BT, the telecoms group that supports the UK's second-biggest pension fund, has been hit with a fresh £1.5 billion pension bill as bond yields grind lower. That will bring the total paid to the scheme to £7.7 billion in the past 15 years - with no end in sight.

When BT closed its huge, once-generous final salary pension to new joiners in 2001, its deficit was just £1 billion. The company unveiled the results of its latest valuation of the scheme today, putting the deficit at £7 billion as of June 2014.