KENT MP Derek Wyatt is still pressing government ministers to improve the £400 million compensation package offered to members of stricken pension schemes, including former ASW Sheerness workers.

Mr Wyatt, Labour member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, intends to tell Alan Johnson, the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, that the offer needs to be improved to £2.5 billion over 20 years.

Mr Wyatt said: “My own figures suggest that with 70,000 people with pension deficits and the numbers growing daily that we will need £2.5 billion.”

He added: “I think £400 million will last about eight years and then we will have to top it up. This issue will not go away.”

Steel workers from Sheerness and their supporters were among protestors who stripped off in Brighton last month during the Labour Party conference to demand better compensation for their lost pensions.

The former ASW workers were among thousands of people nationally whose pensions disappeared when their firms went bust.

The Government is working on the £400 million compensation scheme, but protestors say the amount is not enough.

On Monday Mr Wyatt asked Pensions Minister Malcolm Wicks when ASW workers could expect to receive their first payment from the compensation scheme.

Mr Wicks said he hoped that legislation would be in place by May 2005 so that the first payments could be made soon afterwards.

Consultations were continuing with the groups of pension scheme members involved, he added.