MINEWORKERS PENSION SCHEME

That this House is aware that between 1987 and 1995 British Coal did not pay any employer contributions into the UK industry Mine Workers Pension Schemes (MPS) which benefited them as employers by approximately £1.136 billion; notes that when its representatives and others voted to consequently close the schemes, they also took the decision to allow 50 per cent of any surpluses to be taken by the Government which it is calculated will result eventually in the Government receiving in excess of £8 billion from both the MPS and its associate the BCSSS pension scheme, a scenario forecast by its own actuaries in 1995 and compounded later by their actions between 2002 and 2005 when the fund was used to cover a coal industry deficit for that period estimated as being worth a further £390 million, which it then recovered with interest amounting to £540 million, after which it then added a further £229 million as representing 50 per cent of the remaining surpluses at that time; finds this depletion of those funds in this way extraordinary, particularly as the industry was facing financial problems and merely was borrowing its own money; and calls on the Government to carry out an urgent review of those practices and the use of those pension assets in such an unacceptable manner.