DS is a university lecturer. He says that his pension is likely to be halved if this scheme goes through.
The excerpt Eloethan quoted from the jobs.ac.uk describes only half the parameters a lecturer has to meet to get a permanent job in academia.
DS lectures in a humanities subject. To get an academic job he had to show a background in solid research with a good list of publications to his name. Not easy when prior to your post application you have been working full time on a PhD or working full time outside academia He had to show that he had 'badges of merit' that is that he was active in his professional world, being on the committees of learned societies, active in community groups, or had won awards for aspects of his work.
Even then most lecturers will spend at least the first 10 years of their careers on short term one or two year contracts, with the constant fear of what happens when a contract ends. DS, despite working in academia or academia related work from the time he got his PhD at 25, did not get his first permanent post until he was 40.
It makes settling down in life, buying a house, having children very difficult because, like hospital doctors you frequently have to be prepared to move from one side of the country to other in pursuit of work. DS had contracts in Yorkshire, County Durham, Oxfordshire and Cheshire before finally getting a permanent post up north.
Now he is permanent, he cannot rest on his laurels, for the research assessments, he has to show he is carrying out research of local, national and international importance, he is ranked by the prestige of the conferences he is invited to speak at and by the value of the research grants he brings in. Meanwhile he has to keep up his publication record and make sure he keeps collecting those 'badges of merit'. Oh, yes, he is also married with two small children and both his wife, children and wider family would like to see more of him, would like more weekends when he was home and not driving off to give talks, take students on field trips or run community projects.
Our university lecturers work extremely hard their salaries (except for the top administrators) are modest compared with comparable professions, a decent pension is the least they deserve.