GOVERNMENT ministers should consider taking "tough action" against APW Electronics over its appalling pensions crisis.

That's the view of former Pensions Minister John Denham, who spoke out after it was revealed that the value of APW company pensions had plummeted by up to 80 per cent, meaning that staff expecting £20,000 a year in their retirement could receive just £4,000.

Staff at the electronics firm in Electron Way, Chandler's Ford, have been left devastated and facing an uncertain old age after bosses revealed a £55 million black hole in the pension fund.

Mr Denham, Labour MP for Southamp-ton Itchen, who has constituents working at the plant, will join a delegation of employees meeting Pensions Minister Malcolm Wicks in Westminster on Monday.

He said it was vital to discover whether employees would be covered by two government compensation schemes aimed at protecting employees unwittingly caught up in a pensions scandal.

He added: "We have still not had a satisfactory explanation of how this situation was allowed to become so bad without anyone apparently knowing about it.

"I want to ask ministers to take tough action against the pension fund's trustees if they are found to have breached their responsibility to members."

Mr Denham added: "If the company remains in business yet it closes its pension fund, should it be so easy to walk away from that responsibility?

"It would be outrageous if in five years' time APW has recovered financially yet our constituents still have nothing to show for it."

Trustees for the company, based in Wisconsin, USA, had the pension fund wound up in the High Court. The legal step enabled APW Electronics to avoid going into insolvency, but it meant 1,259 workers and retired pensioners losing all but a fraction of their pension.

It has been calculated that the scheme needed APW to pay in £1.5m a year to get back within its legal obligations inside ten years.

Eastleigh MP David Chidgey, who secured Monday's meeting, said: "Many of my constituents are devastated by the news that they face up to 80 per cent cuts in their pension funds, and I am committed to trying to ensure that something is done to rectify this situation.

"I will be pressing the minister to give us some assurances that the former and current employees of APW, who are going to be so badly affected by the severe under-funding and winding-up of this pension scheme, will be protected by government legislation.

"It is disgraceful that people who have entrusted their savings to a pension scheme which they counted on to support them in their retirement now face insecurity and worry due to no fault of their own.

"I will be pressing the minister to make sure that innocent people, such as those caught up in the APW pensions fiasco, are protected by the law when pension schemes are wound up with massive deficits."