Several former mineworkers have expressed anger after a senior minister said they would have to wait until later this year to find out if they will receive some of the surplus money in their pension scheme. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in last year’s Budget members of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme (MPS) would receive extra payments. She said it would mean “working people who powered our country receive the fair pension they are owed”.
But there was no mention of the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme (BCSSS), which includes ex-miners as members along with people who held other roles in the industry. Speaking to BBC East Midlands Today, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, indicated there would be an announcement in the next Budget, saying “we’ll be able to say more towards the end of the year”.
Former miner Dave Drury, who worked at Welbeck Colliery in Nottinghamshire, said he was angry at the minister’s comments. “It’s just somebody sat down with a pen who just needs to sign that off,” he said. “Probably 2,000 miners a year are dying of old age and respiratory mining-related diseases. They ain’t got time to wait. It’s six-a-day I think it works out at. So whoever’s got the pen, get it signed.”
Of the roughly 40,000 BCSSS members, about 40% are women. Kim Smith, who worked at the Coal Board, based in Mansfield, said: “It’s not government money, it’s not taxpayers’ money, it’s the scheme members’ money and we’ll like that money back to improve our standard of living. We’re losing five or six members a day so every day that this gets dragged out more people are not going to benefit and I don’t think that’s fair.”
Mansfield’s Labour MP Steve Yemm – whose constituency contains the highest number of BCSSS members in the country – also questioned why it was taking so long. This requires a signature by a civil servant to sign over the reserve, and I can’t really understand why it would take any length of time to do that, he said. Yemm was one of 41 Labour MPs from coalfield constituencies who wrote a letter to Darren Jones in January, warning “the matter of securing pension justice for mining communities remains incomplete”.
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