So, that's settled then

Comparing public and private sector pay is difficult. For a proper comparison would be of compensation - so, job security, flexibility, hours, holidays as well as wages - which crucially must include pensions. This being something that those arguing for higher public sector pay tend to not wish to include. For as soon as we add pensions then the public sector is significantly better paid even when we control for age and qualifications and all that.

So, we need to find some manner of deciding this. Are pensions to be included or not in our comparisons?

Stephen Timms, chairman of the work and pensions select committee, called on the Monaco-based billionaire to pay up again, three years after he agreed to pump £363m into the pension fund of the collapsed BHS.

Mr Timms, who will write to the pensions regulator tomorrow to underline the importance of protecting pension scheme members, said: “This is a dreadful time for Arcadia staff to be worrying about their jobs and their pension. “Whatever happens to the group, the Green family must make good the deficit in the Arcadia pension fund.”

The claim is that pensions must, must, be paid whatever else happens. Even if the cause of the deficit is - at least partly and we’ll allow others to argue over how much - a result of government policy in reducing interest rates. Yes, this matters, falling interest rates lead to pensions liabilities increasing more than asset prices rise.

Pensions must be paid so much that the call is being made to ignore the corporate veil even, to overcome limited liability.

We don’t think much of that idea to be honest but it does give us an indication of how we should be accounting for pensions as a part of wages or compensation. If they’re so important as to overturn near the entirety of law and practice on the division between corporate and personal finances then yes, we really should be thinking of them as firmly fixed and part of compensation, shouldn’t we?

That is, public sector pensions must be included in our estimations of the compensation being paid to public sector workers. Clearly so, that’s settled.