Authorities to overview second miners pension scheme
Tens of 1000’s extra former mineworkers could possibly be set to learn after the federal government introduced it might overview a controversial pension scheme.
The chancellor used final month’s Finances to scrap a 30-year outdated association that noticed the federal government obtain a whole bunch of tens of millions of kilos a yr from the Mineworkers Pension Scheme (MPS).
The primary instalment of the £1.5bn Rachel Reeves pledged to pay again will likely be made on Friday.
The federal government has now confirmed it should take a look at a second miners’ pension after former pit managers within the British Coal Employees Superannuation Scheme (BCSSS) challenged their exclusion from the brand new funds.
Earlier this month, Dave Cradduck, who spent 20 years working at Haig Pit in Whitehaven, Cumbria, informed the BBC it was “unjust” that “not a penny” could be given again to these on the BCSSS.
He mentioned the federal government had taken £4.8bn out of the MPS fund, and £3.2bn out of BCSSS, so due to this fact these on that scheme had been additionally owed cash.
On the time, a spokesperson for the Division for Power gave no indication that any future modifications would happen and mentioned the federal government “should contemplate the 2 schemes individually”.
However the division has now introduced it might “overview any proposals set out by the Trustees of the British Coal Employees Superannuation Scheme”.
Final week, the trustees requested ministers handy again the £2.3bn funding reserve to members of the scheme.
Each schemes had been taken over by the federal government when British Coal was privatised in 1994.
The agreements had been struck between the then-Conservative authorities and the scheme’s trustees, in trade for a authorities assure that the worth of mineworkers’ pensions wouldn’t lower.
The current reversal of the MPS association will see 112,000 former miners’ pensions elevated by a 3rd.
Power Secretary Ed Miliband mentioned it “marks an finish to a decades-long injustice that has denied 1000’s throughout the nation the first rate pension that they so undeniably deserve”.
