In a speech on his third term agenda, the prime minister yesterday claimed that he was looking for an all-party consensus on pensions, adding the challenge was to provide a system which combined decent provision for those without savings with incentives for all in work to "provide for themselves".

The opposition parties will claim the savings gap detailed by the Turner commission has not just been caused by demographics, or the decline in the stock market, but by steps taken by government that have discouraged savings.

The Tory pensions spokesman, David Willetts, said Mr Blair had to decide whether to increase the basic state pension or have "large numbers of pensioners dependent on income-related benefits".

Mr Willetts also criticised ministers for failing to compile accurate figures, claimed that an elementary statistical howler was committed when the Office of National Statistics claimed wrongly that contributions to non-state pensions grew from ?50bn in 1997 to ?86bn in 2001.

"One of the reasons why the government has failed to recognise the scale of the crisis, and why the policy response has been so inadequate is because they have been navigating with false data," he said.

The work and pensions secretary, Alan Johnson, in the Commons yesterday defended the principle of means-testing, at least in the immediate future. "It is supposed to be deeply sinful but pensioner poverty is what's deeply sinful. Means-testing is a crucial part of our policy," Mr Johnson said. He added that if the government had put the money it has invested in the means-tested pension credit into the basic state pension instead, every pensioner would have got ?11 a week more but the poorest would be ?30 a week worse off.

In response to todays Pension Commission's report, Tony Watts Editor of the Mature Times newspaper writes:

"Nothing in today's report surprises me. At Mature Times we've been banging on about the growing crisis in pensions for years now - well before the Commission started work - and it's as plain as the nose on Mr Brown's face that something serious has to be done to avert a crisis for millions of people and for the country at large.
For a start, the country has to find ways of helping the 2.6 million plus people aged between 50 and 65 deemed to be 'economically inactive' back into earning money rather than living on disability or using up their savings.
Most of these people could go back to work - except institutional ageism has made them feel they are on the scrapheap.
Secondly, the nonsense of ?5 billion a year being stripped out of pensions funds has to stop. Who is going to invest in a private pension when it not only performs poorly but when the 'piggy bank' is regularly raided by the Chancellor? 

Thirdly, we have to recognise that a decent State pension is the only answer for millions of people, and that this has to be set at a level well above the poverty line, and it has to be properly funded and linked to earnings, not the RPI which simply does not reflect what older people spend their money on.

All this calls for joined up thinking - no one of these solutions will work on its own: help people back to work, restore faith in private pensions and re-establish the role of the State pension.  We need action now - not in two years time.
And whatever party can put together a workable solution will be in pole position to win the votes of Britain's 11 million pensioners at the next election - and probably the votes of the 7 million people heading towards retirement in the next 15 years.

Grey power will win the next election - and it would be a foolish party leader who takes the votes of older people for granted.

Read the articles on various newspapers:

Read the article on the Independent web site

The Sun - page 2

Mirror - page 10

Express - page 8, 9