I really should start thinking about sorting out a pension. After all, what if that Lottery win I’m convinced I’ll bag doesn’t happen?

However, according to new figures, the average income provided by company pension schemes fell last year, from £150 per household in 2004/05 to £146 the following year.

While single pensioners’ income remained at £99 per week, couples saw their average fall from £196 to £192, below the 2003/04 level of £193. So, if you’re old and married, the smart move is to dump your other half.

The figures were released by the pensions minister Mike O’Brien, in response to a parliamentary question from the shadow work and pensions spokesman, Chris Grayling.

And not surprisingly, Grayling pounces on the data. Says he: “Only three weeks ago, Gordon Brown was boasting about how much he had done for pensioners. But as usual, when you look at the small print, you find a very different story. Mr Brown's pensions crisis is clearly now biting, with more and more people facing a fall in retirement income, and more and more pensioners, particularly elderly widows and widowers, clearly struggling to get by. The prospects for many of our pensioners are looking pretty bleak."

Indeed, separate figures from the Family Resources Survey also reveal that the number of pensioners living in households with less than 40 per cent of the national average income jumped from 450,000 to 460,000 in the 2005/06.

Another one of Gordie’s let-downs, then. Start thinking of your pension...

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