I know that I'm only 25, but it's never too early to start thinking about my pension. Call me an old granddad, but it really is important to make sure that you have enough tucked away for a rainy day and make sure that your future when you retire is financially secure.

This is especially the case for London jobs, which nowadays seem as insecure as ever. If it's not the low pay forcing disgruntled postal workers on to the streets in protest, it's the scores of jobs that are about to be axed by the Beeb.

Anyhow, with all these ridiculous television commercials advertising retirement pension schemes or glamorous holiday for over 95s, you can't help but think about when it will be your turn to queue up at the post-office to pick up your measly allowance.

My somewhat strange new fascination with pensions was also re-ignited recently when a headline in the business and finance pages caught my eye.

Apparently under new proposals being considered by the government, employees who switch jobs but leave their pensions with their former employer until retirement could possibly see the value of their payout fall.

At the moment, employers are obliged to increase the final salary pension rights of their former workers, in line with inflation and as measured by the retail prices index, up to a cap of five per cent a year.

But under the new proposals, there will be a recommended cap of 2.5 per cent, a move that is designed to cut costs for businesses. This is all well and good for the business, but it is the employers who will be out of pocket.

Some commentators also claim, and fairly rightly so I suppose, that the changes, which would see inflation-proofing for deferred final salary pensions cut by 50 per cent, will particularly hit mothers and carers who take career breaks.

It seems that the changes could reduce payments for some pension scheme members by a quarter, to boot.

Speaking to the Guardian yesterday, Mike O'Brien, the minister for pensions reform said: "We believe the proposals we've brought forward today strike the right balance between encouraging employer provision of pensions and protecting members' benefits.

"These measures will reduce costs and make it easier for schemes' rules to take advantage of specific relaxations to legislation."

Needless to say, this news hasn't exactly been welcomed across the board. According to pensions provider Standard Life, if these plans are given the green light, someone switching jobs in their mid-40s at a time when inflation was 4 per cent, would see their benefits reduced by 25 per cent in real terms by the time they turned 65. A whole 25 per cent! That is a quite a steep drop.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) in particular has also expressed its misgivings about this new scheme.

The TUC's general secretary, Brendan Barber, said the changes would have the biggest impact on people with fragmented careers.

Mr Barber also told the Guardian: "If we were to return to higher rates of inflation in the future this could quickly eat away at benefits built up early in a working life."

He added: "Someone somewhere has made a pretty cynical calculation that widespread ignorance of how pensions work will protect the government against what should be an angry backlash."

A backlash indeed. It's years and years before I have to think about my pension, I know, so I'm not massively worried to be honest. But the time will come so I suppose it will do us young ones good to monitor the situation as it stands – it may well us that bear the brunt of Mr Brown's new proposals in forty odd years' time from now.