How high do you want to go – £50bn, £75bn, £150bn? Pension commentators scramble to give the largest estimate of the UK's pension deficit. The deficits are not by themselves life-threatening in the majority of cases but if everyone overreacts we might make them so.

In August last year, I gave my estimate of the shortfall as nearer zero, based on a research project SEI commissioned with Cardiff Business School's Professor Lawrence Copeland. At the time, ours was a lone voice but increasingly others are agreeing with a less dramatic assessment of the crisis we face.