Over 6,000 former MG Rover employees have had their pensions saved by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

Workers applied for help when the PPF was set up in 2005 to provide aid for insolvent schemes.

One MG Rover worker, who faced losing 26 years of pension payments, will now receive £6,894 and a tax free lump sum of £39,077, paid directly by the PPF.

The PPF spends at least one year assessing any scheme which is put forward for a rescue, typically by the administrators of an insolvent company.

Not all that apply for a rescue turn out to be eligible to be bailed out. So far, four have been rejected on the grounds that they were not, in fact, underfunded enough to qualify or were rescued by new buyers for their employer.