The government’s long-awaited state pensions reform could provide “the final straw” for the remaining final-salary schemes in the private sector and accelerate their closure, consultants have warned, hitting the UK's companies and workers with a tax bill worth up to £7bn a year.

Steve Webb, the pensions minister, told the House of Commons yesterday that the new single tier state pension, which he described as a "state pension for the 21st century", will ensure that the workers of today "retire on a single, simple, decent system".