> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # ‘Blindsided’ Burnham ‘furious’ as Treasury U-turns on miners’ pension boost - URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/burnham-furious-u-turn-miners-pensions-healey-budget-treasury/ - Published: 2026-10-30T20:53:52.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-30T21:29:59.000Z - Description: PM ‘clashed’ with Healey over 11th-hour decision that may mean thousands of ex-miners never see promised cash - Author: Ethan Shone - Tags: Budget 2026, miners, John Healey, Andy Burnham, Labour Party More than a hundred thousand retired miners who expected their pensions to rise by up to 20% next month have been left with no timetable for the payment, after a last-minute Treasury U-turn that senior Labour sources say left the prime minister “furious”. openDemocracy understands the government may now be unable to transfer the funds it promised until next year – a delay that means thousands of miners could pass away without ever seeing the money. When British Coal was privatised in 1994, the government agreed to guarantee the two primary miners' pensions if the funds they had been paying into ever fell into deficit. In exchange, the Treasury demanded 50% of any investment surplus. The funds performed well enough that the government never had to pay a penny into them, but still got access to the reserves. Miners have lost out on more than £4.4bn as a result, according to the National Union of Mineworkers. As chancellor, Rachel Reeves released the funds for the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme, whose members were generally better-paid, non-mining staff. Based on assurances from ministers, campaigners and coalfield MPs expected that Healey would do the same for the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme this week, freeing up more than £1bn according to MPs’ estimates. But in a meeting on Tuesday, Treasury officials told the trustees the money would not be released after all, blaming government accounting rules. Senior Labour sources told openDemocracy that Andy Burnham was “blindsided” by the decision, which he and Healy “clashed” over. The Treasury did not directly comment on these allegations, and Downing Street had not responded to our questions at the time of publication. Burnham made the dispute part of his Makerfield by-election campaign earlier this year, pledging to “keep fighting” to make sure “every penny reaches the people it is meant for”. Believing the deal would be signed off at the Budget, trustees of the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme (MPS) had lined up a bonus to be added to members’ December pension payments, following months of negotiations with ministers, coalfield MPs, and the National Union of Mineworkers. The pension boost would have been funded by the government renouncing its claim to the scheme's guarantor's fund, and would not have cost the taxpayer anything. Now, the former miners have been left with no timetable for payment. The MPS estimates that more than 5,000 of its members, many of whom are ageing and suffer health problems related to their former profession, pass away every year. Any delay means many more pensioners will never see the additional funds they were promised. The National Union of Mineworkers understands that the remaining funds can only be released at a fiscal event such as a Budget. If correct, this would likely mean the earliest money can be released will now be well into next year. Chris Kitchen, the NUM’s general secretary, told openDemocracy: “We're frustrated that money that could be used to mitigate cost of living pressures and benefit the country now is still locked up, doing no good for anybody.” The Treasury would not respond to openDemocracy’s questions on what prompted the last-minute U-turn. Instead, it pointed only to remarks the prime minister made earlier this week: “Nothing's gone wrong. The commitment is in no way diminished.” In the interview cited by the Treasury, Burnham added that the Budget “didn't give us all of the room for manoeuvre that we would have wanted”, and that the fund “does have to be scored on the public balance sheet and that is part of the challenge that we've got”. ### **‘Heard loud and clear’** When he made his first conference speech as chancellor in Liverpool last month, Healey referred throughout to a miner's lamp that sits on a shelf in his home. “Those miners,” he said, “didn't just use their lamps to light their own steps, they shone them to help others.” But as he drained his pint at the Two Chairmen pub in Westminster on Wednesday evening, celebrating his first Budget in traditional style, many of his Labour colleagues' inboxes were filling up with angry correspondence from those same miners. Labour activists canvassing in coalfield constituencies in the days after the Budget told openDemocracy the issue has already come up frequently on the doorstep, and the party’s coalfield MPs have since engaged in three days of fierce lobbying of the Treasury, both in public and behind the scenes. On Friday afternoon, Labour whips sent the party’s MPs a briefing promising to meet with coalfield MPs “in the coming weeks” – but set out no date for releasing the money. The briefing, which openDemocracy has seen, said that Healey, chief secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds and reindustrialisation minister Blair McDougall had “heard loud and clear the representations” and would work with MPs, trustees and the National Union of Mineworkers “to find a resolution”. But this resolution may come too late for many former miners. In a letter sent to his MP and shared with openDemocracy, a retired miner from Yorkshire asked: “Are we seriously expected to believe that an accounting problem significant enough to prevent the agreement being implemented was not identified until the final hours before the Budget? “Many MPS members are now elderly. Some will never live to benefit from another pension increase if these delays continue,” he added. “Blaming accounting rules at the very last moment is simply not good enough.” Jon Trickett, the MP for Normanton and Hemsworth, was among the coalfield MPs who lobbied No 10, the Treasury and the whips on the eve of the Budget. “The apparent last-minute decision by the chancellor to make changes to the miners’ pension promise has sparked anger and puzzlement in the coal mining areas I represent,” he told openDemocracy. “Whilst I wholly welcome the good intentions of the Prime Minister, people are telling me that it’s time to deliver what was promised, sooner rather than later. I will continue to press hard for an immediate decision. Nothing less will do.” In his Budget speech on Wednesday, Healey did end the 50:50 split of future surpluses between the government and members, telling MPs: “For ex-mineworkers, I'm guaranteeing that every penny of the pension fund surplus now goes to miners. I know the job's not done, and I will go on to ensure the full transfer of the guarantors' fund.” The chancellor also abolished the “standstill” rule, under which bonus pensions could be frozen if the scheme fell into deficit. But, unlike the release of the guarantor’s fund, neither of these measures will put extra money in former miners’ pockets before the end of the year. “The money in the MPS guarantors fund is not taxpayers' money,” the NUM said in a statement on Wednesday. "It is the remaining ill-gotten gains from an unfair system put in place that has penalised members of the MPS for the last 31 years.” ### **‘Second-class deal’** The trustees say the accounting explanation is hard to square with last year’s decision to transfer £2.3bn to members of the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme, which covers non-mining staff from the industry and already pays higher pensions. Gary Saunders, chair of the MPS trustees, said they were “very disappointed” that the chancellor had decided “just hours before the Budget announcement” not to go ahead, “even though a deal had been worked on extensively by both sides for months and was ready to sign”. “What is hard to understand is how members of the MPS have been left with a second-class deal compared to the higher pensioned members in the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme,” he said. Allen Young, speaking for the scheme's elected trustees, said: “One month ago, the Chancellor said that miners' lamps are a symbol of hope, but today he confirmed that there is still no light at the end of the tunnel for MPS members.” The Treasury’s Emma Reynolds has defended the package. “This government has done more than any other government to do right by our mineworkers,” [she told *PoliticsHome*](https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/government-holding-talks-labour-mps-after-miner-pensions-backlash?ref=opendemocracy.net) after the budget. “We still have the outstanding issue of the guarantor's fund, which we're working closely with Labour MPs on.”