Pensions plundering is the pits

Even to miners who are rightly mistrustful of the Tories it seemed like a good deal at the time.

With the privatisation of British Coal in 1994 there was a question over how pensions would be protected.

In return for half of any surplus, the government of the day guaranteed pensions for life. And the Treasury would pick up the shortfall if pension funds went into deficit.

It looked like miners, battered by so many pit closures for so long, might be quids in.

Only thing was, the surplus kept growing, and the Government’s share rose from the predicted £2billion to a whopping £10billion.

And the Treasury is still mining this rich seam of cash to the tune of £153million over three years without ever having to pay money out.

Now you could argue that a deal is a deal. That the miners went into it with their eyes open and should not complain now they have got the rough end of it. Or you could say, as Labour’s Gloria De Piero does, that Whitehall has had more than its fair share and it is time to stop taking and start giving.

The latest raid on the surplus could have provided members of the pension schemes with £600 each – or a pension rise of £11.50 a week.

Ministers are quite entitled to do what they are doing. But only if they also feel they are entitled to behave in this shabby, immoral way.

Chancellor Philip Hammond could show us we have this wrong. And he could do it in next month’s Budget. He could prove he has both a heart and a conscience by announcing that any future surplus money will go to retired miners and their families.

He COULD do that. But we expect to see pigs whizzing through the sky first.