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MP Welcomes Government Announcement of Settlement for those who lost their Pensions
Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock MP Sandra Osborne has welcomed the announcement of a just and final settlement for 140,000 people who lost their savings when their employer sponsored pension schemes collapsed, including several hundred of her constituents from Ayr and Cumnock.
She said:
‘ In 2001 United Engineering Forging workers faced the prospect of losing a large percentage of their expected pension and had no prospect of public support. Now we have secured 90% of their pension and the abilty for them to retire at their scheme pension age and be able to take some of their pension as a lump sum, inflation protection from pension accruals after 1997 and enhanced benefits for widows. This has been a long hard campaign but at last we have secured pensions justice for my constituents and the 140, 000 similarly affected. It will be the best Christmas present imaginable for those who lost out and they can now look forward to security in retirement.
I would like to pay tribute to the tenacity of the workers representatives who never gave up and gave me the support I needed to campaign on their behalf.
I always had faith that a Labour Government would deliver on this while the Tories simply sought to make capital out of people’s misery with unfunded promises and no commitment to public money whatsoever..’
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