Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)]

1. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers' pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney) (Lab)]

2. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.

[Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)]

4. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Miliband]

I should say that the praise all goes to the Minister for Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones), for the progress that has been made. She is in sole charge of the issue. I know that she has been engaging with the trustees of the BCSSS; indeed, I believe she met them yesterday. She knows the point my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones) is making about that scheme.

[Nick Smith]

In Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, 1,600 miners received the biggest number of increased payments from the mineworkers’ pension scheme in Wales. All of my uncles on my mum’s side were miners. Dessie Winter, who is alive and well, will benefit from the MPS changes, but my uncles Georgie and Jackie were pit supervisors who paid into the separate National Coal Board staff pension scheme. They have sadly passed, but their colleagues deserve fairness. Since 1994, the Government have received £3.1 billion from the BCSSS. Will the Secretary of State say if he will look again at the staff side’s surplus payments to benefit our pensioners?

[Ed Miliband]

My hon. Friend makes his point with customary eloquence. I know from personal experience that there were people who were waiting for the injustice to be remedied but unfortunately died before that happened. He refers to part of the issue raised by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, as it then was, about 50:50 surplus sharing. I know my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry is looking at that.