BRITISH COAL STAFF SUPERANNUATION SCHEME

That this House is concerned at British Coal's attempt to raise the financial costs of its recently announced redundancy programme by the removal of ú481 million from its staff pension scheme; sees such action as being totally unacceptable and not in the best interests of the present 13,300 contributors to the scheme, nor the 55,000 former contributors, 19,000 widows and other dependants currently receiving payments from its resources; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to act immediately to direct British Coal to desist from this attempted robbery of mineworkers' pension funds for its own ends.