Four years ago I was appalled to learn that one of the local companies in my constituency, United Engineering Forgings, had gone into administration with a possible loss of over 1200 jobs in the UK.
Fortunately the local site was taken over and most of the jobs saved. So imagine my utter disbelief when it became clear a short time later, that the pension fund was grossly underfunded and, even though they had paid into the fund all of their working lives to provide for a secure retirement, the workforce would receive nothing like their expected pension on retirement. In contributing from their wages to the occupational pension fund the employees were following Government advice and indeed in many cases it was part of their employment contract to do so.

Despite the disbelief at what had happened it did not occur to us to begin with that what the company had done was within the law. The UEF workforce were facing, in common with thousands of others, one of the most scandalous injustices in a generation – an injustice that would give rise to a campaign requiring every ounce of energy of those affected and their representatives- a campaign which continues to this day.

As the local MP I set about raising the issue in the Commons and held a debate which was answered by the then Pensions Minister, Ian McCartney. I tabled an Early Day Motion which attracted well over a hundred signatures and the first of numerous Pensions Summits were held in the House of Commons to bring the crisis to the attention of more MPs.

Meanwhile, demonstrations, marches and vigils were held involving those who had lost their pensions and the trade unions who represented them. In the early stages of the campaign it was very difficult to get media coverage even though some of the individual tragedies were heartbreaking. There was a palpable sense of justified anger and distress at a loss that was totally beyond the control of people who had planned for their retirement and deserved the security they had paid towards. It amounted to theft.

There was plenty of sympathy for the plight of the workforce but no one was prepared to accept responsibility and that is the fundamental problem we still face today.
The Government has introduced the Pension Protection Fund to ensure that people are never again put in this position after a lifetime of saving. But that should have been done years earlier in line with European Insolvency Directives and those who lost their pensions in the interim have suffered as a result.

The Government eventually did respond by bringing in the Financial Assistance Scheme but stressed it was in recognition of the difficult circumstances the losses had caused and did not amount to compensation. The FAS is in any case inadequate and does not meet the tests of fairness, efficiency or justice. As it stands many people will receive nothing even though they contributed to their schemes for many years. I have argued that it needs to be looked at again.

I welcome the £2.6 billion of public money the Government has announced to fund the FAS but the time has come to resolve this problem once and for all. The suffering must not be allowed to continue and one of the best ways to restore confidence in pensions would be to restore in total the lost pensions. It is a question of natural justice which I believe has widespread public support.

I fully support Saga’s call for immediate action to accelerate assistance payments to all those affected scheme members over the age of 65. Furthermore, this should be followed by the replacement of the limited scheme with one which makes full restoration to all affected members of their accrued entitlements under their pension schemes.

I have no doubt that justice will eventually prevail for these hard working people and in the meantime the campaign continues.