17 October 2024
During its election campaign, the Labour Party said that if it won the election it would make changes to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme (MPS). These changes relate to the MPS investment reserve. They also said they would review the MPS surplus sharing arrangement.
Now that Labour is in government, some kind of change to MPS seems likely. But at this stage we do not know what these changes will be, when they will come, or how they will affect the pensions of MPS members.
How the BCSSS Trustees have responded
BCSSS and MPS both provide pension benefits for former employees of British Coal. But they are completely separate schemes. Each has its own investments, scheme rules and trustee board. The Labour Party’s election manifesto only referred to MPS and did not mention BCSSS.
But we believe, given the similarities, that it’s right to engage with the Government. We want to know if changes can be made to BCSSS that would improve pensions for members.
We have been working on our response to the possible changes to the MPS since the Labour Party made their election manifesto commitments. We are trying to engage with the Government as part of the 2024 valuation consultation process. We’ve indicated to the Government that we believe this is an opportunity to review the Scheme’s structure, identify any areas of unfairness similar to MPS, and deliver better outcomes for members.
What happens next
We want to give our efforts on behalf of members the greatest possible chance of success. So, before we do anything else, we will wait until we know more details of any changes to MPS.
As soon as this happens, we will again write to the Government to ask about possible changes to improve benefits for BCSSS members. We will stress the similarities between the schemes and ask the Government to act fairly.
What you can do
This is a political matter – changes to the Scheme rules can only be made by the Government. You may wish to contact your MP about Labour’s commitment to make changes to MPS and what this could mean for BCSSS.
We know how important this subject is to members. As soon as we have more information, we’ll share it with you.