Campaigners condemn Pensions Minister Torsten Bell for continuing a long injustice

Martin Shipton

A campaigner against pension injustice has launched a scathing attack on Pensions Minister and Swansea West MP Torsten Bell over his refusal to improve compensation payments for pensioners whose employers went bust.

John Benson has fought tirelessly on behalf of ex-employees of Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff, which ceased trading in 2002. He wants all their pensions to be fully indexed to inflation – a concession that successive governments have not been prepared to make.

Despite the UK Government’s introduction of the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) and the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) to provide some relief, contributions made by workers to their pensions before April 1997 have not been fully inflation proof. This has left many ASW pensioners out of pocket and unable to realise the secure retirement they were promised.

Other workers have lost out too, including some former miners.

Compensation

Plaid Cymru tabled amendments to the Pension Schemes Bill, which is going through the House of Commons, that would have provided full compensation to the retired workers.

But Mr Bell, who is managing the bill through Parliament, told MPs on the committee scrutinising it: “New clauses 18 and 19 [proposed by Plaid MP Ann Davies] would not work. The new clauses as drafted would apply to subsets of the PPF population. Some pensioners would receive indexation, and some would not. The same flaws in the new clauses apply to FAS.

“We will definitely be opposing the new clauses, but that is without regard to the wider questions,.”

The ex-steelworkers have cross-party support and Welsh Conservative MS Sam Rowlands wrote to Mr Bell asking him to reconsider and allow the workers to be paid compensation for their losses.

‘Concerns’

In a letter to Mr Rowlands, Mr Bell stated: “I am of course aware of the concerns surrounding the matter of indexation of pre-1997 accruals in the FAS. The erosion of income that the high inflation of recent years has led to is clear for all to see, and this was a matter considered by the Work and Pensions Select Committee in its recent inquiry into Defined Benefit pension schemes.

“The Committee’s final report, published in March 2024, helpfully outlines areas to be considered, though there are wider public finance implications not covered by the Committee. On April 30, the Government response to the recommendations in the Work and Pension

Select Committee’s report was published. I would note that the previous Conservative government made no changes to pre-1997 FAS indexation over 14 years in power. This government will continue to review the issues raised, which are complex matters requiring careful consideration.

“Thank you for taking the time to write regarding your concerns. I will certainly keep the points you have raised in mind.”

Infuriated

Mr Benson, 79 of Dinas Powys, near Cardiff, has been infuriated by Mr Bell’s response, and has written in very strong terms to Mr Rowlands and the rest of the Welsh Conservative group at the Senedd.

He states: “I hope you don’t mind me passing on this correspondence, but I feel I have to, as to the way this shameless Pensions Minister is not only treating us who worked at ASW Cardiff, and others with contempt, lack of respect, and decency, but the shameless way he treats well respected Senedd Members here in Wales.

“Once again this arrogant and insulting Labour Pensions Minister is talking a lot of nonsense, and deliberately making excuses and time wasting, not to pay us our paid-for-in-full pensions.

“He says it is taxpayers’ money. It wasn’t taxpayers’ money, when Gordon Brown was robbing the living daylights out of occupational pension scheme funds between 1997 and 2010 – £238bn in total. It was our money, and Gordon Brown couldn’t have cared less for the hardship and retirement dreams he was destroying just to fill the coffers of the Treasury.

“This shameless Pensions Minister is in the same mould: rob pensioners out of their life savings, just like Gordon Brown, who instead of being given the highest honour in the country, should have been put in prison for all the heartache and suffering he caused to us, who worked damn hard during our working lives, believing our pensions would be there for us when we retired,

“How wrong we were to believe Gordon Brown and other ministers that our pensions were sacrosanct no matter what difficulties our employer faced. Now we have Torsten Bell. Neil Kinnock, at an event in Bridgend 1992, told the country:’ Don’t grow old under a Conservative government.’ The former workforce at ASW will tell the country: ‘Don’t grow old under a Labour government.’

“This Pensions Minister is playing politics with people’s lives and retirement dreams. And he blames everything on others, instead of accepting the responsibility that it was the fault of a Labour government that this appalling pension miscarriage of justice happened in the first place,”

Mr Benson and his colleagues in the campaign are now contacting members of the House of Lords, asking them to back amendments to the Pension Schemes Bill when they debate it.