The Solution

Now there is an opportunity to put things right, equitable to all parties

Fortunately, despite all that has happened, there is at the moment a real opportunity to resolve the AEAT pension scandal which:

allows the government to do (and be seen doing) the right thing
does not involve any taxpayers' money
does not increase (might even decrease) the PPF's liability
would be straightforward to implement

The Pension Schemes Bill currently making its way through Parliament provides a perfect vehicle for this.

It's a no-cost solution!

In 2012, when AEA Technology went into administration, the assets of the pension scheme were invested cautiously by the trustees. They were handed to the PPF in 2016.

Those very assets are now worth twice what is needed to make good the pensions that we have already lost, and to fund in future the pensions that we earned and paid for. That's after allowing for the payments PPF has already made to us.

PPF is not funded by the government or the taxpayer, but the government controls what PPF can pay. All we need is for the government to grant permission to PPF to implement this solution.

Why should government do this?

It would show that recent statements by the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury were not just empty words.
They would be respecting the carefully considered, impartial findings of the NAO and the two select committees.
It will not cost the taxpayer anything.
They would be tackling injustice and doing the RIGHT THING!

This government “will be the catalyst for a changed culture in the public sector, improve transparency and accountability, change the culture of defensiveness in the public sector and make sure the public is truly at the heart of the public sector.”

The Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer

8 July 2024

Precedents for this action

In 2025 the government announced a 'carve-out', boosting British Coal managers' pensions by 40% with £2.3bn of pension money which the government had retained at privatisation in 1994. Note that the government also kept more than half the pension money when AEAT was privatised in 1996, but they are not returning it to us.
In 2013 the government introduced its 'Fair Deal for Pensions', allowing transferred employees to stay in their Public Sector Pension Scheme - this is the FAIR DEAL. They disdainfully tell us they've done this to ensure that the AEAT scandal could not happen again!
AWE (Atomic Weapons Establishment) employees originally had a scheme similar to (in fact, derived from) the UKAEA scheme. In 1993, AWE staff and their pensions were transferred to the private sector. In 2022 the government granted a Crown guarantee to the private company scheme.

Why our case is exceptional

Before privatisation, government gave us, and parliament, assurances on our pension security.
The AEA Act 1995 required the new pension provisions to be "no less favourable". They were not, because the UKAEA provisions included a government guarantee; the AEAT scheme did not.
The unique 1996 Note we received from the Government Actuary advised us not to consider the security of the new AEAT pension scheme, in making our decisions.
No ombudsman is permitted to investigate this.
The National Audit Office produced an independent factual report on AEAT pensions in 2023.
Based on this, the Public Accounts Committee concluded "Civil servants who transferred their pensions to AEA Technology were badly informed by the government at the time, with some losing considerable sums."
The Works and Pensions Committee agreed, and said that the government should ensure "an adequate means of redress" for AEAT pensioners.