A HISTORIC injustice which has kept thousands of former Barnsley miners from receiving their full pension has finally been remedied - and cabinet minister Ed Miliband headed to Barnsley to celebrate the change with union officials who have been championing the cause for years.

In Wednesday’s budget announcement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed that the government would stop receiving surplus cash from the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme (MPS) while policies are reviewed and £1.5bn which had previously been removed would be returned.

This cash injection comes from the Investment Reserve Fund, which was set up using profits from the scheme in 1992 to provide a buffer in case it went into deficit.

It is expected the investment - which was promised in the Labour Party’s election manifesto - will boost members’ pensions by 32 per cent, resulting in an average increase of £29 per week.

First introduced in 1952, the MPS was created for local miners to ensure they received a good pension after years of working in the coal mines and up until April 1975 members paid a flat-rate contribution of up to 20p per week.

However, following the privatisation of British Coal at the end of 1994, the then-Conservative government took over the role as guarantor for the MPS, with arrangements made whereby the government would take half of all profits in exchange for a guarantee that members would retain their benefits and in future would see them rise annually in line with inflation.

Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security, met with Barnsley South MP Stephanie Peacock - who has been fighting alongside miners for years - at the National Union of Minerworkers (NUM) building in the town centre on Thursday to hail the landmark announcement.

He told the Chronicle: “It makes a massive difference to lots of people financially.

“It’s the right thing to do - it’s not miners asking for the government to give them something, it’s something they should have had by right.

“I’m really glad we were able to honour it.

“People are cynical about politics - I understand the reasons - but the last government had 14 years and they did nothing.

“In less than four months we’ve made this a priority and we’ve acted.

“I hope it gives people a sense that politics can make a difference.

“I think it’s regrettable we weren’t able to do it earlier - one of the reasons we wanted to act so quickly on the investment reserve we’ve returned is because we didn’t want to hang around.

“We’ve got people who are relatively elderly, we didn’t want a long process - this was the big financial difference we could make.

“I really want to thank the trustees because they made this possible - I wish we could have done it earlier, but as soon as we got into government we acted.”

In Barnsley, 7,241 people will benefit from the bonus, making up more than six per cent of the total involved.

Out of those, 3,459 are in Barnsley South, 3,161 in Barnsley North and 621 in Penistone and Stocksbridge.

Since privatisation, it is believed that successive governments have received around £6bn from the MPS while never paying anything in, and despite a cross-party committee in April 2021 agreeing profits should no longer be taken, it has continued until this week.

Reviews on the future of the surplus arrangement are set to take place, and while Mr Miliband confesses that he can’t predict how it will go, he acknowledged that ‘we recognise the injustice’ of the current agreement.

Chris Kitchen, general secretary of the NUM, said: “This means people will have a little bit more money, which is always helpful especially at times when money’s tight.

“But more than that it’s a recognition that the way that the government guarantee was done was to victimise us.

“It was a spiteful act to close the scheme down and ringfence money for themselves.

“We’re happy the Labour government made good on its promise in relation to the Investment Reserve Fund - we’ve still got to sort out the 50-50 share arrangement.

“I take people as I find them - the fact that within four months of being elected they’ve made good on this pledge has given me more confidence that they will make good on the rest.”

Ms Peacock added: “I am delighted that after years of campaigning this Labour government has delivered justice for miners’ pensions.

“The delivery of our manifesto commitment will mean miners will see an increase in their pension and a long overdue end to the scandal which saw the government profiting.

“Thousands of miners and their families will be better off in Barnsley as a result of this change.”