Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Pension Protection Fund’s rescue of the employee pension schemes operated by Bernard Matthews Limited has resulted in loss of any pension rights of the members of those schemes.

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) is a scheme, set up by the Labour government and continued by all successive governments, that pays compensation to members of eligible Defined Benefit pension schemes, whose sponsoring employer has become insolvent and where there are insufficient funds in the scheme to secure benefits at or above the level of PPF compensation. It was never intended to replicate in full the pension rights of schemes that, as a result of their employer’s insolvency, do not have sufficient assets to secure the pension benefits initially promised to their members. The usage of the PPF, when the Bernard Matthews Pension Fund transferred to the PPF did not result in any capping of members benefits.