SIR - Pensioners should be grateful that successive governments have ignored the advice most recently offered by David Chapman (T&A, December 2) to link pensions directly to the amount paid in'.

When I started work my weekly National Insurance contribution was just 37p per week, 42 years later it had risen to £48, making my notional pot' for the state retirement pension about £53,000.

At current rates of interest this would produce an annual income of £2,650 or little more than one-third of the married couple's basic pension from next April.

As life expectancy rises and the value of money falls, the gap between a pension based on a lifetime's contributions and what is considered a decent pension will also rise, but if things are left as they are the burden on taxpayers will quickly become intolerable.

The Government's solution is to gradually increase the age of retirement for men and women to 68, which I think most people will find preferable to Mr Chapman's proposal to pay smaller pensions to fewer people.

Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley