FOR over 25 years I have been proud to represent the constituency of Hemsworth. 

Hemsworth is a special constituency with a special history. I represent over 20 villages, many of which have historic links to the pits. 

South Kirkby, Frickley, Kinsley, Sharlston and Ackton Hall Colliery in Featherstone are all situated in my constituency. For decades, these were huge employers in this part of Yorkshire. 

Here the mining industry became the lifeblood of the small communities that sprang up around the collieries. 

These mines and the miners within them fuelled the first industrial revolution. 

Mineworkers sacrificed their health working in dark and dangerous conditions to create the nation’s wealth — wealth that is unfairly distributed.

These miners are owed a debt of gratitude and honour for their labour. Miners and their families deserve financial security in their retirement.  

A proper pension pot in retirement to reflect decades of service should not be an aspiration. This is an integral part of any fair and just society. 

Working in a laborious industry fraught with risk, miners have earned the right to a proper payout in their later years. 

Disgracefully, thanks to the Tories, this has not come to pass. 

The Tories made a conscious political choice to continue their attack on the working class when they privatised British Coal in 1994. 

Since then, the state has stripped out of the pension pot 50 per cent of any surplus in the value of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme. 

As a result, the Treasury has reportedly pocketed £4.4 billion without putting any money back in as guarantor of the scheme. 

That £4.4bn is money that should have gone to miners and their families.

The state and beneficiaries of this pension scheme should not be receiving a 50:50 split in the sharing of surplus from the scheme. 

It is the miners who toiled away down the pit, creating the wealth and prosperity so enjoyed by the British state. 

And this is the thanks they get? 

The elites may forget but it is the working class who built this nation. The state has not earned the right to half of this surplus. 

This arrangement has had a damaging impact on a number of ex-miners. 

Some have been left scrimping and saving due to the lack of financial support from their pension. The current weekly average payment of £84 is an insult. 

This is completely wrong and must be remedied immediately. 

I was proud to stand on a Labour manifesto in 2019 that pledged to introduce new sharing arrangements for the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme. 

Had Labour been elected, we would have ensured 90 per cent of any surplus stayed with the miners. Just 10 per cent would have gone to the government. 

Of course, we know what happened at the election. That the Tories chose not to adopt our policy of restructuring the pension scheme is depressingly unsurprising.  

However it does once again offer an insight into the contempt with which the ruling class views miners. 

The Tories and ruling class are no friends of the miners. It is the ruling class who dismantled the mining industry, leaving a trail of towns and villages throughout the north without sufficient investment.  

It is the ruling class who for decades have rejected calls for a public inquiry into Orgreave. 

And it is the ruling class who for over a quarter of a century have withheld half of all profits from the pension scheme for miners. 

Let’s call this out for what it is. Aspects of a long-waged war on the working classes. 

It is testament to the fighting spirit of all those campaigning on this issue that finally on March 23, the business, energy and industrial strategy select committee in Parliament agreed to conduct an inquiry into the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme. 

Specifically, the inquiry will examine the scheme’s surplus-sharing arrangements. 

It is vital that the inquiry rules the current 50:50 split is grossly unfair and inappropriate. 

In doing so, this would be the first step in putting right the injustice all miners and their families have suffered from the administration of this scheme. 

Miners have fought for justice their whole lives. For their industry, their communities and all those who have stood in solidarity with them. 

This is no different. We may be governed by a Tory government that views the working class with disdain. But we have a strong movement. A movement that through continual pressure has forced this inquiry. 

Many of the men affected by this injustice will be elderly now. They paid their fair share into this scheme while they worked. It is high time they received their proper share out of it too.