The government will transfer the £2.3bn investment reserve of the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme (BCSSS) to the scheme’s trustees for payment as additional benefits to members.
Attention has been growing on the scheme’s £2.3bn investment reserve this year, with minister for industry Sarah Jones having “pledged to resolve” the matter in April.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves told parliament today (26 November): “I have heard from Labour coalfield MPs… and today, I can announce that I will transfer the investment [reserve] to ensure men and women who worked in our coal industry get a fair deal in their retirement.”
The surplus-sharing arrangement for the scheme ended in 2015, but an investment reserve fund still exists and any changes to how this is used – including distributing to members – have to be agreed by the government, as the official guarantor of the pension scheme.
“There is still work to do to resolve the surplus sharing arrangements and ongoing government guarantee, which the NUM will continue to pursue with government ministers.”
Chris Kitchen, National Union of Mineworkers
The government first began to review the British Coal scheme’s surplus arrangements in December 2024, following the transfer of part of a separate reserve fund to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme in October that year.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) welcomed the chancellor’s announcement.
“Today the Labour government have fulfilled their commitment to relinquish any claim that the government has on scheme assets and leave them in the scheme to be used to improve pensions,” said Chris Kitchen, general secretary at the NUM.
“There is still work to do to resolve the surplus sharing arrangements and ongoing government guarantee for both the MPS and BCSSS, which the NUM will continue to pursue with government ministers.”
The BCSSS investment reserve was discussed in parliament late last year, with several MPs posing questions to Ed Miliband, secretary of state in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
While the BCSSS is a separate entity from the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme, Miliband agreed there was a “read-across” between the two. He added that there was “the sense that the injustice that has been remedied in the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme needs to be remedied in the BCSSS”.
