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The chancellor has scrapped a controversial deal that noticed the government obtain billions of kilos from a pension scheme for mineworkers.
On Wednesday, Rachel Reeves introduced the whole lot of Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme can be handed over to ex-coalminers and their households.
The government had been entitled to half the excess money within the fund underneath a deal struck by the government when British Coal was privatised in 1994 – receiving £4.8bn over the past 30 years.
The change will switch about £1.5bn into the pension pots of 112,000 former coalminers and their households, the BBC understands.
Reeves mentioned it might imply “working people who powered our country receive the fair pension they are owed”.
Gary Saunders, Chair of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme Trustees, said: “We are delighted we will be able to put more money in our members’ pockets.
“We are also grateful to the many members and MPs who have shown support of the Scheme on this matter over the years.”
A pension trustee said the fund “might be writing to all members with the excellent news very shortly”.
During the election Labour promised to switch the remaining pension funds back to members.
In March, the BBC revealed that greater than £420m from the scheme had flowed into the government’s coffers within the earlier three years.
That was regardless of a 2021 report from a cross-party group of MPs that advisable the government cease taking cash out and pay back a few of what it had already acquired.
Conservative ministers rejected these suggestions. Data launched to the BBC underneath Freedom of Information legal guidelines confirmed the government had since acquired three annual funds of £142.4m.
Tens of 1000’s of households, primarily within the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the North East of England, profit from the pension scheme, which was taken over by the government when British Coal was privatised in 1994.
The settlement was struck between the then-Conservative government and the scheme’s trustees, in alternate for a government assure that the worth of mineworkers’ pensions wouldn’t lower.
But campaigners had lengthy argued that the deal was unfair to former miners and their households.
Then-energy minister Graham Stuart mentioned final December that the government had acquired £4.8bn from the pension scheme since 1994.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband mentioned: “For decades, it has been a scandal that the government has taken money that could have been passed to the miners and their families.
“Today, that scandal ends, and the money is rightfully transferred to the miners.
“I pay tribute to the campaigners who have fought for justice- today is their victory.”
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