Back on the march: 1,000 ex-miners to protest over pension funds

A former miner will lead 1,000 of his colleagues on a protest march over pension funds.

Bert Moncur, who worked at Murton Colliery from 1974 until its closure in 1991, will head the parade of pit workers from Trafalgar Square tomorrow.

And he admitted it may be a last chance for some of them to go on the march.

Marching once more

They will head to Downing Street and on to Westminster Hall to lobby MPs in their long-running row over the Mineworkers Pension Scheme.

Representatives of the National Mineworkers Pension Campaign, including Bert, claim billions of pounds have been taken from the scheme.

People from all over Britain including the former Northumberland and Durham coalfields, Scotland, Wales and Yorkshire are expected to join him.

‘Probably the last time we can do something like this’

Mr Moncur said: “It is probably the last time we can do something like this. I am 66 soon and I won’t be marching again. I knew I had to do something.

“I shall be marching with some help from my friends. We are hoping there will be banners there, people with placards and people with T-shirts saying ‘Stop The Pension Theft’.”

‘We are hoping that, on the back of the blood scandal and the Post Office, we can get our story out there.”

Tens of thousands rely on the scheme

Around 110,000 former miners, and their beneficiaries, are left in the scheme, he said.

‘To date successive governments have taken £8 billion from the scheme and further £1.4 billion reserve.”

He said that this was while many former miners were on £80 per week or less, and widows on even lower amounts. In 2021, the Sunderland Echo reported that hundreds of ex-miners had died without ever seeing a penny of the several billion raised through the scheme since the privatisation of British Coal in the 1990s.

A debate lasting decades

It was agreed the Government would act as guarantor for the corporation’s pension payouts, the Echo added.

It said that, since privatisation of the scheme in 1994, the Government has received 50% of surpluses in its value, in return for providing a guarantee that the value of pensions will not decrease.

Mr Moncur said: “The government didn't put one penny in but have plundered it.”

MP to lead Commons debate

Easington MP Grahame Morris will lead a much-anticipated debate on miners and mining communities in Parliament on Thursday.

It will cover a range of issues including investment, regeneration and levelling up four decades after deindustrialisation. 

He will also urge MPs to support the Mineworkers Pension Scheme campaign to end the unfair surplus sharing arrangement.

These pension arrangements created after privatisation in the early 1990s have resulted in the government taking nearly £5 billion from the pension funds of retired miners.

Billions ‘siphoned’ from the scheme

Ahead of the debate, Mr Morris said he would call on the Government to back recommendations by the former Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee to reform the Mineworkers Pension Scheme.

He said: “Miners endured harsh working conditions leading to shortened lives through industrial disease.

“The Government siphoned billions from the scheme, while some pensioners and their widows receive payments of as little as £10 a week, with a majority of payments being under £50 a week.

“Pensioners are dying in poverty, and it's unacceptable for the government to be complicit by taking money out of the pension scheme. Retired miners deserve security in retirement.”