THE government is set to take a further £549 million from a miners' pension fund, it has been revealed.

The funds will be taken from the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme as a result of it declaring a surplus of £1 billion.

But the move has provoked a political storm - with criticism from Plaid Cymru. However, energy minister Peter Hain has defended the move, saying that this is what the trustees of the pension fund have agreed.

The government acts as guarantor for both the BCSSS and the Mineworkers' Pension Fund, which entitles the Treasury to claim up to 50 per cent of the surplus in each scheme. The money is paid in annual instalments over ten years.

Together with the surpluses from the three previous valuations of the two funds, the government now stands to take a total of £412 million a year - £196 million from the MPS and £216 million from the BCSSS.

This money will be used towards paying miners' compensation for chest diseases contracted in the pits.

Bleddyn Hancock, general secretary of mining union NACODS South Wales and Plaid Cymru's prospective parliamentary candidate for Pontypridd, said: "Yet again the government is dipping into our pension funds and slashing the amount of pension increase that can be paid as a result of this surplus.

"NACODS South Wales area will be taking legal advice on this issue. "It is disgraceful that the government is taking the miners' own pension money to pay them their compensation for chest diseases.

"This money could have given our members a much bigger pensions increase." Energy minister Peter Hain responded by saying: "This is a typically cheap Nationalist stunt based on wrong information.

"The scheme's trustees don't want to change the arrangements because it guarantees increasing pensions into the future in a way that no other private pension scheme does." He added that he and the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, were currently exploring how they can give increases to mineworker pension holders.

"In particular to give significant improvements for those on extremely low pensions, especially those who retired before 1975," Mr Hain said.