Written evidence submitted by the Mr Gareth Hughes and Mr Emlyn Davies (MPS0017)
WALES MINEWORKERS PENSION CAMPAIGN
Question1: How was agreement on the surplus sharing arrangement reached at privatisation?
The so-called 31st October 1994, 50/50 agreement was reached without consensus and with no regard to the views, opinions held by mineworkers be they hands on, office staff or coalface workers notwithstanding what scheme they belonged to.
, No one alive today or during the last six years that I have been campaigning, both on the streets of South Wales, and online remember being asked to be balloted on whether it would be a prudent move to allow a government whose sole aim was to destroy the mining industries and its workforce to share the surpluses that mineworkers’ investments had earned them. Over many years.
Question2: How have variations in the terms of the Scheme since 1994 affected pensioners?
Variations in the terms of the Scheme since 1994 have only served to pit mineworker against mineworker in as much as they continually see goal posts moved under the cover of wordy documents such as:
The Mineworkers pension Scheme (Modification ) Regulations 1994
The Industry-Wide Mineworkers’ pension Scheme Regulations 1994
Scheme valuations have not added to the greater wealth of mining pensioners but has served only to keep some of them on the breadline in as much that any benefits that a pensioner can claim from the state scheme is being denied to them due to crossing threshold limits.
Question3: Do the terms of the surplus sharing arrangements remain fair?
The terms of the surplus sharing arrangements have never been fair as no member of the Scheme can remember being balloted as mentioned in the answer to question (1)
The guarantor has never put a penny into the scheme but will gladly take the fruits of the retired miner’s labour.
The government of 1992/93/94 endeavoured to make sure that the work they had designed and implemented could never be undone. Time after time we retired miners were being told that the deal was fair and honest, and the guarantee arrangements would never be reversed and would carry on till the last pensioner standing, their guestimate 2070 but we believe 2038 would be nearer the truth.
It is now becoming obvious that the government/guarantor will never commit to the 31 October 1994 guarantee, as the last 9 financial crashes since the 1960s including the 3 crashes since 1994 resulted in the taxpayer paying out to the Scheme.
The daddy of them all the Corona Virus has not yet moved the taxpayer to offer help as in all probabilities the Scheme may never need bailing out.
Question 4: What changes, if any, would the Scheme’s beneficiaries like to see to the scheme?
The number one change, universally agreed on, would be for the government to rescind the law that makes changes irreversible i.e. The government would have to ballot the members of the scheme on whether MPS elected trustees would have full control of surpluses. And hold Annual General Meetings thus giving the members their own voice.
March 2021