Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Scott Mann.)

We have seen many injustices debated in this House. Just today, we have seen the injustice of the WASPI women. In recent weeks, we have spoken about the infected blood scandal and, more recently, the Post Office scandal. Tonight, we are going to debate another scandal: the mineworkers’ pension scheme scandal.

Some 25% of the United Kingdom is on top of old coalmines, so I had hoped that 25% of this Chamber would be full tonight, but it is not. Maybe there are a few reasons for that. The issue has been debated a lot in this place, both before and since I came into Parliament, so maybe certain MPs are getting a bit fed up of saying the same old thing, but we will keep trying.

I started in the pits in the mid-1980s. I went to work at Sutton colliery, in north Nottinghamshire, with my dad Paul Anderson. He was a rope fitter, and I went to work with him underground. I had a good time working with my dad and my friends at Sutton colliery, which was a family pit. It was a small coalmine with small coal seams and difficult conditions. It was a family pit where brothers worked with their brothers, dads and grandads. It was a proper community, but like all coalmines, there was tragedy underground. At Sutton colliery in 1957, there was a methane explosion and, sadly, five men lost their lives. I knew some of the friends, families and descendants of the people who died.

I then went on to Cresswell colliery, in north Derbyshire, to do my coalface training. It was another family pit where, again, men worked with their sons, and brothers worked with their brothers, and it too was tinged with tragedy. In 1950, there was a fire at Cresswell colliery and, sadly, 83 men and boys lost their lives. The mine rescuers had to seal the pit off underground to save the colliery, so that it could produce coal again. They sealed off some of the old workings and left the men inbye, because there was no chance of saving them, but when they took the stops down just a few months later, the men were on the other side. Some of them had scratched their names into the wall. It was terrible, and this sort of thing is hard to explain to people who have not worked down a coalmine. It was a very tight-knit community, and people worked in difficult conditions.

I had just over 10 years of working in awful conditions, but my grandad Charlie had 45 years down the coalmine and finished up at New Hucknall colliery. It would have been 50 years, but he took a break between 1940 and 1945, and went to fight Hitler. Then he came back and went straight back down the pit the following week. When he finished in the pits in 1979, he got a tankard, a certificate, 500 quid and a meagre pension— imagine that.

As miners, we knew about the risks underground when we went down the pit every day. Since mining started in this country in the 1600s, over 160,000 men, women and children have died in the coalmines, so we knew the risks. We knew there was always a chance that something might happen, but these were the risks we took. The miners took these risks for simple reasons: to earn a wage, put food on the table and make sure their kids were well dressed. In 1994, when I was still working in the pits, they were privatised. In my area, it was RJ Budge Mining that took over the pits.

I think we all agree. We had a three-hour debate in this Chamber last Thursday, in which over 30 Members contributed, and I think there was unanimity on the unfairness and injustice of the surplus-sharing arrangement.

When the hon. Gentleman was deputy chairman of the Conservative party, the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, visited the coalfield in Mansfield and gave certain undertakings and assurances to reform the surplus-sharing arrangement so that the miners would get their money back. As a former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, is the hon. Gentleman aware of any discussions after the 2019 general election on implementing those promises?

When I was deputy chairman of the Conservative party, and even before that, I spoke to the current Prime Minister, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, to be fair, he looked into the scheme and the surplus arrangement. One discussion at the time was that perhaps the whole pension scheme could be given back to the miners, with the Government not acting as a guarantor at all.

I would have hoped that we could come together a little in this debate and not try to score political points. I am here for my community of mineworkers, for my dad, for my brother-in-law and for the people of Ashfield who toiled underground. I will not get involved in silly, petty politics in this debate.

The 1980s and ’90s were difficult times for the mining community. Pits were closing, people were losing their jobs and men were out of work, and we saw the injustice of this surplus arrangement with the Government of the day. There were other people trying to rip off the miners. These were the spivs, the financial advisers, who rocked up in their new Rovers. They were calling in at miners’ welfare clubs and working men’s clubs, knocking on doors and turning up. These men in shiny suits had never done a day’s work in their life, and they were conning the miners—my dad was one of them—by telling them that the mineworkers’ pension was no good and was not making money. The miners transferred their money to these private pension schemes, and they were ripped off. Fortunately, just a few years later, many of these miners, including my dad, were able to claim compensation against these sharks and put their money back in the MPS, which is probably one of the best pension schemes in the world.

We talk a lot in this place about levelling up and, back in 2019, I stood on a manifesto of levelling up. To be fair to the Government, Ashfield has had lots of money, about £200 million. We have had two new school rebuilds, nearly £100 million in future high streets funding and towns funding, and extra money for police and CCTV, for which I am incredibly grateful to the Government, but real levelling up puts more money into people’s pockets and lets them decide how to spend it. I cannot think of a fairer way of levelling up than giving these miners, their widows and their families a little more money in their pocket.

I know what a great champion the hon. Gentleman has been for his community and the rest of Nottinghamshire, and indeed nationally, on this issue. I was in many of the meetings that he described earlier, such as with the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor and with other Ministers. The hon. Gentleman was a miner in Manton in my constituency; he has shown me his lamp many times and told me many stories.

That this House do now adjourn.—

Motion made, and Question proposed,(Scott Mann.) I want to make a point about the split and the surplus. Does the hon. Gentleman share my frustration about that? At times we have believed that some real progress has been made, whether on the split or the surplus, and there has been a chance to renegotiate—to get some incremental progress to put some money back into the pockets of those widows and to make that change over time. We could have been in a better position now if not for those who really did not want to negotiate and who wanted all or nothing immediately.

The hon. Gentleman makes some reasonable points. To be fair, the guarantee scheme has worked in that the Government have been able to take more risks with the pension fund and it has created a higher yield. The problem that I have faced as a Member of Parliament dealing with certain groups is that I cannot get the groups to agree on the best solution or the best way forward. That is incredibly frustrating.

There is still a lot of bitterness, even 40 years on from the miners’ strikes. I come from a family who were on strike—all my family were striking miners—but there is still a bitterness now when I get involved. When I met some of the mining groups, they said, “Keep your nose out. We don’t want scabs getting involved in our business,” because I come from Nottinghamshire. That is not the way forward. We have to have a sensible debate, like grown-ups.

Thousands of ex-miners are dying each year. The pension fund is probably worth £12 billion, £13 billion or £14 billion, so it is a massive pot of money. When the last miner dies—I am 57, so I am probably one of the last miners and one of the youngest ex-miners left—all the money left in the scheme will go to the Treasury. We could give the miners a much fairer deal and a fairer split, and we could carry out the recommendations of the 2021 Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s report to give the miners that money, because it will not cost the Government anything. In 50 years, they will get a pension pot worth billions of pounds. As I said, the way to level up in deprived areas such as mine that have suffered job losses, have been deskilled and have gone through the mill over the past 30 or 40 years, is to give the miners and their families a bit more money.

I feel incredibly proud to stand here and represent the people of Ashfield and the mining community of Ashfield—the widows and ex-miners, some of whom are friends I used to work down the pit with. All we want from the Government is a bit of justice. We are not asking for much; we are asking for a bit more money for the miners and their families in this great country of ours before the last miner dies.

I am incredibly grateful to speak in the debate, which is the second on miners’ pensions in a week—we had a good debate about miners and mining communities last week. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), who spoke passionately about his and his family’s experience. He will know from his first-hand experience, which is shared by many of my constituents, that mining was dirty and dangerous, but it was well respected. He was right to speak about how dangerous it was—we have several memorials across Barnsley to those men who went to work and did not come home.

In Barnsley, 30,000 men worked down the pit. Our community was built on coal and it powered a nation. It is 40 years since thousands of men were forced to go out on strike to defend their industry—a battle that sadly they lost. It is simply not right that, decades later, they are still fighting for their pension.

In 2021 I was pleased to campaign for, and secure, the BEIS Committee report into the mineworkers’ pension scheme. It was a cross-party report and it very clearly concluded that the Government should not be in the business of profiting from miners’ pensions. Some £4.8 billion has been taken by the Government to date. That has risen by £400 million since that report. The average miner is on a pension of just £84 a week, and widows are on a lot less. I met a man in my constituency a few weeks ago on £1 a week.

I have raised this issue in this place dozens of times. I have met with Ministers and shadow Ministers. I went to the Treasury a few weeks ago to make the case again. I could not be clearer about my commitment to the issue. Indeed, I will continue to advocate not just on miners’ pensions but on miners’ health and support for our coalfield communities more broadly. My constituency of Barnsley East is yet to receive any levelling-up funding.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), with whom I have worked closely over many years. It is clear that his personal experience and long track record put him in the best position to continue to fight the good fight, on behalf of not just his constituents but people who worked in this sector. I was struck by his willingness to engage across the political spectrum, finding time for the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) to contribute. She has an impressive track record of raising the issue, having secured a BEIS debate and other debates responded to by former Ministers.

While I am only freshly returned as a Minister, in the whirlwind of a mere three weeks I have been lobbied by many people on the subject, including my hon. Friends the Members for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) and for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), and the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) has been increasing my parliamentary question response rate. I recognise the importance of the scheme, and the strong feelings on the different options that have been and could be considered.

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous, which is completely in character. I do not think any of us wants a pat on the back. What we want is the issue resolved. In common with the previous debate about the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign, the issue is the age demographic. My poor mother is 88. Many miners and their widows are coming to the end. We need to resolve this in the interests of justice, and the BEIS Committee’s report from 27 April 2021 gives us that opportunity.

As I said, I recognise the strength of feeling and I want to set out the Government’s position on where there are opportunities to look further.

It is right that we acknowledge the hard work of coalminers over decades and their contribution to national prosperity, which is exactly what the hon. Member for Ashfield did so well. Since privatisation, the Government have recognised the need to support former coalfield areas through initiatives such as the Coalfield Regeneration Trust. Over the past 25 years, successive Governments have invested over £1 billion in former coalfield areas. The UK Government are committed to levelling up across the whole of the United Kingdom to ensure that no community is left behind and investing in places that need it most, including former coalfield communities. I again credit the hon. Member for Ashfield on how hard he worked to secure the significant levelling-up funds that have reached his constituency.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again—I do not mean to be a nuisance, I promise. It is all very well for Ashfield, which has had £200 million or £300 million. Easington has had nothing. My community of Horden, which bid for levelling-up funding, is in the top 1% most deprived communities in the country. I hope the Minister is not suggesting that £4.8 billion of the miners’ money can legitimately be used by the Government for other purposes, such as regeneration in coalfield or other areas. That is their money. If the reserve investment fund alone was redistributed, it would give them almost £900 a month directly in their pockets.