Mansfield mayor backs miners' call for pension pot

Mansfield's mayor has taken a strong stand in support of mineworkers' pension negotiations.

At a meeting of the UK Mineworkers' Pension Association at Mansfield library today (April 6), Mayor Kate Allsop told ex-miners she ...

The UK Mineworkers' Pension Association met to update members on their campaign to deliver 'justice' to the retired colliers.

placeholder image — The UK Mineworkers' Pension Association met to update members on their campaign to deliver 'justice' to the retired colliers.

The miners are fighting to rake back in billions of pounds that they say the government has 'stolen' - after the rolling up of the public coal industry John Major's Conservative government signed a new deal with the miners by taking a joint stake in the pension pot.

The Crown has since benefited from £8 billion in revenue from the pension fund, while not making any painting in decades while workers chipped in each month through the wages.

Former miners form the area attended the meeting at Mansfield library. Right of picture is David Orwin.

The mayor took to the stage at the meeting to show her support.

She said: "There's an awful lot of money going into the treasury, and if they were to return that money to the people who created it, they would have to find that money elsewhere. The labour continued to take that money and rake in those profits at over a million pounds a day.

I'm also a magistrate and i have a strong sense of what's right and wrong. That, to me, seems unfair, and unjust, and wrong.

Mick Newton o the Minerworkers' Pension Association said: "Now this is going before the national Audit Office - hopefully they will recognise the injustice of the past 30 years and do something about it.

"We're only scratching the surface at the moment. We won't go cap in hand to the government, this time we're going to win," he said, ahead of another planned meeting on April 20.

"It's time to have a national demonstration pensions. All any politician has to do have half a chance at the next election is find a decent pensions policy. They don't do anything, and they never will until it's their job on the line."

Former Miner, David Orwin, 69, from Bolsover, said: "We've gone to Westminster over this and that's as far as you can go. We need some closure on this, because the 50 per cent deal is 25 years old and it needs to be renegotiated."

But the campaign isn't just for the pensioners, but for their families as the rewards of getting the deal they want will take years to come to fruition.

"We need to do this now, because in 10 year's time there will be no-one left to keep fighting."