Tony Blair has been urged to stand up to Chancellor Gordon Brown and stop him scuppering long-term reform of pensions after the Turner report. 

In the Commons, Tory leader Michael Howard accused Mr Brown of trying to sabotage Lord Turner's proposals. 

And Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy said Mr Brown's "muddle" of means-testing for pensions must come to an end. 

Mr Blair said Labour had ended poverty for nearly two million pensioners. Long-term plans would follow next year. 

New pension age 

Lord Turner's proposals would remove most means-testing from the system, gradually raise the state pension age to 68 and restore the link between pensions and earnings. 

They would also mean people being automatically enrolled in a new national pensions savings scheme, although they could opt out. 

Earlier, the prime minister's official spokesman welcomed Lord Turner's report and said "nothing should be ruled in or out". 

Lord Turner says he is optimistic ministers will take up his plans. 

At prime minister's questions, Mr Howard said 10,000 occupational pensions had collapsed since Labour had come into power while the amount of money people saved had halved. 

"Don't you see there is a growing consensus that in order to deal with this mess, we've got to ditch the chancellor's obsession with means-testing," he said. 

Mr Howard said Mr Blair himself had once talked of ending means testing for pensioners "once and for all". 

"So will you now, just for once, stand up to your chancellor and with our support do what needs to be done to sort out one of the greatest challenges the country faces," he asked. 

But Mr Blair said he was proud of Labour's record on pensions. 
"Of course we need to secure pension provision for the long term. We will do that," said Mr Blair. 

"But it's as a result of this government and the means we have used to lift pensioners out of poverty that has allowed us - for the first time - to go through winter periods with pensioners no longer forced to choose between the heating they need to stay alive and the standard of living they want." 

'Tittle tattle' 

Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy said Mr Brown must not have a veto on pensions reform. 

He urged Mr Blair to legislate in the wake of the Turner proposals and commit to seeing through the reforms. 

Mr Blair said the government would publish its proposals next year. 
Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton said reports about Mr Brown's intervention in the pensions debate ahead of the Turner report were "tittle tattle". 

In a Commons statement, he said the report marked the beginning, not the end, of a new national debate on pensions. 

"I do not believe we can afford to ignore the problems the Pensions Commission has identified...," Mr Hutton told MPs. 

He said the UK currently had "possibly the most complex system in the world", which catered unfairly for women and carers. 

Turner's optimism 

The chancellor is thought to be worried that some of the plans are unaffordable, particularly the idea of restoring the link between pensions and earnings. 

Lord Turner said he thought there was a "high" chance of the government adopting his proposals, although he added that it would be absurd for any politician immediately to say they agreed entirely with a 400-page report. 

He told reporters he had discussed the final report with Mr Brown. 
"I think there's going to be an open debate across all of politics. As I have said, I'm an optimist," he said. 

Lord Turner told BBC News it was obviously the Treasury's role to say: "Whoa, where is the money going to come from." 

But he argued the plans were "reasonably affordable" because the start of more generous pensions arrangements would coincide with existing plans to raise the state pensions age for women.