1/ 🧵I can't keep up with Mr Barclay's claims about consultant's pensions, last month (17th July @thetimes ) it was £60,000 pensions, now the claim is "consultants when they retire *now* aged 65 will get a *tax-free* pension of £73,000" ?!

2/ I suspect Mr. Barclay is being very badly advised by his advisors (or is asking the wrong questions). So lets clear a couple of points up (1) Firstly as to "retiring now aged 65", thats cloud cuckoo land. Average age for retirees for consultants is around 60 (& 59 for GPs)

3/ Its really important you *understand* why people are retiring at 60 Steve. Firstly those retiring NOW (as per your quote on radio 4 this morning) are mostly in the 1995 pension scheme. Thats a final salary scheme & there are two really important features of it

4/ i) As we pointed out to you & predecessors in our #DOESNTPAYTOSTAY campaign, there is a serious design flaw in the 1995 scheme which has no *late retirement factors*. So if you DONT retire at 60, you burn pension ii) Whilst pension tax has greatly improved (& thanks for that)

5/ we have repeatedly pointed out to you & your officials (& HMT / DHSC) that subinflationary pay awards are a massive driver to retirement. You can quote all these misleading figures, but those retiring now have almost all pension in 1995 - so when you give a pay award say

6/ *6% BELOW inflation* (as you have this, and last year; more with frozen CEAs) that is a *massive* driver for people to retire if they can, or for younger members to look at other options (i.e Aus / Can / NZ) - get inflation linked increases to pension & earn 2x more abroad

7/ Subinflaiton pay awards are a *MASSIVE* driver to "RLE" - retire, leave or emigrate. You *NEED* to fix pay to fix #DOESNTPAYTOSTAY (2) No doubt your widly innacurate claims are based on a career of inflation protected 2015-only pensions. This is of little or no help to

8/ consultants who have the lions share of their pension in a final salary pension. When you cut our pay, you cut our pension (in real terms). Thats why consultants remain unhappy even after the budget (and hence the huge strike mandate; obtained post budget)

9/ (3) No doubt your assumptions are also wildy out in demographic terms also. Look at the male:female ratios of those in training & the workforce of the future - their pensions will be nowhere near as much with time out of the scheme and LTFT

11/ Similarly & as pointed out in the @BMA_Consultants thread we continue to be massivley penalised via very steep tiering. This is not justified now we have moved over to CARE - it just removes any benefit of higher rate relief. Not fair for higher earners to pay dbl lower

12/ So many other things to pick up in the interview including usual "your listeners would be delighted with an X% pay rise" As we have said all along, if our pay had kept up with comparators (it hasnt👇), NHS wouldnt be in this mess RT to #FixConsultantPay to #RestorePensions

POSTSCRIPT: @FullFact have now called this out See below for full details