SITTINGBOURNE and Sheppey MP Derek Wyatt will be having talks with the ASW Pensions Group to work out a schedule of activities leading up to the second reading of the Pensions Bill.

He hopes they will "campaign like fury" to make sure some kind of payment is made to those whose pensions are in administration.

Although the bill - likely to be introduced in the House of Commons in January or early in February - will protect members of occupational pensions schemes, it will not be retrospective.

So it will not compensate those members of the ASW Sheerness Steel scheme who lost out when ASW went into receivership and then found their pension entitlement would be much less than expected.

In a message to those fighting for pensions' justice, Mr Wyatt says it is possible that amendments could be made at second reading to cover compensation issues for the ASW workers and others in up to 200 schemes who have suffered a similar plight.

But it would be better to seek amendments at the later committee stage, he says.

Mr Wyatt says he has applied to sit on the committee stage, though that was in the gift of the whips of the main parties.

In the outstanding court case regarding European Union legislation, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and Amicus trade unions are confident of victory, he says.

But time is an issue. "It is likely to take two further years unless the Government concedes," stressed Mr Wyatt.

His "neatest solution" to the whole affair would be to announce the setting up of an inquiry into occupational pensions schemes are in trouble and to find ways to solve compensation problems.

If that could be done within eight to 12 months, he says, compensation would then be payable on the same date that the new Insurance Act came into play - April 5, 2005.