Business of the House

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this matter. It is something that has been raised with me a number of times by various Members across the Chamber. Keeping to times is important. There is flexibility with some questions sessions and so on. They tend to be a matter for the Chair in each session, but if my hon. Friend wants to raise this issue again with the Chair of the Procedure Committee, it might be appropriate that the Committee looks at it further to see whether there is anything more that we need to do.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the whole House a very merry Christmas.

The Government have taken more than £4 billion out of the mineworkers’ pension scheme over the past two decades, yet they have not paid in a single penny. May we have an urgent debate in Government time to discuss this unfair surplus sharing arrangement and how we can get a better deal for miners and their families?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. As I recall from my time as an Energy Minister, there was a clearly agreed sharing arrangement whereby the Government undertook to underwrite certain returns for mineworkers in return for which, should there be surpluses, some of that would go back to the taxpayer. I believe that that is the point to which she alludes, but we do have Work and Pensions questions on the first day back, 7 January, and I encourage her to raise it directly with Ministers there.