Early Day Motion

Edinburgh West MP Mike Crockart has put down an Early Day Motion at Westminster calling on Heineken to meet the pledge it made in 2008.  This was reported in The Scotsman as follows:

MP turns up heat over Heineken pensions deal

By Nathalie Thomas
Published on Monday 30 January 2012 00:00

Politicians have increased the pressure on Dutch brewer Heineken following allegations that it broke a pledge to pensioners of Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) in the wake of its takeover of the Edinburgh-based com–pany in 2008. 

Mike Crockart, MP for Edinburgh West, has tabled an early day motion calling for Heineken to justify its position amid claims that the Dutch giant reneged on a commitment to continue the practice of providing inflation-linked pension increases.

The company failed to make an inflation-linked payment in 2010 when the cost of living exceeded 4 per cent, causing an uproar among tens of thousands of S&N pensioners who claimed they received a “raw deal”.

Heineken denies it has broken any pledges, arguing that payments have been explicitly “discretionary” and that the decision taken in 2010 was based on the outlook for the pension fund at the time.

By contrast, campaign organisation S&N Pensions Group claims: “The public undertaking given by Heineken at the time of the S&N acquisition was unequivocal and clear.”

In the motion, Crockart also calls on the UK government to take stronger steps to protect British pensioners in situations where their employer is bought by a foreign company.

The pensions ombudsman is to investigate the allegations.

AGM

The S&N Pensions Group (SNPG Ltd)

 Dear Colleague

This is an invitation to all interested members of the Scottish & Newcastle Pension Plan to attend an annual general meeting of the S&N Pensions Group at the French Institute, 13 Randolph Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 7TT at 10.00am on Friday 16^th December 2011.

The purpose of the meeting is to enable the members of the working party to report to you on action taken and progress made during 2011, to discuss the way forward and to elect a working party for 2012 to carry on the work.

The working party would be delighted to involve new members so if you would like to become involved please put your name forward by email to snpensiongroup@aol.co.uk

It would help greatly with the admin if you would let us know if you plan to attend – again by email to snpensiongroup@aol.co.uk

We look forward to meeting you on the day.

John Dalgety

Chairman, The S&N Pensions Group

Director, SNPG Ltd

S&N Pensions Group, AGM

10.00am 16^th December 2011

French Institute, 13 Randolph Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 7TT

AGENDA 

1 Introduction & welcome                                                                                                    

2 Minutes AGM 17^th December 2010 - available on snpensionsgroup.com website           

3 Reports 2011 

3.1 Financial                                                                                                

3.2 Publicity                                                                                                                   

3.3 Progress towards the involvement of the Pensions Ombudsman                      

3.4 Political progress                                                                                                      

3.5 Discussions with the Company & Trustees                                                                             

3.6 Website and membership                                                                                   

3.7 Legal environment                                                                                                  

4 Planned action 2012                                                                                                                   

5 Election of office bearers / committee for 2012

 Chairman

 Spokesperson

 Finance

 Publicity

 Website

 Legal

 General

 Nominations by 30^th November 2011 by email to snpensiongroup@aol.co.uk

6 Any Other Business – proposals by 30^th November 2011 by email to snpensiongroup@aol.co.uk

2.5% increase & Ombudsman letters

Heineken's recent announcement of making a 2.5% increase in discretionary pensions from November, while welcome, is only half the inflation rate at July 2011 as measured by the growth in the Retail Price Index. It follows last year when no increase at all was made.

 
Heineken's undertaking in 2008 at the time of the takeover of S&N was that they intended to continue the long standing S&N practice of providing discretionary increases each year in line with retail price inflation (capped at 5%) for pensions built up in the scheme before 1997. For the second year running they have failed to honour this undertaking.
 
Since Heineken took over S&N in 2008, those pensioners who have to rely solely on discretionary increases in their S&N pension to protect them from the effects of inflation have seen their real incomes fall by 6%.

Even more than ever we need the Ombudsman to investigate all the circumstances surrounding this issue. You can find out how to do this in the Resources page of our website:http://www.snpensionsgroup.com/snresources/ . Additionally, we have very recently been advised to send a covering letter with our formal complaints to the Ombudsman stating that, as well as our own complaint, we wish to adopt the arguments contained in SNPG’s correspondence with the Trustee - see section 8 of http://www.snpensionsgroup.com/snresources/. This document should then be sent with your application to the Ombudsman. We are advised to do this for all new complaints to the Ombudsman as well as those that have already been sent when it can be added retrospectively.

It's now time to write to the Ombudsman - see Resources page for details.

Select Committee to Investigate

In June we made a submission to the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee of the House of Commons - the same Parliamentary committee which investigated the Kraft takeover of Cadbury. The Committee has decided it will look at our case as part of its wide-ranging inquiry into corporate governance, anticipated to take place in the Autumn. This decision was reported in The Times, The Scotsman and the Newcastle Journal.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/consumer/article3088924.ece (subscription)

http://business.scotsman.com/business/Parliament-to-probe-Heineken-over.6798481.jp