational pension scheme where their contributions are automatically deducted from their payroll and added to an employers’ contribution of around 10 per cent, this may not be a problem.

By the time they retire they, hopefully, will have built up a reasonable fund.

But the world of work has changed and people are more likely to move jobs more frequently than previous generations. 

Over recent years a number of events have conspired to undermine some people’s confidence in the whole pensions system. This is something we should worry about. 

Too few people have made sufficient provision for their retirement, particularly those who don’t have access to an occupational scheme. 

It’s a long term investment which can be seriously damaged by short term panic. That’s why it is important that we make the occupational and private pension sector as secure as possible.

The Pensions Bill which is presently making its way through parliament has as one of its main provisions to set up a Pension Protection Fund which will give protection to employees whose pension fund collapses or goes into liquidation. 

However, one of the major gaps in the Bill when it was published was that it did nothing for the 60,000 people in the UK, including some in my constituency, who have already lost a large chunk of their pensions because of the failures of the 1995 Pension Act. 

The rules governing the winding up of failed pension schemes left deferred pensioners at the bottom of the pile.  

I am, therefore, delighted that the government listened to those of us who were lobbying on this issue and introduced an amendment at report stage to give something to this group of people. Some £400 million is to be paid into a fund over the next 20 years. 

When I was elected in 1997 most of the political debate around the issue of pensions was about those who had already retired. 

It is a tribute to how much the government has done for today’s pensioners, that the pensions’ debate now revolves around persuading tomorrow’s pensioners that they need to make provision today.

If we don’t encourage working people to take this subject seriously then the burden of providing a living income for an ever lengthening retirement will fall on a shrinking workforce. 

I look forward to a time when the mention of the phrase "pension provision" makes someone’s eyes light up instead of going dull.  I can always live in hope!

Anne Begg is Labour MP for Aberdeen South.