SITTINGBOURNE and Sheppey MP Derek Wyatt will meet ASW Sheerness pension campaigners on Friday, June 4, to discuss the Government’s proposed £400 million trust fund.

The fund aims to compensate workers who lost their pensions, but last Wednesday Mr Wyatt asked Pensions Minister Malcolm Wicks if more cash could be found to supplement it.

After the House of Commons debate, Mr Wyatt said the Government’s amendment to its Pensions Bill, which was approved, would go out to affected pensions groups for consultation until June 30.

He added: “It’s very complicated. We have just got to make sure that there’s enough money in the pot. One of the leading pensions experts we have been consulting thinks there should be enough.”

The compensation was not needed tomorrow, in most cases, but would be needed when people who were now aged 50 reached 65, he added.

Mr Wyatt said the Government’s fund would cover members of the ASW Sheerness pension scheme because they had to join the ASW scheme as a condition of employment.

However, several affected company pension schemes were set up differently and these had to be checked for eligibility.

About 60,000 workers nationally found their pensions disappeared when their firms went broke and their pension schemes were wound up.

The Government’s Pensions Bill originally aimed to protect workers whose pension scheme were wound up in future, but a sustained campaign by victims including more than 300 former ASW pension fund members, Mr Wyatt and other MPs led to the Goverment proposing retrospective help for those who had already lost their pensions.

Blob: Earlier last Wednesday (May 19) MrWyatt lost his slot in Prime Minister’s Question Time when the session was suspended because of a protest in the House of Commons public gallery.

Mr Wyatt was due to ask Tony Blair if the Government would increase the £400 million trust fund.

But the session was interrupted when protestors in the public gallery threw purple powder at the Prime Minister.

Two men who are members of Fathers 4 Justice, a group seeking better access rights to their children, were arrested and charged with threatening behaviour.