Today’s announcement by the DWP to extend the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) to 140,000 workers who lost their pensions, including thousands of ex-Allied Steel & Wire workers in Cardiff West, has been welcomed by Kevin Brennan MP, Julie Morgan MP and Rhodri Morgan AM.

Kevin Brennan MP for Cardiff West said: “Following the tragedy of the Allied Steel & Wire workers in Cardiff which employed hundreds of my constituents, who lost their pensions when their employer went bust, in 2003 I introduced an amendment to the Pensions Bill that set up the Financial Assistance Scheme, to extend the benefit of the Pension Protection Fund to those workers whose pension schemes had already collapsed when their employer went bust.

“I am delighted that today’s announcement will extend the FAS to all those workers who have lost their pensions in this way, since Labour came to power in 1997. It is a real success that ex-ASW workers, trade unions – especially Community and Amicus - and politicians can be proud of achieving”.

Julie Morgan MP for Cardiff North said: “In 2007 I introduced an Amendment in the House that proposed to give the equivalent of the Pension Protection Fund to the 140,000 workers who lost their pensions. This is the Christmas present that all the ex-employees of ASW in Cardiff have been waiting for. We have never given up campaigning, they have never stopped campaigning. Finally we have got justice. We have always felt that everyone in Cardiff was behind us because right was on our side. I’m pleased we have got there in the end”.

Rhodri Morgan AM for Cardiff West said: “This has been a long and hard struggle to get justice not only for the ex-employees of ASW, who have campaigned doggedly to have their lost pensions effectively reinstated, but for everyone else, especially in the Cardiff area, who have spearheaded this campaign not just on their own behalf but for everyone else who has lost their pension entitlements in the period before the Pension Protection Fund came in”.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

• This press release has been issued by James Knight on behalf of Kevin Brennan MP for Cardiff West.

• For more information please email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

• Details of the announcement can be found at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases/2007/dec/pens51-171207.asp