Coalfield Communities

Debate between David Anderson and Michael Dugher

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Dugher]

I am not giving way.

Earlier this year, Labour launched our Justice for the Coalfields campaign. This is about ensuring that we have proper transparency, properly acknowledging what happened in the past and getting to the truth. Without the truth there can be no justice and without justice there can be no reconciliation. The first step is for the House to acknowledge what the 1984 Cabinet papers spell out. Just like Saville and Hillsborough, we must face up to the failures of the past. We must acknowledge the truth and we must learn from what happened. The motion today provides that opportunity and I hope that all hon. Members will take it.

The Opposition have been clear that given that the Cabinet papers show that the public were misled about the plans for pit closures, there should be a formal apology for the Government’s actions during the strike. As for the revelations in the Cabinet papers, which show that the Government did try to influence police tactics, all the details of the interactions and communications between the Government and the police at the time of the strike should now be published.

Thirty years on, we still need a proper investigation into what happened at Orgreave. It was welcome that South Yorkshire police referred themselves to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, but we are still no closer to an investigation. There are serious allegations that police officers assaulted miners at Orgreave, and then committed perjury and misconduct in public office and perverted the course of justice in the subsequent prosecution of 95 miners on riot charges, all of which collapsed in court. What happened at Orgreave was not just a black day for south Yorkshire, it was a black day for this country. It is indefensible and completely shameful that there is still no investigation and the whole truth has yet to come out.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right to mention Orgreave, but it was not the only place. In Mansfield, exactly the same thing happened when at the end of a peaceful demonstration police stormed into the crowds that were left, 45 people were locked up and were banned from picketing and that case fell apart. Up and down this country, the police rampaged through villages where people had a history of being peaceful, and men were locked up who should never have been locked up because they were deliberately attacked by police who were not even from that part of the world.

[Michael Dugher]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, born, I know, of his close personal experience. That is why we have said that we can see from the Cabinet papers that there clearly was pressure to influence police tactics. We have said, “Why do not the Government just come clean and publish all the communications between Ministers and the police at the time and clear all this up once and for all?”

What happened at Orgreave was a black day. It is indefensible that there is still no investigation, and frankly, the IPCC needs to get its act together. Opposition Members have said that if the Government cannot or will not undertake a proper investigation, they should consider initiating a swift, independent review, along the lines of the Ellison review.

As I have mentioned, the Thatcher Government’s policy chief at the time was the right hon. Member for Wokingham. In his tribute to Lady Thatcher in the House last April, he argued that all the Government had tried to do in the 1980s was modernise the industry. But the industry was not modernised or consolidated; it was completely decimated. What we saw was a systematic attempt to destroy an entire industry and an entire way of life.

What is the legacy of that? Today only three deep-pit coal mines remain open in the UK, out of the 170 in operation in 1984. Coal production is falling. It fell by 25% between 2012 and 2013, to an all-time low of 13 million tonnes. The future of Thoresby and Kellingley coal mines has now been in limbo for many months, which raises further concerns about energy security. We urgently need clarity from the Government on whether they plan to provide state aid.