Hundreds of thousands of retired miners and their widows face pension cuts because the Government is imposing miserly new rules.

Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith wants private pensions to rise in line with the Consumer Prices Index rather than the Retail Prices Index. It doesn’t sound a big deal – but it will hit the elderly hard.

CPI rate of inflation stands at 3.2%, while the RPI is 5%. Even the Government’s own watchdog, the Office of Budget Responsibility, ­calculates the gap will be 1.2% for the next five years.

Philip Read, chairman of British Coal pension trustees, condemned the proposed law as “a nightmare” that could breach the human rights of pensioners.

He accused the Government of imposing retrospective legislation on former pitmen and their families, and called for full consultation.

He might have saved his breath. The ConDems are pressing ahead, on the dodgy grounds that because they can force this change on state pensioners, then private pensioners must suffer too.

Scrooge Smith, the failed Right-wing ex-leader of the Tories, parades himself as the social conscience of the ConDems. This attack on old men who toiled underground for the nation shows he’s a fraud. Like the rest of them.

shafted

Ex-miners have already been bilked of £5bn by Tory and Labour governments, through pension holidays and deduction of half the scheme’s profits every year.

Millions of private sector pensioners – not just retired miners and their widows – stand to lose by changes due next year. There is still time for trade unions, pension fund trustees and individual pensioners to take action in the European Court.

This is a clear breach of their human rights. The Government has no right to impoverish retired workers just for the sake of ­“consistency” with state pension calculations.

Naturally, this is all about money. Experts estimate that employers will enjoy a £100bn one-off windfall by switching to CPI inflation.

Once again, it’s the rich that get the pleasure and the poor that get the pain under the ConDems.

13/08/2010

 By Paul Routledge.