Dennis Skinner
Main Page: Dennis Skinner (Labour - Bolsover)
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that. Of course, we must do everything we can to maintain integrity in our overall pension system. In this particular case, it is important to examine carefully the trustee’s belief that exploring some of the alternatives laid out in the consultation would be a better outcome for their members than the alternative.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State aware that the last Tory Government to deal with a major occupational fund was the Major Government way back in 1994, when they privatised all the pits and then did a deal with the detested Union of Democratic Mineworkers in order to get the thing on the pension fund settled? The result was chaos, and the net result was even worse after that, because it meant that the Government were able to get their hands on billions of pounds from the miners pension fund, and then at the end, when me and my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) were calling for a little bit of state aid to save the last remaining pits, that lousy, rotten Government would not find a penny.