THE GOVERNMENT yesterday announced an extra £1.6 billion for workers who have lost their company pensions but APW workers will not get a penny.

The coffers of the Financial Assistance Scheme set up to compensate workers whose companies have gone bust will swell from £400 million to £2 billion.

But because Chandler's Ford based APW Electronics is still up-and-running, its employees are not expected to benefit from the cash boost.

Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton has now agreed to meet Hampshire MPs to discuss the plight of APW employees, who saw their retirement dreams shattered when bosses axed the pension scheme.

More than 1,000 people lost up to 80 per cent of their pensions totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds after the scheme was wound-up to keep the company afloat.

Pensions Reform Minister James Purnell said the extension of the Financial Assistance Scheme would benefit up to 30,000 more workers. He said: "It was this government which brought forward the Financial Assistance Scheme as we recognised the real hardship many people faced in retirement through no fault of their own."

But Hampshire MPs, who had pressed the government to extend financial help to APW workers at its factory in Chandler's Ford, reacted angrily to the news that they appear to have lost out again.

Overlooking' Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh, said: "Ministers are seriously overlooking this problem.

"APW pensioners have lost just as much money as a lot of pensioners in schemes where companies have failed.

"APW an American company has washed its hands of its pensioners in Britain. It's a disaster which the government must address."

John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, said MPs had lobbied "very hard" to get APW included in the financial assistance scheme.He said he remained hopeful that money from the £2 billion pot could still be used to compensate Southampton workers.

The Financial Assistance Scheme was set up to help workers who were within three years of retirement in May 2004 when their salary-linked pension schemes collapsed.

Yesterday the government announced that workers who were up to 15 years away from retirement would benefit from some financial support.

The Scheme only applies to workers whose companies went bust before May 2004.

Since then employees have been protected under the separate Pension Protection Scheme.

l A joint statement by Hampshire MPs John Denham (Southampton Itchen), Alan Whitehead (Southampton Test), Sandra Gidley (Romsey), Desmond Swayne (New Forest West), Mark Oaten (Winchester), Chris Huhne (Eastleigh) and Julian Lewis (New Forest East) said: "The reality is that all legal connections between the APW company and the pension scheme have been severed by the courts.

"There isn't any way in which the pensioners, most of whom have lost three quarters of their pension rights, can make the company pay any more money.

"We will continue to campaign for APW to be included in the Financial Assistance Scheme."