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The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) for securing the debate. It is very helpful to be able to debate such issues in the House with the hon. Members for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), who are very experienced in these matters.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was a tragic accident on 15 September 2011 that resulted in the deaths of four miners: Charles Breslin, David Powell, Philip Hill and Garry Jenkins. I remember the events myself. My own constituency has a mining history. The last large pit closed in 1965, but there are a number of free miners who still work in small mines. As I said, I remember the events, and I can only imagine the heart-rending situation faced by the families. The right hon. Gentleman is right to pay tribute to them for all that they have gone through. It is obviously on their behalf that he raises these issues in the House.
I mention my constituency only because we will come on to talk about the changes to the regulations and the Mines Rescue Service. There are a number of small mines in my constituency. I have had the experience, thanks to an excellent constituent of mine, Rich Daniels, who is president of the free miners, of going down one of those mines and seeing how small mines operate. I have had the opportunity to talk to him about the health and safety challenges. My constituency has the same issues with the Mines Rescue Service and its viability, and putting in place alternative arrangements that would provide a safe and secure method of rescuing miners if a tragedy happened. I shall come on to that.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, the accident triggered a rescue operation of a type not seen before. There was immense commendation for all those who contributed to the efforts to save the miners. He was right to pay tribute to the emergency services, other mine operators and their staff, volunteer cave divers and many others. Tragically, it quickly became clear that the task was one of recovery rather than of rescue.
South Wales police assumed primacy from the outset, and the investigation was led by the police throughout, with technical and other support from the HSE mines inspectors and other individuals and organisations. The site investigation concluded when all reasonable lines of inquiry had been followed and closed. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, after the investigation concluded, the Crown Prosecution Service brought manslaughter charges against the mine manager and the mine owner. Those Members present will know that there was a three-month trial earlier this year. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it concluded when the jury delivered not guilty verdicts on both the mine manager and the corporate defendant—the mine owner. The decision of the court must be respected. Obviously, I cannot today—this would be inappropriate for a Minister—delve into and try to reopen the case.
However, I can say that, now the legal processes are concluded, the HSE is producing a report that will be published, and that will pull together in one place the details of the site investigation that it carried out and the lessons that can be learned for the future. I know that that is one of the things the right hon. Gentleman wants to ensure happens.
Mr Hain
The Minister will have noticed that I said, because I am worried about this, that the HSE report will be constrained by the trial verdict. I am worried that the HSE report will not be able to be as open as perhaps, for all I know, the mines inspectorate would like to be about its views on what really happened. Will he do whatever he can to try to ensure that that barrier, if it is there, as I suspect, is taken away?
Mr Harper
What the report can do is set out the results of the investigation. It can set out the facts that those who inspected with their professional judgment found in the mine. What it cannot do is rerun or revisit the questions that were investigated at the trial and the jury’s conclusion. I listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman said. I fear that he wants the HSE to be able in its report—I do not think it can do this—to answer questions about what was in the minds of the mine manager and those working there about the direction that they proceeded in. It simply cannot revisit those questions. My understanding is that those issues were dealt with at the trial. Evidence was put forward on both sides of the argument. The jury reached a verdict, and that is something that the HSE cannot reopen in its report and investigation.
Mr Hain
I am not asking for that. I am certainly not asking for the HSE to read the minds of those, including the mine manager, who were mining at the time. I am simply asking the Minister to try to create circumstances in which the mines inspectors, in the HSE report, can confirm that they suspect that the water, as I said in my speech, was where the mine plan said it was and that, therefore, a catastrophic misjudgment was made. For what reason and how, it would be impossible to speculate. I readily accept that, but the misjudgment was made none the less.
Mr Harper
Let me just reply to the right hon. Gentleman, because it is his debate, and then of course I shall listen to the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. The inspectors cannot rerun the trial and, in effect, re-answer the question that was dealt with at the trial and come up with either the same or a different answer. That is not possible. I listened to what the right hon. Gentleman said. I am sure the inspectors will endeavour to ensure that they go as far as they can in setting out the evidence—the facts that they found on the ground—but they may not be able to speculate about things they simply cannot know. They have to stick to what the evidence says.
Ian Lavery
There is a big difference between the individuals being charged with corporate manslaughter and being found guilty of an offence, and what my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) is referring to, which is basically the causation of the accident. The causation of the accident is something that can be investigated completely differently, but using the same evidence that has been used in court for a criminal investigation. It is common sense that that would be the case.
Mr Harper
As I said, I have not seen the report and I do not know what it will say. The mines inspectorate will use its professional expertise to set out the evidence from the thorough site investigation that took place, but it cannot rerun the trial. For example, it is not disputed that the water was there at the time of the incident; what was disputed in court was whether the water was there all the time. The right hon. Member for Neath mentioned that there was a debate about the mine manager giving evidence that he had inspected the old workings. The HSE will not be able to settle questions that were dealt with at the trial and on which a conclusion could not be reached. That is all I am saying. It will endeavour, with the best of its professional judgment, to set out the evidence—what was found from the investigation. I have not seen the report and I do not know what it will say. It is in process.
My final point about the report is on timing. The report will be published in the new year—early in the new year, I hope—and, as I said, it will be published for everyone to see. I hope it will set out some lessons that can be learned from this tragedy.
Mr Anderson
I thank the Minister for giving way again —he has been very generous. The crux of why we are here today is that, if this was a one-off and had never happened before, we would probably feel a lot more comfortable, but as I said, it was not a one-off and had happened previously. My right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) mentioned the 1979 regulations that were supposed to address the issue. It is all right saying, “Let’s learn the lessons.” A lesson learned is no use unless it is then applied. Our worry—hopefully this can be tightened up in the report if the HSE decides to do that—is ensuring that things like this, as far as is humanly possible, do not happen again. If, as has been said, the gentleman went in, did the investigation and found that there was no water, that should have raised concerns, because where had the water gone? That should have been followed up. The worry that Opposition Members have is that such an incident could happen again through things just generally not being tight enough.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman makes a helpful point, because I was going to move on to the work that has been done to bring forward shortly new mine safety legislation that ensures clear duties on the operators of mines to manage the risks. That work was instigated independently of the Gleision accident, and it arose from the independent review of health and safety legislation by Professor Löfstedt, which reported in November 2011. We have taken into account what happened in the Gleision incident as we have developed the new law.
The current law governing safety in mines comprises more than 40 pieces of legislation, some of which date back as far as 1954. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, the coal industry is vastly different today. In addition to the huge changes in the coal sector, there has been a big shift in the wider health and safety framework, and the old mine safety legislation needs to be reviewed. The Health and Safety Executive has undertaken a review of that legislation over the past two years, and new mines regulations will be introduced in April next year. They will consolidate the key requirements for the control of risks that are, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, inherent in underground mining. That will include managing the risk of water inrushes, which was clearly the major issue at Gleision. Mine operators will remain legally bound to determine whether there is water around workings and to assess the risk of that water causing harm to mine workers.
The new regulations will place duties, for the first time, on the mine operator rather than, as at present, on the mine manager. They will also require the other principal risks in mining to be controlled. They will place clear and simple requirements on operators to ensure that adequate rescue arrangements are made. The current requirement for coal mines to belong to an approved scheme will not be carried forward. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that scheme, which was designed and introduced when there were 65 coal mines in operation, all of which contributed fees to fund the scheme and resources as part of their commitment to mutual assistance. There are now an insufficient number of mines to fund those arrangements. I looked into the matter in detail, not only now but as a result of experience in my constituency. Mine operators will be under a new duty to ensure that, if the rescue of workers is required in any foreseeable scenario, rescue arrangements will be available and workable. Coal mines will be required to make their own arrangements for rescue provision, tailored to the risks in each particular mine. Mine operators can use whatever third-party services may be appropriate to those risks. The HSE’s mines inspectors have a programme of interventions, between now and the entry into force of the new regulations, to check the arrangements that mines will have in place from April.
The current law is riddled with requirements to notify or otherwise seek the permission of the regulator before undertaking certain activities. It is not the regulator’s role to oversee day-to-day operations in such a way. Regulation of other major hazard industries successfully requires duty holders to demonstrate that their risk assessments and their control systems are in place and, importantly, robust, so that they can adequately manage risk to protect their employees and the wider community. The new regulations will take a similar approach in the mining sector. HSE inspectors are talking to mine operators and trade unions in the period leading up to the introduction of the new regulations to ensure that they are clear about how they will implement and comply with the regulations.
The new regulations will retain all the key controls over the hazards that are, as the Gleision tragedy and the right hon. Gentleman have reminded us, involved in mining, but they will deliver a modern, risk-based regime that will drive mine operators continuously to improve the management of the risks involved in mining. Tragedies such as the one he has powerfully described show us why we should never be complacent. We must try to prevent such incidents from happening again.
The hon. Member for Wansbeck raised the question of the inquests. My understanding is that they have not been restarted following the trial, and no formal notification has been made to the HSE that they have been closed. I will contact colleagues at the Ministry of Justice and make inquiries about the plan for those inquests—I will ask whether they will be restarted or formally concluded. I will write to the right hon. Member for Neath and, with his permission, to the two other hon. Members who are present, to set out the position.
Mr Harper
When I contact colleagues at the Ministry of Justice, I will put on record the fact that it is the strong view of the constituency MP that the inquests should be resumed. I am not familiar with the legal rules around the matter and I do not know what the position is, but I will contact colleagues in the Ministry of Justice. I will write to the right hon. Gentleman—and, because of their interest in the matter, to the other two hon. Members who are present—and set out the position. I hope that that is helpful and that it will go some way to meeting the concerns of the families who, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, have conducted themselves with great dignity throughout the process. I hope that offers some small measure of comfort, and I thank him for raising the matter in the Chamber today.
Question put and agreed to.