Gorbals Mick battles Brown to keep £1.25million pension perk

Currently, the Speaker is automatically entitled to a gold-plated pension of half their £137,579 salary - about £69,000 a year.

The pension, which is paid regardless of how long the Speaker has served, is on top of the retirement pot they have accumulated as an MP.

But Gordon Brown is determined to crack down on the payment of generous additional pensions as part of his planned constitutional shake-up.

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Ministers believe the payouts are "potentially embarrassing" - especially as 20million workers lost money after the then chancellor's £5billion-a-year tax raid on pensions in 1997.

Only three posts in Britain carry an index-linked life pension funded by the taxpayer - the Speaker, Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor.

Mr Martin is said to be furiously opposed to the reforms, even though he would be unaffected because they would come into effect after he had retired.

His allies say he considers the plans a severe attack on the post.

Friends of Mr Martin point out that former Speakers are unable to sell their memoirs after they leave office - unlike outgoing prime ministers.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who has retained the title Lord Chancellor and so is entitled to the pension perk, is said to share Mr Brown's view that the payouts should be scrapped.

Experts said a worker with a traditional company scheme would need a pension package worth about £1.25million to qualify for such a lavish payout.

Tom McPhail, of the stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Gordon Brown only has to do one day as Prime Minister and he has already doubled his pension income.

"There is widespread sentiment within the pensions industry that MPs shouldn't be lecturing the rest of the country about improving savings for retirement while granting themselves such generous pensions."

Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott questioned whether the Prime Minister would be prepared to jettison his own estimated £1.6million extra pension if he introduced the reforms.

He said: "It would be extraordinarily hypocritical if he did not refuse the life pension to which he is allowed."

Mr Brown is already embroiled in a row with former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer over the Prime Minister's refusal to pay him the full pension he believes he is owed.

Lord Falconer, who left the Government in June, is said to be outraged that his annual pension entitlement is £52,193 - half the deal enjoyed by his predecessors.

However, in June 2003 he turned down the £232,900-a-year package on offer and instead opted for the standard £104,386 deal paid to Cabinet Ministers in the House of Lords.

He had been entitled to the larger salary and pension because Lord Chancellors are barred from practising in case they appear in cases with judges they appointed, meaning Lord Falconer gave up private earnings of more than £500,000 a year.