By signing this petition, you are sending a clear message to both the Government and pension-sponsoring companies: they must work together immediately to restore pre-1997 pensions to the full level they would be at if inflation-linked rises had been applied over the decades they were frozen. In many cases, this requires doubling current payouts to undo years of compound erosion.

Please watch our campaign video: "We Wanna Pay More Tax —  HPPA Version"  https://youtube.com/shorts/27YYc6DUbTY?si=LaqnAvto4T3IzS1b

The Issue
My pension isn't just a standard calculation—throughout my career, I actively invested in my retirement by transferring in prior pensions, paying Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs), and putting £10,000 of my voluntary redundancy package directly into the fund. Yet, because of the lack of pre-1997 indexation, decades of inflation have severely eroded the real purchasing power of those contributions.

I am far from alone. Roughly one million UK retirees face this exact injustice. While the Government’s 2026 Pension Schemes Act aims to reform Defined Benefit (DB) schemes, it leaves a significant minority behind—the 17% of schemes that do not receive regular pre-1997 indexation. Simply allowing companies "discretionary" increases going forward freezes in decades of lost purchasing power.

The Pre-97 Pension Justice Alliance represents pensioners from DB schemes across 12 major international companies:

Wood Group
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
ST Microelectronics
ATOS/SEMA
AMEX
AIG
Pfizer
3M
Chevron
NCR Atleos
Lloyds Register
Nissan
In a letter dated 6 July, Pensions Minister Torsten Bell acknowledged a comment from a fellow MP that "the Government recognises that the absence of indexation on pension rights, accrued before 1997, can erode the value of pensions over time, and affect members who rely on these benefits in retirement."

He added that reforms will allow well-funded schemes to share surpluses so employers can negotiate "discretionary indexation."

We welcome the intent of these reforms. However, 30 years of corporate policy prove that a tentative framing of "could and should" changes nothing. Unless secondary legislation includes firm, statutory requirements ("must"), this injustice will persist for 750,000 pensioners in active DB schemes—and nearly a million when including those in the PPF and FAS.

Sign this petition to demand the DWP and pension-sponsoring companies fully restore pre-1997 pensions to their rightful, inflation-adjusted level.

(Music Credit: Music audio generated using Suno (suno.com). Many thanks!)