Steelworkers robbed of their pensions say UK Government help falls short

Martin Shipton

The UK Government has claimed that retired steelworkers who have campaigned for nearly 25 years to get their full pensions restored are better off as a result of recent changes.

But representatives of the pensioners say they will continue their battle for full compensation.

When Cardiff firm Allied Steel and Wire (ASW) ceased trading in 2002, the workers initially believed their full pension entitlements would be honoured.

But that turned out not to be the case, and they are still campaigning for all their pensions to be fully indexed to inflation – a concession that successive governments have not been prepared to make.

The campaigners have now written to new Welsh Secretary Stephen Kinnock asking him to finally deliver them justice.

Many other pensioners whose employers went bust have also been disadvantaged, although they have been partially compensated through membership of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS).

Responding to their criticisms, a spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “We understand the impact that this has had on members and we have strengthened the safety net that the pension compensation system offers, so that it works harder for members following their employer’s insolvency.

“Legislation in the Pension Schemes Act 2026 introduces increases on Financial Assistance Scheme payments based on pensions built up before 6 April 1997 which will ensure AWS workers are eligible for an uplift.”

According to the DWP, this step change going forward will make a meaningful difference to over 300,000 PPF and FAS members, with average uplift of around £80 in the first year, and some pensioners seeing an increase of up to £340 more.

“The PPF is responsible for implementing these increases for its members, and for FAS members.

“We expect that the legislation will be brought into force in time for the first pre-1997 increases to be made to most members from January 2027.

“Increases will be CPI-linked (capped at 2.5%) and apply prospectively (ie to payments going forward) for members whose former schemes provided for these increases.”

A Wales Office spokesperson said: “The Secretary of State has received the letter and will respond in due course.”

‘Safeguards’

Prominent ASW campaigner John Benson responded: “What Labour are not telling the country regarding our appalling pension miscarriage of justice is that this was of successive UK governments’ own making. There was a failure to put in place safeguards after the Robert Maxwell Daily Mirror pension scandal [which came to light after Maxwell’s death in 1991 and showed that he had looted £460m from the Mirror’s pension fund] and Gordon Brown’s unfair tax on occupational pensions between 1997 to 2010 [which netted £238bn for the Treasury]. These indefensible actions destroyed the finest occupational pension system in Western Europe.

“Days before the general election in 1983, Stephen Kinnock’s father Neil Kinnock gave a speech in Bridgend in which he warned: ‘If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected on Thursday … I warn you not to grow old. Now the former workforce at ASW Cardiff and all those innocent victims in the FAS are telling the country not to grow old under a Labour government if you have an occupational pension.”

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