Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley); it is good that there is all-party support for this debate. I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) on his brilliant speech and on setting out his case so eloquently. I am speaking in this debate because I want to see justice for the retired miners in my constituency of Doncaster, North and, indeed, across Doncaster and the whole country. Miners worked their backs off for this country at great cost to themselves, often causing themselves ill health and a shortened life expectancy. Their families watched their loved ones risk their lives for this country, and the least we owe them is fairness and justice, which is what this debate is about.

As my hon. Friend said, the average payment under the scheme is just £83.98 per week—around £4,000 a year—so we are talking about people for whom every pound will make a difference. It cannot be right that £4 billion—and counting—has gone to the Government and not to the miners. That does not seem fair or right, and I think that that is recognised across the House. My hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman have spoken eloquently to the current injustice, and the hon. Gentleman said that if we look at the scheme now, it just does not seem fair. The specific and relatively brief point I want to make is actually about the past, because if the scheme does not seem right now, I think we have strong grounds for thinking that it was not right in 1994 either, when the original decision was made. That might look like a matter of historical detail, but I do not think it is. We are where we are now because of that decision, which Governments of both parties have abided by.

I am particularly grateful for the conversations I have had with my constituent Les Moore, whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and his organisation, the UK Miners Pension Scheme for Justice and Fair Play Association, which, along with the NUM, has toiled on this issue for years. The 50-50 split was decided and announced in April 1994, and we all know what happens when a decision like that is made: inertia sets in. The Treasury is getting billions of pounds as a result, and nobody wants to revisit the matter. No Chancellor, Conservative or Labour, wants to give up that amount of money. But what was the basis of that original decision? Remarkably, it is 25 years old and we still do not really know the basis for it.

I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), because she asked the most material question of all to the Minister last year. She asked the Government to publish the actuarial advice on which the surplus sharing arrangements were made. As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington said, the reply was, extraordinarily, that no such advice was obtained. If there was no actuarial advice behind a decision that had billions of pounds-worth of implications for hundreds of thousands of miners and their families, that really was negligence of the highest order.

The more closely we look at this decision, the more dubious it becomes. A document from September 1993 was released under a freedom of information request in 2016. It is a report carried out by the Government Actuary, and it is the closest document that anyone can find that is relevant to the time. It is not about the future arrangements, but it does talk about the current practice at the time and implies that at that point miners were enjoying not 50% of the surplus but 70%. So the question then arises: if 70% was the basis of the scheme then, why did it change to 50%? We just do not know the answer to that question.

My point about the history is that Governments of both parties have said that the decision was properly made in 1994, but the increasing evidence is that the decision was not properly made at the time. I have a simple request to the Minister, which is that he should publish the papers underlying the decision that was made in 1994. Then we could all see for ourselves for the first time how and why the decision was reached and what has changed since then. My simple belief is that the decision was not fair then and that it is not fair now. Miners gave so much to our country and we need to repay our debt to them. On that basis, and on the basis of the case set out by my hon. Friend, I believe that it is high time the Government launched a review so that there can be justice for my constituents and for tens of thousands of mineworkers and their families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Stephenson]

They do not. There are six proposals, which I have written to the Treasury about, and the trustees felt that protecting existing bonuses earned is more important than a review of the 50-50 split at this time.

[Edward Miliband]

The motion states:

“That this House calls on the Government to carry out a review of the existing arrangements for the sharing of the surplus generated by the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme.”

As I understand it, the Government will not vote against the motion, so will the Minister tell us what he is going to do after the motion passes, because it calls for precisely such a review?

[Andrew Stephenson]

As I just said, I will be meeting the trustees, and their proposals relate to six points, about which I have written to the Treasury to share my analysis.

[Edward Miliband]

But this House is about to pass a motion agreeing to a review, so the Government are going to have to do something about that. That is the point, and I think we would all be interested to know what the Minister intends to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Grahame Morris]

We were doing so well in this debate, and I am heartened by the many contributions, especially from Conservative Members. I say that not to be mean-spirited but to acknowledge the contributions and the sympathy shown for the arguments that have been made, which I appreciate. I had hoped the Minister would be rather more positive in his approach to those contributions.

We have had brilliant contributions from the hon. Members for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), from my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and from my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith), for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley), for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), for Leigh (Jo Platt) and for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman).

We have also had notable interventions—too many to list—including from the youngest working miner to come into Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), and from my inimitable hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). We have had some terrific interventions, including from the hon. Members for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and from my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) and a number of others.

Justice knows no age and, irrespective of the ages of the Members of Parliament debating this issue, I think we can recognise the injustice that the miners, their widows and beneficiaries are suffering. The Treasury forecast was that it would receive, at best, £2 billion, but it has received more than £4.4 billion and there is an ongoing commitment.

The motion, which I hope the House will agree, instructs the Government to conduct a review of the existing surplus sharing arrangements. My understanding is that the trustees want to do that, too.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House calls on the Government to carry out a review of the existing arrangements for the sharing of the surplus generated by the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme.

[Edward Miliband]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) having secured this debate, the House has now passed a motion stating:

“That this House calls on the Government to carry out a review of the existing arrangements for the sharing of the surplus generated by the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme.”

I wonder whether you could give us some guidance, Mr Speaker. With the House having passed, without opposition and for the first time in 25 years of this scheme’s operation, this very important motion, can we use your good offices to persuade the Government to carry out the will of the House? It was very open to the Government to divide the House on this motion, but they choose not to do so, which must mean that they agree with it. Presumably, that means they are going to do something about it, if this House’s deliberations and possible votes are to be meaningful.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman is a natural optimist, and I say that in no pejorative spirit. I am sad to have to advise him and the House of the correct procedural position. I am not making any evaluative judgment; I am simply making a statement of what is. The situation is that the only votes that bind in this place are votes on legislation and votes on taxation. This vote does not bind. It is an expression of the will of the House. I am sorry to say that there have been many occasions on which Backbench Business Committee debate motions have been passed but have not been implemented subsequently by the Government. I rather fancy that this matter will be returned to again and again and again if Members feel that the settled will of the House has not been honoured in practice. I will also add that a situation in which the settled will of the House is not then honoured in practice is bad for Parliament—period.