Benefits after retirement

National Union of Mineworkers v Scargill: Chancery Division: 21 December 2012; LSG 4 March

The defendant held a number of high-ranking positions, including president, of the claimants National Union of Mineworkers (the union). In 1982, he took a three-year lease on a flat in London. The lease was renewable and was renewed regularly thereafter. The union agreed from the start to pay the rent and running costs of the flat and did so, with the exception of one period, for the remainder of the defendant’s employment and after his retirement in 2002. The union also had a tradition of supplying coal to its officials for free, on a life-long basis. Where the individual’s home was not heated by coal, an allowance was paid. It was common ground that the defendant was entitled to such an allowance relating to his home in Yorkshire, which was heated by gas, but an issue arose as to whether the entitlement was capped or covered the whole of any gas bill he might have.