British Airways (Pensions Uprating)

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I shall be developing that point further in my speech.

As I say, in 1984, pending privatisation, APS was closed and NAPS was established. BA went to considerable trouble at that time to inform existing APS pensioners of their options. I have here a copy of a staff newsletter from January 1984, which my constituent Mr Jones, an APS pensioner, has given to me. The newsletter, which includes a personal statement from Colin Marshall, then chief executive of BA, describes the details of the new scheme compared with the existing APS. It explains that APS pensioners can either choose to join NAPS, and receive a cash payment or extra pensionable years if they choose to do so, or to remain in the existing scheme. It states that the two schemes will be independent of one another, will not subsidise one another and will each be governed by their own scheme rules. It then describes the differences between the two schemes in relation to contribution rates, pension age, pensionable pay and, crucially for this debate, index linking.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate and on being appointed to the shadow Cabinet today. Many of my constituents are affected by this issue. Will she join me in calling on BA to play fair with those pensioners, be it in respect of those from 1984 or those from 2015?

[Kate Green]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and I very much hope that, seeing the strength of feeling around the House tonight, BA most certainly will realise that it must play fair.