Government to overview second miners pension scheme | EUROtoday

Tens of hundreds 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The chancellor used final month’s Budget to scrap a 30-year outdated association that noticed the federal government obtain lots of of thousands and thousands of kilos a 12 months from the Mineworkers Pension Scheme (MPS).

The first instalment of the £1.5bn Rachel Reeves pledged to pay again will likely be made on Friday.

The authorities has now confirmed it’ll have a look at a second miners’ pension after former pit managers within the British Coal Staff 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 subsequently these on that scheme had been additionally owed cash.

At the time, a spokesperson for the Department for Energy gave no indication that any future adjustments would happen and mentioned the federal government “must consider the two schemes separately”.

But the department has now announced it would “review any proposals set out by the Trustees of the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme”.

Last week, the trustees asked ministers to hand back the £2.3bn investment reserve to members of the scheme.

Both schemes were taken over by the government when British Coal was privatised in 1994.

The agreements were struck between the then-Conservative government and the scheme’s trustees, in exchange for a government guarantee that the value of mineworkers’ pensions would not decrease.

The recent reversal of the MPS arrangement will see 112,000 former miners’ pensions increased by a third.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband mentioned it “marks an end to a decades-long injustice that has denied thousands across the country the decent pension that they so undeniably deserve”.