National Bus pension surplus case nears its end

The long-running legal dispute over ownership of the pension fund surplus from the scheme of the privatised National Bus Company should be over by the autumn.

Transport minister Keith Hill told the House of Commons earlier this month that the trustees of the scheme are due to seek Court approval in the summer to allow them to distribute the surplus by the autumn.

Around £355 million is owed to some 50,000 former busworkers. Bill Morris, general secretary of the T&G transport union, said: "At long last, the four-year battle against legal bureaucracy has been won, with the Labour government undoing the injustice done by the last Tory government."

The surplus had been removed from the scheme at the time of privatisation in 1986. A 1996 ruling by the Pensions Ombudsman that the money should be returned was rejected by the then Conservative administration. Although the Labour government initially appeared reluctant to resolve the matter, at a Labour Party conference speech in 1998 Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott made a commitment to ensure that the money would be returned.