SIR — I feel I must respond to the disgraceful, misleading statement on public sector pensions, made by the leader of Hampshire County Council, Cllr Ken Thornber, in the latest issue of Hampshire Now.

Accepting the fact that it is the county council election year, and Cllr Thornber’s party are going to need all the help they can get, to use a community magazine, paid for by council-tax payer, for political purposes, and make the totally misleading statement that there is ‘no black-hole’ in staff pensions, and that the issue is ‘misrepresented in the press’, is totally unacceptable.

One can only conclude that his ‘misuse’ of Hampshire Now is a deliberate attempt to mislead Hampshire electors for political purposes, or his knowledge of local and government financing is seriously defective.

Cllr Thornber himself poses the question: Is it true that £215 of my council tax is going towards filling a ‘black-hole’ in staff pensions? He then replies: No, there isn’t a ‘black-hole’, as misrepresented in the press, and there is no requirement for current council tax payers to cover the gap between the value of the Pension Fund and the value of future pension commitments.

What Cllr Thornber did not clarify is that official Treasury figures put the existing liabilities for public sector pensions at £650 billion.

The forecast increase for 2009/10 is £26.2 billion and £27.2 billion for 2010/11.

However, the Confederation of British Industries claimed in December 2008 that the black-hole in public-sector pension liabilities was approaching £1 trillion and was set to get worse.

The Pension Policy Institute calculates that the bill for “unfunded” public-sector pension schemes is around £21 billion a year, including contributions made by workers whose salaries are paid by the taxpayer and council tax payer. These include council workers, teachers, police, firemen, NHS and civil servants.

An “unfunded scheme” is one in which money is not stored away every year into a special pension pot, but the bill is simply met by the Government’s tax take.

As a result, all the “unfunded” public sector pensions must be paid by everybody from Britain’s 31 million taxpayers.

Although Cllr Thornber may claim there is no ‘black-hole’ in Hampshire County Council staff pensions, it would seem he has misrepresented the council’s share of the liability of the outstanding ‘unfunded’ pensions black hole of over £1 trillion, with no plan how this colossal debt is going to be met, along with all the other obscene debts incurred by the Labour government.

Peter Hargreaves, Worthy Lane, Winchester.