This could help if gilt yields recover over the next year, for example.

But unless gilt yields fall even further it seems that rates will stay at current levels for the time being.

Whether low gilt yields will opr should last, is another question altogether.

Gilt yields were depressed by around 100 basis points.

By the end of the afternoon, the mood was more austere, and gilt yields were rising.

These rates are in turn largely dependent on long-term gilt yields and mortality data.

You will notice that annuity and gilt yields fell at the end of last summer but they picked up again later in the year.

Two-year gilt yields fell to the lowest on record.

British Gilt yields fell below 2.12pc for the first time in modern history on safe-haven flows.

"The Government needs to look at the link between gilt yields and drawdown limits.

Pensioners retiring today are 62pc worse off than those who retired 20 years ago because of falling gilt yields.

They always were and continue to be reliant on investment returns and long term gilt yields.

PwC has calculated that falling gilt yields have cut pension incomes sharply.

Many pensioners use their pot to buy an annuity, a guaranteed annual income based on gilt yields.

It also pushes cash into the private sector, bids up gilt yields and pushes interest rates down.

It certainly brought down gilt yields - it's not clear by how much - it also have a tangible and important effect of backstopping confidence.

Those historically low gilt yields and interest rates are telling us something else - don't expect any recovery in the UK domestic economy soon.

Also supporting low gilt yields will be yet more quantitative easing, which like renewed recession, can already be taken as read.

In the future if gilt yields spike, I take it Larry and Balls will be applauding?

What's more, while Gilt yields could shoot up again and drive annuity rates to rise, it is more likely they will continue to decline."

Ten-year gilt yields are already at record lows, of 2.36pc, far beneath the level achieved through QE.

Here, the initial income is not pegged to gilt yields, but future income will be higher or lower depending on future stock market returns.

Unfortunately, low gilt yields are more indicative of impaired private sector demand than they are of Government resolve.

And because liabilities are measured by reference to gilt yields, the more these yields fall, the wider the pension fund deficits become.

Fidelity's MoneyBuilder range reduced its exposure to bank bonds in good time and positioned itself to benefit from falling gilt yields.