FINANCIAL TIMES PENSION SCHEME

That this House is concerned about the continued lack of adequate protections for final salary or defined benefit pension schemes where companies are taken over; notes that when Pearson Group sold the Financial Times to Nikkei, workers were told that the terms of the pension scheme would be fair and equivalent under the new ownership; further notes that for some the changes introduced to the pension scheme will mean a shortfall amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds over a 20-year retirement; calls on the new management to enter meaningful negotiations with representatives of the National Union of Journalists over alternative proposals; supports the right of workers at the Financial Times to take industrial action in the absence of any such negotiations; and further calls on the Government to commit to a thorough review of protection for the private pension arrangements of workers across the private sector.