On Wednesday, on the same day that the government set out plans to absorb Royal Mail's £34bn pensions bill while selling off all its assets, the Local Government Pension Scheme also published figures that rather ironically showed a £2.6bn benefit to the taxpayer of holding such assets.

The Local Government scheme is one of the country's five big public-sector schemes, but oddly enough, it is the only one that is funded. This means it holds assets against its liabilities - there is cash to back up the pensions promise. A total of £132bn, in fact.