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Letter from the Chairman – Autumn 2025

We had a really hot summer in Aberdeen, with temperatures verging on 30 deg C – incredible! Even more so, when the western half of Scotland was having the wettest season for quite a while, but it was a good summer for us, with only April spoiling months of continuous hot weather!

The pace of pension issues has been pretty hot this year too! No sooner had we had a meeting with Mr Simon Owens, the Chairman of the Pension Plan Trustees and found several areas of common ground, than the Company announced the disbandment of the Trustee Board, in favour of a Professional Corporate Sole Trustee.

As I write this letter at the start of October (can you believe that! October already!), news has leaked out that the Company have now signed a contract with a firm called IGG (International Governance Group) in London, with three people nominated as a team to look after Chevron’s UK ‘Professional Corporate Sole Trustee’ business.

Neil Jones, our Vice Chairman, recently met with Ms Harriet Wu (General Manager, Total Rewards) on her June visit to London. Although Neil pressed her on the supplementation issue, much of the meeting was taken up with the PSCT appointment, as everyone is trying to understand this development.

While we accept that the Company is legally entitled to bring in this change, we are very concerned about our future pensions representations to the Company and also deeply regret and disagree the loss of the three MND trustee directors.

The very latest news is that we understand from 1 October, two Trustee Directors including the former Chairman, have been retained, to work alongside IGG for the immediate future. The other two Trustee Directors have resigned. Almost the end of an era indeed.

As always, CUKPA has been continuing to pressure the Company on a pension supplementation as soon as possible, given that we consider Chevron Pensioners to be now some 12-16% behind where they should be.

We have been pushing Ms Harriet Wu on this issue in several letters written to San Ramon, we have also been pushing Ashley Sanders in London (Pensions Manager UK) too, during our regular MSTeams calls every few months.

We had a very good Committee meeting in London in July in a new location – the Grand Union Studios in Ladbroke Grove. Sounds very grand, but it was a functional meeting room at a reasonable price, so it was fine. Very hot, until we got to grips with the air conditioning system!

As always in our committee meetings, we covered a lot of ground, including the latest news on the Professional Corporate Sole Trustee situation. At that point, the Trustees remained in place, but as I mentioned earlier, from I October 2025, IGG are in place, with two remaining Trustees for the time being.

We have also recently discussed CUKPA’s own financial situation and whether subscriptions require to be increased for the coming year. After some significant discussion, it was decided to ask all members currently paying £10 per year, to increase this to £15 per year from January 2026.

As always, our expenses are largely to bring the Committee together once a year in London, to review our longer-term issues and strategy to bring the ‘fight’ to Chevron’s door in any way we can – and also for the majority of the Committee to attend the AGM!

One further issue this summer has been the “Living Standards Survey” sent out both online and in paper copies to all our members. I would sincerely like to thank everyone who responded to this survey, the response levels have been truly amazing, way more than we would have expected from the Association membership alone!

The final number of paper surveys received was 722 and the final number of online responses was 462, making the total number of responses 1184!

The analysis of these results is expected to be made available later in October and we hope this data will help with our lobbying efforts for future pensions increases.

You may also remember that we have been sorting out the number of members we actually have and are making good progress on this, in spite of our membership sadly but steadily dwindling. However, it is also good to know that we still have new members joining the Association too – a very warm welcome to 38 new members this year so far! Fantastic!

Our committee is functioning well too, with several committee members taking on new roles since the last AGM.

As mentioned in my previous letter, we have also gained a new committee member, who volunteered after the last AGM and who was confirmed as a Committee Member at this year’s AGM – and who is already in it up to his proverbial neck!

Steve Ladle is a heritage Texaco pensioner and since joining the committee, has taken on drafting letters for members to send to their MP’s, concerning the latest pensions legislation going through Parliament at the present time.

Another letter to send to your MP will shortly appear on the website. We really would be pleased if you can find the time and effort to send this one to your MP as well – this is an important issue right now and we really would welcome your support! (this was emailed to members earlier).

Thus far, a number of MP’s have responded encouragingly and have already given this initiative their full support!

The Association has also rejoined the “HPPA and Pre-1997 Alliance”. We were members of this group for many years past but left some time ago, as we felt our paths had diverged. With this latest pension legislation, the Committee feel it would be to our definite advantage to rejoin, which we have now done!

Since the last Committee meeting in July, I have met collectively with a group of Chevron pensioners in Aberdeen and then two more Chevron pensioners separately. On both these occasions, I updated the groups with the latest pensions information and activities.

Looking ahead, I have a meeting with a large group of heritage-Texaco pensioners at the Highlanders Museum in Aberdeen on 4 November, then on 19 November, I have another meeting with the group of Chevron pensioners at the Justice Mill in Union Street, Aberdeen.

At both these meetings, I will endeavour to relate the latest pensions situation to them. In the meantime, after the event by the time you read this but as advertised in the last Newsletter and also online, we will have had the 2025 CUKPA AGM at the ‘Medical Society of London’ on 8 October.

This year we had a really good attendance, both in the room and online, with good questions being asked, some discussion held and responses given where we could.

On that occasion I put out a plea for any members who might like to come along and join the committee. Just get in touch and we will arrange for you to attend as an Observer for your first meeting and simply see if this is for you – you might even enjoy it! If not, then hey, no harm done!

By way of something different for as many people who might be interested, we are hoping that Andrew Nisbet, our IT wizard, will manage to run another ‘Virtual Coffee Morning’ later in the year. Please watch the website for details of this and how to join in, if you would like to. Join in and participate, join in and simply listen – no obligation either way! Indeed, you might be able to introduce a new subject or ask a question on another – who knows!

In conclusion, I (always) look forward to meeting a few more members at the AGM in London – that always gives me so much pleasure, usually after such a very long time!

Thank you once again for giving us your trust and confidence in trying to achieve and improve on the next Pensions Supplementation – we take that trust extremely seriously and everyone on the committee does their very best to honour that trust, in the best way they possibly can.

Alan Higgins, Chairman

Congo Adventure

A story from his company travels in Africa by Peter Young

Steve Ladle – Our latest “acquisition”

After graduating from Imperial with a Maths degree in 1973, I joined an Insurance company (Guardian Royal Exchange) in a new team set up to assess workplace risk at large industrial concerns and to produce risk improvement reports for their directors and senior management recognising new requirements introduced by the Health & Safety at Work Act (1974).

After 6 years I decided it was time for change, so I retrained as a computer programmer and joined Texaco in their IT department in Knightsbridge and then Canary Wharf.

This was a time of rapid change as IT moved from programs written on punch cards, data entry staff and systems running overnight to online real time systems and PCs/local area networks replacing dumb terminals connected to enormous mainframes.

In 1993, I moved out of IT to work for a department being set up to compete in the newly emerging competitive gas shipping and supply market. My specialism was in understanding and influencing the industry changes, that were constantly being developed, to ensure that the new market(s) operated both competitively but also safely in delivering gas from the North Sea etc. to the final customers.

Having developed some reasonably niche skills, I left Texaco in 1998. I initially ran my own consultancy but then joined Total Energy followed later by a small specialist Energy Consultancy to further advise on the constant changes in the Governance aspects of the industry in the GB, Ireland and European energy markets.

I chaired a number of industry groups as well as working with government departments and regulators. From 2008, I also worked for a number of small charities and in 2018 decided to fully retire from the Energy industry.

Personal
I was married for 40 years but sadly my wife died in 2021. However, I have 2 “boys”, one living in Canada and the other in London.

As a Scout Trustee, I also look after a number of Scout Halls and am the Treasurer of a Scout Group all of which helps to keep me busy.

I also try hard to look after our garden which was my wife’s pride and joy. However, I am not a “natural” and, other than my greenhouse, I am finding it more of a battle every year.

In terms of my role for the Association, as you may have noticed, I have been active to try and persuade the Government, as part of a group called the HPPA and Pre-97 Pensions Alliance, to improve our pensions.

Our current focus is to persuade them to change the Pensions Act 1995 to make pensionable service before 1997 treated in the same way as service after 1997, by removing the current employer discretionary provisions.

As part of this, you may continue to get requests to send letters to your MP which I hope you can help with as there are relatively few other ways to attract the Government’s attention.

Steve Ladle

What a Load of Rubbish!!!

A story of complex logistics in the Western Isles by Alan Higgins

CUKPA Committee Meeting

CUKPA COMMITTEE MEETING TUESDAY 15 JULY 2025 Grand Union Studios, Ladbroke Grove, London W10 5AD

The Pensions Schemes Bill 2025

The overall aims of this Bill are to reform the UK pensions system by fostering larger, more efficient pension funds, improving opportunities for increased investment returns and improving retirement outcomes for savers.

For Defined Contribution (DC) Schemes which are becoming more common, it is proposing options such as:

– Small Pot Consolidation where there is an automatic transfer of deferred small pension pots to larger, more effective funds to increase their value

– intervention by the Pensions Regulator if a scheme is not delivering value for members

– Guided Retirement whereby trustees are required to implement guided retirement options for members approaching retirement.

For Defined Benefit (DB) Schemes, such as ours, the main area relates to proposals to enable Surplus Extraction which will partially relax the rules to allow well-funded schemes to release any surplus back to the employer.

Pension Associations are expressing widespread concern over these proposals as they envisage Trustees handing back large amounts of surplus when members of the scheme believe that surplus should be used to improve member benefits, particularly with respect to the parts of a pension that relate to pre-1997 service where currently increases to this element are made only at the discretion of the employer.

Other initiatives in the Bill include:

• Creating a framework for the regulation of DB superfunds as an alternative to insurance company buy-outs (an insurance company running the scheme to take over a defined benefit pension scheme’s liabilities, usually in exchange for a single payment from the pension scheme, and enabling the original company scheme to wind up).
• Amendments to compensation schemes to allow earlier payment to members with terminal illnesses and
• Changes to Payment Protection Fund levy restrictions
• The rollout of pensions dashboards to make it easier for individuals to view their pension information.

For full details I would suggest the Explanatory Notes produced for the Bill (PDF) could be a good starting point

What’s Next?

The Bill was introduced to Parliament on 5 June 2025 and its second reading took place on 7 July 2025. At the time of writing it was in its Committee stage and would be coming back to the House of Commons and the House of Lords in October.

The target for the legislation is to be passed and receive Royal Assent in 2026, though the exact dates for the different measures to come into effect will vary.

Both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Pensions Regulator will need to draft guidelines re specific elements of the Bill.

Finally, you may again be receiving requests to write to your MP if new proposals that are currently being talked about are seen as feasible and realistic to give us all more protection for our important pensions.

The Last Page

*What are diluted earnings? It’s a conservative (ie pessimistic) calculation used with complex capital (financing) structures and assumes that all un-issued shares, warrants, preferred shares and debt that can be converted to shares, etc., have been issued.

The next Insight Magazine will be published in the Spring 2026