Determined former Visteon workers were celebrating yesterday after they won their five-year fight for pension cash stolen from them when the car parts firm went bust.

Parent firm Ford motors offered a multimillion-pound settlement to avoid being hauled through the courts.

Around 1,200 people who worked at Visteon plants in Basildon, Essex, Enfield, Belfast and Swansea could be set to finally claim they cash they’ve saved for retirement over decades.

A settlement was agreed in talks with the Unite union and details will only be disclosed if former Visteon workers agree to accept it.

More than 100 celebrated the news outside Parliament yesterday alongside MPs who had supported their campaign.

John Elvins lost 40 per cent of the pension he had saved during 39 years’ work at Visteon’s Swansea plant when the company went into administration in 2009.

He was among those hardest hit by a £350 million deficit left in the Visteon pension fund, which was controversially separated from safe Ford savings in 2000.

Mr Elvins told the Star: “Those were my life savings. Ford advised us that putting our money into the Visteon scheme would be safe.

It proved that it wasn’t.

“I haven’t lived the life I expected to live when I retired.”

But Mr Elvins and others can now look forward to a more comfortable retirement after their determined campaign forced multinational Ford to finally cough up.

Ura Reid was among former Enfield workers who occupied their workplace when bosses shut them in 2009.

“We spent over three weeks sleeping on concrete and cardboard and now we fight and get this result which I’m very happy about,” she remembered.

“I’m only hoping it will be something substantial.

“I’m now 62 so I really need that money to bring my mortgage down.”

The workers’ victory was raised at Prime Ministers Questions by Labour MP Geraint Davies.

He said: “Will the Prime Minister congratulate Unite the union and a cross party group of MPs who struggled to get a fair deal for former Ford workers and other pensions who face the same plight at the hands of multinational companies?”

The mere mention of a union victory was met with sneers from disrespectful Tory MPs.

Prime Minister David Cameron admitted he couldn’t hear the end of Mr Davies’s question through the racket made by his own backbenchers.

Welsh Assembly member Bethan Jenkins said it was the “dogged determination” of the workers who forced Ford to pay out.

She said: “Even when it seemed that the world wasn’t listening, they kept right on going — in fact, they just became more determined.”