Rhys ab Owen, therefore, to introduce his short debate.

Diolch, Llywydd. I would like to introduce this debate by drawing your attention to the former Allied Steel and Wire workers in attendance in the public gallery, along with some family members. Their strength and their desire for justice over such a long period of time is incredible and simply inspiring. I'm very grateful to have them here today. I'm also pleased that Adam Price is taking part in this short debate. He has been a keen supporter of Allied Steel and Wire workers for over two decades. 

For many, being a steelworker is more than just a job, it's part of their identity. Many followed their fathers and grandfathers to work as steelworkers. It's a dangerous job, injuries were common, yet we have repaid these individuals and their families by taking away their hard-earned pensions.

In 1981, before you and I were born, Cabinet Secretary, workers at Allied Steel and Wire, not far from this location here, were called into the canteen separately and told by the directors that their company was beginning a new occupational pension scheme—one that had the full backing of the UK Government. They were told that this would allow a decent retirement package for them, and that their pensions were safe and fully protected by law, no matter what hardship the company might face in the future. However, by 1997, along came the Tony Blair Government. One of its first pledges was to put forward a tax pension by up to £10 billion in order to fill the Treasury. For Allied Steel and Wire, that was a bridge too far. By 2002 they went into receivership, making thousands of people unemployed.

To remedy its financial troubles, the receiver came to the decision to axe the pension scheme. Up until that point, workers were paid the pensions that they were promised, based on the length of service and the salary at time of retirement. This was stopped in exchange for what was called the wind-up scheme. This meant that it was no longer about fairness, or what pensioners were owed, but whatever the scheme could afford to pay out. 'Wind-up' is one term for it—an aptly named term for it, perhaps—another term is 'pension theft', and I believe that is a far more effective term for it.

The ASW workers were not the first nor the last to experience this injustice, this gutting of their pensions. Wind-ups were increasingly common in the early 2000s, and punished those who were most loyal and hard-working. You see, if someone was made redundant before the wind-up, then they were first in line to have their pensions paid, while those who were just about to become pensioners were left with the scraps. As BBC Panorama said in 2003, 'The truth is that Government legislation and the stock market had conspired against these workers.' ASW workers anxiously waited to see whether the pension pot that they had paid into with their own money for decades would return any of their hard-earned money.

A key aspect of this controversy is the different schemes the Government put in place to assist victims of this injustice, namely the pension protection fund and the financial assistance scheme. The pension protection fund by no means was perfect, but it was reliant on Government funding, and in face of a crisis, there was provision to reduce payment to pensioners, but to the 90 per cent. Whilst the financial assistance scheme had an arbitrary maximum payout of 90 per cent of the pension value, it was limited indexation, so that 90 per cent was gutted over the years by inflation. And if the value of a pension was largely due to assets, then you would only be permitted to a measly 25 per cent of the value of your shares of the assets in that payment scheme. This meant that pensioners lost 10 per cent of their pensions from the get-go, then more due to inflation, and on top of it all, many had to pay tax on the measly sum they received to the UK Government. For workers who had worked for decades, slaving away day after day in dangerous work, it is no wonder this faulty scheme led to protests across the UK.

In 2006, thanks to hard work by campaigners who are here today, and Baroness Altmann, the parliamentary ombudsman published a report on the misinformation of the then Labour Government, what they had said about the scheme. They said that the scheme would be fully funded, that pensions would be safe, that pensions would even be guaranteed. The ombudsman found that the official information provided by the UK Government was inaccurate, incomplete, unclear and inconsistent. Unsurprisingly, the report was instantly rejected by the UK Government. This then led to a long journey to the Court of Appeal, which ruled in 2008 that the Labour Government had acted unlawfully and irrationally. They had misled pensioners and after five years of battling, the Government finally caved and accepted the ombudsman's report. Surely, Llywydd, that should have been the end of the matter. Justice finally received after a long six-year battle. Yet the fight continues.

The ombudsman recommended that the Government offer compensation to lost pensions and the distress caused to the workers and their families. Yet today, in June 2024, many pensioners have not been reimbursed for the value that their pensions had lost. The UK Government still refuses to pay back the 10 per cent it took from these hard-working steelworkers. So here we are, 22 years after the event that set off this controversy, countless early day motions in the House of Commons, statements of opinion in the Senedd, protests in Cardiff, London, Brussels, Luxembourg, countless petitions to the Welsh and UK Government, and still they have not achieved justice. Do we really need another ITV drama to resolve this scandal?

This struggle for Cardiff workers has lasted so long that it's been through two generations of the Thomas family, my father being a constant voice in this battle from which I am glad to take on the mantle. It is strange to me that the Conservative Party are so keen to attract the votes of pensioners, and so keen to talk about quadruple lock, when they have been the ones presiding over this injustice for over a decade. Where was the quadruple lock on Welsh steelworker pensions? They have shown time and time again that they are not listening to working people.

While I am thankful that the UK pensions Minister met with the pensions action group in January of this year, it's clear to me that the UK Government wanted to move as slowly as possible. And I quote—this is what the pensions Minister said in oral evidence to the committee—

'I do not want the Committee to think, "Great, there is going some be some magnificent change occurring"—I have made that clear to the people I met as well—but there is a body of work now taking place to help me make further decisions.'

There isn't going to be a quick resolution. The reality is that successive Governments have had 20 years to put this right, to return indexation to pre-1997 pensions, to restore the 10 per cent that they stole. And so the fact that work is only now taking place is outrageous. Countless workers have died waiting for their pensions to be restored. I knew some of them—people like Billy Hill, people like Des Harris, a friend of my father's, and people like Stan Nubert, and his son is here present today. His son, Stefan, told me of the impact of this injustice on his father's health—stress, strokes, heart attacks, that took him, untimely, before his time. The impact this injustice has had on the relationship of the families of workers has gone on for too long. Families have collapsed under the strain, under the emotional and financial strain.

John Benson and Phil Jones, who are here today, have told me harrowing stories of literally visiting the death beds of their former comrades, only for them to ask, 'Well, how on earth will my widow, how on earth will my family, survive without the pension?'—hard-working individuals during their dying breath having to be worried and concerned about the well-being and the welfare of their family because the UK Government stole money from them. Some didn't even have money to pay for their own funerals. Some have, tragically, taken their own lives waiting to find justice. This is a scandal still unresolved, a scandal that has been going on—and everyone has known about it—for 22 years; widows still paying mortgages that should have been paid off decades ago.  

The polls are clear that there will be a Labour landslide in 15 days' time. Now, will the party founded and funded over the years by the workers, will they finally give the ASW steelworkers and their families the money that they are owed? Will they finally stand up for the workers who have supported them over the decades? Hopefully, this new Government will be far more receptive than previous Labour Governments and ultimately ensure that this injustice no longer continues. 

The financial assistance scheme was implemented with the aim of cutting costs for the UK Government without any regard to fairness, to chwarae teg. The UK Government misled pensioners and has been found guilty in court on numerous occasions for maladministration. It is our duty as parliamentarians to stand up for our constituents, to stand up for the steelworkers. Crucially, we need to hold this UK Government to account for what they have done. I hope that our Labour colleagues will join myself, the Allied Steel and Wire pensioners and other Members in this Chamber in sending a clear message to the incoming Government that the Allied Steel and Wire scandal should end now, that it's gone on for far too long, and that full pension rights should be restored to the hard-working steelworkers of Wales. Diolch yn fawr.

I'm very grateful to Rhys ab Owen for allowing me a minute of time, and it's particularly fitting given the fact that this journey for justice started in the building next door, in Tŷ Hywel, with a meeting organised by his father, with many of the workers that are here present there asking what could be done. To be honest with you, I didn't know, and I spent the whole of the night previously trying to think what could I say. And we managed to find a European directive from 1980 that hadn't been implemented, that said there should be a safety net for workers in precisely these circumstances, and successive Governments hadn't implemented it.

The first battle that we faced was actually convincing Community, which then, as now, is a union that has a history of being very loyal to the Labour Party, that they had to take on a Labour Government, a Labour Government that was refusing, even now, to implement that directive. And we won that first battle, and the union had to take that threat to a Labour Government, all the way, if necessary, to the European Court of Justice. And the 295,000 workers that are covered by the PPF now, the 145,000 workers covered by the FAS, none of those workers would have anything if it wasn't for that group of steelworkers in Cardiff that stood up for justice.

Time after time, the story of capitalism in these islands, and the story of the failure of our democracy, is the story of pension scandals: Murdoch and the Mirror Group, the Women Against State Pension Inequality, the way that the mineworkers have had the profit, the surplus, from their pension taken away by successive Governments—pension mis-selling scandal after pension mis-selling scandal. It says something about these countries in the UK, the way that we treat our workers, our older workers in retirement. It's that moral question that this incoming Labour Government now faces. I'm glad to see that they recognise, in their manifesto, the need to put the injustice to the mineworkers pension scheme finally to rights. But, surely, that same justice that is being offered to former miners should be offered to former steelworkers as well.

The Minister for Social Partnership to reply to the debate. Sarah Murphy.

Diolch, Llywydd. Let me start by saying that I am very grateful to Rhys ab Owen for tabling this short debate, and I thank Adam Price for his contribution to this debate. I also want to pay tribute to the former Allied Steel and Wire workers and their trade unions, who have campaigned for justice so resolutely for more than 20 years. I pay tribute to all of the campaigners, many of you in the Chamber today, those of you who are in the gallery, and also to those who have passed away without ever receiving justice. Because I have no hesitation, and Welsh Government has no hesitation, in calling out the injustice the Allied Steel and Wire pensioners have faced.

While state, personal and occupational pensions are a reserved matter, we have consistently and repeatedly called upon the UK Government to do the right thing and bring restorative justice to those former ASW workers. Successive UK Ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions have told us that they are content with the current pension protection regime, but the former ASW workers are not content, and we are not content. We are disappointed the UK Government has failed to secure the pensions justice for the former Allied Steel and Wire workers that they deserve, and I recognise the sense of betrayal that they must feel and that you have highlighted today in the Chamber.

These pensions are not a gift; they are deferred salary. The contributions were made in good faith by ASW workers in the expectation that they would receive security in retirement, not just for them, but also for their families. Those contributions should be honoured and honoured in full. These are workers who worked hard, paid in, and made provision for their retirement, but they have been let down, denied the value of pensions that they could reasonably have expected, and they have seen the purchasing power of those pensions further eroded by inflation.

We continue to be concerned that the welfare and well-being of all of the former steelworkers in Wales and, indeed, mineworkers, because the mineworkers' pension scheme is another example of pensions injustice—. Through no fault of their own, these people are receiving lower pensions than they expected. After more than 20 years, a rightful outcome is too long overdue. Whatever the outcome of the general election on 4 July, the incoming UK Government will have the opportunity to do the right thing and address this ongoing injustice. I will continue to call upon them to do so, along with all of you. Diolch.

Thank you to the Minister and thank you to everyone for that important debate. That brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 17:25.