On December 5, 2017, I secured a debate on the Mineworkers Pension Scheme in Parliament, speaking about how miners in communities like ours deserved a better deal from their pension pots.

I’d raised the issue previously, but this was an opportunity to speak at length about the injustice, to put the case forward for mineworkers and their families, and to explain about how, coming from a coalmining family in a coalmining area, I knew just how important this was.

I’m named after three colliers, my uncles on my mother’s side - Nicholas, Desmond and John.

I have family members who were badly injured working underground.

I remember the 1974 coal strike, helping my Uncle Dessie pick coal off the patches high above Tredegar.

Mining runs deep in my family, like so many other families across our valleys. The mining industry may be gone, but our communities are still populated by men like my uncles, men who toiled deep underground for decades, doing difficult, dangerous work to keep our country running. We owed them a debt of gratitude and fair deal.

Over the next seven years, alongside fellow coalfield MPs, I helped spearhead the campaign.

I posed questions in the House many times over. I wrote letters calling for action, signed and supported by scores of fellow MPs. I challenged Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he failed to fulfil a promise made during the 2019 election.

In 2021 a Select Committee inquiry we secured agreed with our recommendations, only for the case to be ultimately rejected by the Tory Government.

These are just a few examples of the years of campaigning, work that culminated in a pledge in our UK Labour 2024 manifesto - “Labour will end the injustice of the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme.”

In October, our Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves MP announced in her budget that the £1.5bn mineworkers’ pension fund would be handed over to ex-miners and their families.

I was grateful that Rachel referred to my campaigning on this issue, and so pleased for the mineworkers and their families.

Now, across Wales, 13,156 pension scheme members, 1622 in Blaenau Gwent & Rhymney (the highest number by area in the country), are receiving a 32% increase to their annual pension, an average increase of £29 per week.

This has been a long campaign, ending with a positive result and a strong demonstration of what a Labour Government can do when we are able to put our values into action.

Nick Smith is the MP for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney