Alan Johnson: Injustice of the brave trawlermen whose pensions were lost at sea

The statistics are scarcely believable.

Nine hundred ships lost at sea in the 150 years that Hull was the world’s principal fishing port.

Six thousand men lost – not just those who went down with their ship but others swept overboard as they worked 18-hour shifts on deck in temperatures of up to 40 degrees below freezing in the “distant” waters of Bear Island, Spitsbergen and the Barents Sea.

The mortality rate was 14 times higher than in coal mining. No city has ever built its wealth on an industry that killed so many of its citizens.

Before their involvement in the final Cod War with Iceland, distant water trawlermen had a remarkable role in the Cold War (a particularly apt term for them) as they fished close to where the Russian Northern Fleet was based.

The advantage of engaging Hull trawlers as “intelligence gatherers” was recognised at an early stage. The crew were issued with “I spy” silhouettes of various Russian ships and the skipper with cameras in order to report and record any sightings.

Indeed, I ascertained – in the words of a response from the Ministry of Defence to my Parliamentary question – that “in the Spring of 1972 an operation was attempted to recover a Soviet test missile which was believed to have landed in international waters in the Barents Sea. It was agreed that a trawler would provide a more discreet means than a Royal Navy Ship”.

So what happened to these brave patriotic men whose catch sometimes stretched to nuclear weapons?

Their industry collapsed in the mid-1970s when our government concluded the final Cod War by agreeing with Iceland that no UK vessels could fish within 200 miles of its coast.

Despite government promises of a “special scheme”, the men were classified as casual workers – thus they were not even entitled to the meagre payment available under the 1964 Redundancy Act.

They received no retraining, no redeployment and while the trawler-owners were given millions of pounds in decommissioning grants, not a penny was paid to the 5,000 affected trawlermen.

That injustice took over 20 years to rectify when the Labour Government in 1999 agreed to compensation in line with the demands of the British Fishermen’s Association (formed by the men themselves to pursue their claim).

However, one aspect, reflecting the Redundancy Act, insisted that if the men spent more than 12 weeks out of the industry, they lost compensation for the years preceding the break.

This adversely affected the claims of many families and eventually the Parliamentary Ombudsman ruled that it was unfair in an industry where all kinds of circumstances could prevent men from going to sea.

However, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has not implemented the ruling properly and this has led to a further investigation by the Ombudsman which will hopefully lead to a final settlement of this long and difficult struggle.

During the quest for compensation, a number of trawlermen told me they couldn’t recall receiving any money from the pension scheme that operated in the industry from 1961 until l979.

The scheme had been set up by the British Trawlers Federation and required the men to contribute six old pence (two-and-a-half pence) per sea day, while the employer contributed ninepence (four pence).

I traced the current trustees (Capital Cranfield) and insurers (Aviva – formerly Norwich Union) but the only records kept were the men’s surname, initials and date of birth. There were no National Insurance numbers and no addresses.

As a result, I discovered that there were 12,849 unpaid pensions covering the former distant water ports of Hull, Grimsby, Fleetwood and Aberdeen.

Since this came to light in late 2006, the “Find a Fisherman” campaign has traced around half of the men.

The remaining 6,837 will probably never be found.

There are also around 60 disputed cases where Aviva say payments were made up to 30 years ago, but in the absence of any proof and in a scheme where the money was rarely if ever paid directly to the pensioner, I am insisting that the benefit of the considerable doubt be given to the trawlermen.

I also believe that those responsible for this dreadful maladministration should provide compensation to scheme members.

I will be leading a Parliamentary debate to highlight this issue tonight. These men worked in the most arduous and hazardous occupation imaginable. Having been imperilled at work, they were discarded when the industry collapsed.

Now we find that thousands were denied the pension they contributed to.

Rarely can men who deserved so much, have been treated so abysmally.

Alan Johnson has donated his fee for this article to STAND – Hull’s fishing heritage organisation working to secure a final reminder to Hull’s fishing heritage.

Alan Johnson is the former Home Secretary. He has been Labour MP for Hull West and Hessle since 1997.