Coalfield Communities

Debate between David Mundell and Adam Jogee

Thursday 6th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Jogee]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. My wife is a wise and wonderful woman, so he will be reassured to know that I learn lots from her. I agree that we are one United Kingdom, and that this issue requires one approach.

At the commemoration last month to which I referred, the order of service contained a poem from Captain John William Roberts, whose grandfather died in the disaster and whose daughter, Maisie Farrell, was at the memorial with me despite suffering a stroke in recent months. I am pleased to say that she is on the road to recovery. Staffordshire women are made of strong stuff— I should know, as I was born to one—and I wish Maisie well in her recovery to full health. It just so happens that Maisie is Newcastle-under-Lyme born and bred, and is a close friend of my family. I want to share a small part of that poem with the House:

“Diglake Disaster:

That bitter day in January, Christmas not long gone

We went to work joking and singing—clogs echoing to mirth

How could we guess early, subterranean Niagara sweep lads away

By the nature of its vector, trap mates without escape?

While we struggled in icy water, choked for clear air, agony of heart,

Burning in our mind we were separated for ever from loved ones.

This mixed group of men, not able to see Easter—”

It ends,

“Bequeath our generation acts, they knew we could perform—

Advancing wisdom, better leaders, unselfish goals

Thus, take up the human charter: embrace our task.

The words of Captain John William Roberts, ACF.”

What a tribute those words are to the sacrifice of those men and boys who died, and to the shared experience of miners right across our United Kingdom, from South Wales to the east midlands and from Yorkshire to the jewel in our kingdom’s crown in north Staffordshire. Those miners worked hard, they powered our economy, and they showed what grit, determination, dignity, strength and commitment look like. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) alluded to, we have a duty to give back to the communities that gave us the men and boys, and the strong women right beside them, without whom our country would never have developed in the way that it has.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Jogee]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, and I will touch gently on that issue. Her intervention speaks to her commitment to standing up for those most in need of a strong voice.

I will now happily give way to my friend from Scotland.

[David Mundell]

I commend the hon. Member on securing this debate. I agree 100% with the hon. Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). I have many constituents who are in exactly the same position, although the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) did not mention Scotland, which has a proud mining tradition. Communities in my constituency, such as Sanquhar, Kirkconnel, Kelloholm, Coalburn and the Douglas valley, have often felt very overlooked. Does the hon. Member agree that often in these communities, people are still forward-looking, wanting to make those communities turn around and be regenerated? They have not given up on them, and the Government—in London and in Edinburgh—should not either.

[Adam Jogee]

I am grateful to my friend from Scotland for making that point. I look forward to working with him, and to his supporting the Government as we seek to do exactly as he said—get these communities back on track, in the place and with the support that they need and deserve.

Last Friday, I met the widow and two of the five daughters of the late Jimmy Flynn at the weekly coffee morning at St Giles’ church in Newcastle-under-Lyme. I hope that one day, you will join me there, Madam Deputy Speaker—they do a good fry in the morning. [Interruption.] Not quite an Ulster fry, but we look forward to joining the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for one of those soon. Mr Flynn was a miner, and over a cuppa, his widow and daughters told me about his life, his work, and the fact that their dad and their husband—alongside all those who worked down the pit—worked “bloody hard every day.” That they did.

I cannot talk about Newcastle-under-Lyme’s mining history without celebrating the fantastic Apedale heritage centre, which is on the site of a former coalmine. I also want to acknowledge the Apedale valley light railway; I very much enjoyed riding on a steam train on a recent visit. Despite the coalmines ceasing to operate, their legacy remains an integral part of my community, our heritage and the lived experience. That legacy reflects a community built on hard work and industrial prowess by good people, driven by decency, respect, strength and skill. I am proud to honour the memories of those who went before us, and to represent their descendants and their ambitions in this place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) has had to head home to meet workers at Royal Stafford, who have had bad news this week. He has asked me to pay tribute to the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, which has supported a number of community organisations in his constituency.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), who has been a steadfast and diligent champion of former miners and coalfield communities up and down our United Kingdom. It has been a pleasure working with him, and with Sophie Jackson in his office—and with my team, since my election to this place—on getting justice for members of the mineworkers pension scheme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) mentioned. I thank the Prime Minister and all those on the Front Bench for the leadership that they have shown. I want to acknowledge Professor Steve Fothergill and Chris Whitwood for the excellent work that they do supporting the Labour group of coalfield MPs—a group on which I lead for the west midlands.

Some 5.7 million people live in Britain’s coalfields—one in 10 people in England and Scotland, and one in four people in Wales—but almost half of coalfield communities are among the 30% most deprived communities in the United Kingdom. Yesterday, I had a very helpful discussion with Tash and Roshni from the Local Trust. We talked through the figures in my community—in Cross Heath, Knutton and Silverdale, where the challenge of tackling injustice and inequality is most serious for us locally, just as it is serious in places across the country. I would be grateful if the Minister touched on the community wealth fund, and how we can ensure that money from it is directed at supporting disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Where will the money go, and how will it be allocated?

Education has such an important role to play. I was at St Thomas Boughey school in Halmer End last week, and I heard about the challenges that it faces when it comes to funding, staff recruitment and retention, and ensuring that the smart young people who go to the school can work and live in, and contribute to, the community in which they were raised. I look forward to welcoming some of those young people to Parliament later this month. My community has a university, Keele University. How do we build a bridge between the funding that universities can attract and young people who want to study in the community that they live in?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East said, we need justice for the British Coal staff superannuation scheme members, and I have told the Prime Minister this directly. The BCSSS has more than 40,000 members who formerly worked in the mining industry, including a number of my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and I have promised that I will fight their corner. I urge Ministers to speed up efforts to transfer the £2.3 billion investment reserve in the BCSSS to the members who earned it, deserve it and need it, as more and more former miners die each year. That is important, because a significant number of BCSSS members were required to transfer to the BCSSS, as we have heard. If they had not been forced to move, they would have had access to their own money when this new Labour Government made the right call on the MPS. They deserve it, and this Government, although they have been in power for only a few short months, must now get on with it. I will do whatever I can to help. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield said, we want real action, not empty words; we want a proper commitment, not hollow promises; and we want our communities properly invested in, not forgotten. A new Government with a majority of this size presents us with an opportunity to finally get the settlement we need, the focus my constituents deserve, and the future my constituents have earned.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill [Lords]

Debate between David Mundell and Adam Jogee

3rd reading
Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

I should declare that I am the treasurer and international representative of the CPA UK branch. The scale of the resentment, and indeed anger, among Commonwealth countries at the previous structure of the CPA is sometimes not clear in this House. A body had been set up to consider alternative structures, in particular the CPA leaving the UK and being based elsewhere, because of that concern and the many years that it had taken to bring the issue forward.

I was therefore very pleased to be able to go to the interim committee, which had been set up to consider alternative locations for CPA International, and provide it with a copy of the Hansard report of the Second Reading of the Bill, which I am grateful that the Minister and the FCDO brought forward in a timely fashion that tied in, deliberately or otherwise, with the Commonwealth parliamentary conference. Given undertakings that had been given repeatedly by UK representatives, there was a demand for evidence that that would be done. The unanimous support that the Bill achieved on Second Reading went a long way towards doing that, opening up the opportunity for CPA International to start to focus on many other issues.

The issue of the CPA’s structure and legal status has preoccupied it at an international level for many years. I attended the conference in Ghana last year and, at that conference, that was the dominant issue that took up virtually all the debate. This year, I was pleased that there was an excellent debate on climate change. We have a new international chair in Dr Christopher Kalila, who will visit London shortly. He has set out his wish to bring a renewed sense of purpose to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which will focus not so much on structure and constitutional issues as on bringing together the Commonwealth parliamentary family on issues of importance across the Commonwealth.

As the Minister knows, we cannot disguise the fact that there are difficult issues out there. The LGBT+ issue remains extremely challenging, and we cannot duck that. We have to look at ways in which we can take that forward. Certain Commonwealth countries are promoting the criminalisation of not just members of the LGBT+ community but their allies. That is not acceptable, and we have to take a stand and show leadership on it.

We also have to acknowledge that other actors are at work. It will shock Labour Members that when I was in South Africa, I was condemned as a neo-colonialist by the Economic Freedom Fighters party, who wear fetching red boiler suits in Parliament to display that, in fact, they are ordinary working people and not part of the elite. They are not supportive of the Commonwealth or South Africa’s role in it. We know Russia and China are active in many Commonwealth countries, so we cannot just take it as given that everybody will proceed on the basis that we would wish them to. But I, like others who have spoken, regard the Commonwealth as a great force for good. There is huge opportunity at both parliamentary and governmental level to make a difference to those on the ground across the Commonwealth, and I hope that will be at the heart of the Government’s approach.

There are one or two people who I would like to thank and acknowledge, not least my former colleague Dame Maria Miller, who tried to get the Bill through. Whether the arrival of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) was worth pausing the Bill for might be a matter for debate on another day. I praise our former colleague Ian Liddell-Grainger. Ian would have done well in the diplomatic service, if he had chosen to do so. He had to step in when the former chair of the CPA international died suddenly and there was a vacuum. Ian came in and steadied the ship, as well as pursuing the issue within this Parliament and identifying its importance.

Of course, as has already been mentioned, our former colleague in this House, Stephen Twigg does a hugely important job as chief executive of CPA International. On his behalf, I ask the Minister to ensure that the subsequent orders that have to be brought forward are done so in a timely fashion and that we can continue to confirm to the Commonwealth family the momentum behind the process. The international executive committee of the CPA is due to meet here in London in May, and it would be helpful if the other parts of the process could have been completed by then.

My final plea to the Minister is for the Government to make more use of the CPA by working more closely with it. As he has acknowledged, having been on many visits, the CPA UK—with Members of this Parliament— has the capacity to act in a soft power role for the Government. As he and others know, MPs can share and discuss things that it is not necessarily possible for our Ministers or high commissioners to discuss. In fact, when we were in Ghana last year, we had good discussions around the LGBT+ issue, which would not have been possible in more formal settings.

[Adam Jogee]

I just want to say to the Minister that the point that the right hon. Gentleman has just made has support across the House. Many Labour Members want to see exactly the urgency and focus that he has just mentioned.

[David Mundell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that and for his wider comments. The CPA UK in particular is a good way of bringing together colleagues from across the House. I know that Mr Speaker fully endorses and supports that. It has been a pleasure to attend many events over the years, both overseas and here, with colleagues from across the House.

To return to my point, I hope that the Minister and the FCDO in its current guise will endorse and embrace the CPA, and the opportunity to use its soft power, to take forward matters that are in the interests of everybody across the United Kingdom.