THE compulsory scheme to make all school-leavers invest in personal pension funds, which Chancellor Gordon Brown is today reported to be planning, is no bad thing.

Though it smacks somewhat of the personal fund plan the Tories unveiled before they were booted out - and which Labour twisted into the election campaign scare that they were scheming to abolish the state pension.

But something of this nature is needed to address the growing problem of the oldie boom and the mounting pressure on the state pension fund.

Compulsion may be a radical solution, but an "extra" scheme designed to give each person in work an individual stake in their own future - on which is inherently personal, portable and bequeathable - should become popular as contributors watch their wealth grow.

Certainly, similar schemes have proved so in other countries, like the one Mr Brown is ready to unveil. But perhaps the biggest gain will be not just the pressure taken off a tax-funded state pension scheme, but the sense of self-reliance that a new generation is given when, though by compulsion, everyone makes provision for their old age, not just some as at present.

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