Coalfield Communities

David Simmonds Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) on securing this debate. The House will know that Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner is not a coalfields constituency. Our mining tradition is far older. It goes back to the days of chalk. Its legacy today is seen in the impact of sinkholes in the local area.

Today’s debate is very much focused on the lasting legacy and impact of an era when coal was king. Although I do not represent a coalfields constituency, I certainly grew up in one. The old men with the blue scars and the hacking coughs from emphysema—or pneumoconiosis, as we now know it to be—were the background to my childhood. I feel lucky that I had a great-grandfather who, unlike many miners, lived a very long life. He started working in a pit at Cwmcarn at the age of 12 and carried on to the age of 70. He shared the impact of things such as the Universal Colliery disaster in Senghenydd on his life and the community in which he lived and grew up, and of seeing his brother die after being buried in a rockfall.

Although the industry created the enormous economic opportunities that have been described by many Members, we know that the environment was very harsh and difficult, and as we recognise in our many debates about climate change and the transition to net zero, it created a product that, although valuable and effective at generating energy, is enormously polluting.

[Mr Perkins]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way. We have just had a very good debate, but it must be a considerable embarrassment to him that not a single Member of His Majesty’s Opposition thought that it was worthwhile attending to make a substantive speech. I appreciate that he is not a coalfield MP, and I appreciate that not many Conservative Members are, but does he not think that, if the Conservatives are serious about being ready to represent the whole country again, we should be hearing from some of their MPs in a debate such as this?

[David Simmonds]

As we see in all the debates that we have in this House, Members will attend to represent the interests of their communities and constituencies. I know that the same point has been made in the past about the lack of Members of Parliament from certain parties attending debates on farming and things such as that. We need to recognise that the central focus of this debate is on the historical impact and the way that we deal with that legacy. As the hon. Gentleman has highlighted, there are, to my regret, not many Conservative Members of Parliament who are dealing with those issues in their constituencies. That is a political fact. However, we will see them very active on issues that directly impact their constituencies on a daily basis.

[Adam Jogee]

I gently say to the shadow Minister that any party that seeks to lead our United Kingdom should be interested in, and committed to, issues that affect people across the UK. Irrespective of whether Members have particular challenges in their constituencies, more of the shadow Minister’s colleagues should have been here.

[David Simmonds]

I am sure the Government will wish to press that point.

In summing up, it is important, first, to recognise the impact that the end of the use of coal in British industry and energy generation has had; and secondly, to draw out of that history some lessons for what is often termed the just transition—the intended end of oil and gas as a significant player in our energy industries of the future. When I was growing up, the Thatcher Government’s engagement on investment was largely with the European Economic Community. I saw the roads being built and the blue flags appearing all over as the Government sought to bring in infrastructure investment to open up places like Cwmcarn—a valley off a valley, which is a challenge to access—and communities of coal board houses, where my sister and her husband still live to this day, so that people could access the growing industries and employment opportunities of the future. The Government at that time recognised that the infrastructure to create that access would be vital.

[Grahame Morris]

I must take issue with that. I served a number of years on Easington district council, and we were twinned with a similar mining area in North Rhine- Westphalia in Germany. When the Carl Alexander mine near Baesweiler closed, the local authority and the miners were given two years’ notice, grants were made available through the federal, local and national Government to retain the miners, and new industrial estates were built. It is interesting to compare that with what happened when our pits closed in Easington, Murton, South Hetton, Horden and Blackhall—we found out on the Friday that the pit was closing on the Monday, and thousands of men lost their jobs.

[David Simmonds]

I remember those debates, of course, as the backdrop to my experiences growing up, along with the miners’ strike and the various interventions that occurred. There is an opportunity—I will put it this way—to learn lessons from that and ensure that the new Government’s approach and future Governments’ approaches take those into account and handle those situations better.

[Luke Akehurst]

If we could move forward from the events of the 1980s, in the last Parliament, the Conservative Benches were full of Members representing former mining constituencies, including three of the constituencies in County Durham. Perhaps the reason those Members were not returned at the last general election was that Government’s sorry failure to deliver the levelling up they promised. Can the shadow Minister in any way defend the failure to economically regenerate mining areas that in 2019 had Conservative MPs for the first time?

[David Simmonds]

I am sure that all those former Members of Parliament, and, indeed, some of their Labour predecessors, would also be happy to answer for the work they did, some of which was successful and some of which was not, to bring new jobs, opportunities and educational chances to those communities. There are many things we can debate that have brought benefits to those communities. If we examine the statistics in the Library briefing on the impact and legacy in different coalfields around the UK, we see quite a different picture. There are some places where those interventions—based on the statistics—appear to have been effective because there are few, if any, super output areas listed that remain affected by those issues of poverty and ill health today, and there are other areas that have struggled to move on. We all know and understand why that is in some places. If the economy of an area has long been based on mining and natural resource, and there is no other direct employment opportunity there, something different needs to be found, and many Members have referred to the impact of that. I have touched on infra- structure as one element.

[Rachel Taylor]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[David Simmonds]

I will, with your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Rachel Taylor]

An observation I have made as I have listened to the hon. Gentleman is that not one single Member of his party stood up for the thousands of pensioners who were not given the justice they deserve in the mineworkers pension scheme or the BCSSS. His party claims to stand up for pensioners, and yet it did nothing and said nothing for those mining pensioners who deserved a better deal.

[David Simmonds]

If the hon. Lady refers to Hansard for debates on these matters in previous Parliaments, she will find those points being raised by Members from across the House—rightly so—with a view to moving the debate on to the decisions that have been made today.

The Clapham review of the effectiveness of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust was a key opportunity to consider the role that local government in particular plays in the regeneration of our coalfields. Clearly, that challenge exists at a number of levels. The hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) referenced the large number of spoil heaps—some of which I can see from the garden of my parents’ house. A number of local authorities—and Governments, through local authorities —have sought to address that through planting and remediation to stabilise their spoil tips, for example, but there is still a job to do. As the years go by and the industries that produce those spoil tips become historical, we know that we must effectively address the risks that they continue to pose.

To conclude my remarks, I turn to the importance of learning from the work that the Coalfields Regeneration Trust undertook and from the points that many Members of all parties have made in debates about these issues over many years. We know that we are about to embark on a process. The UK has made progress in the decarbonisation of our economy since the early 1990s, when, as a leading nation, we began the major shift away from coal. In the 1950s, coal produced most of our energy; today, it contributes to none—our last coal-fired power station recently closed.

The Trades Union Congress recently passed a motion highlighting that 30,000 jobs were at risk in the oil and gas industry. We talk about the just transition—Labour Members are, in my view, justified in raising the problems that process has created—but we must lay the groundwork for it. I remember interventions during the miners’ strike, such as the distribution at my school of the EEC butter mountain. That is not an example of an effective economic intervention to address the needs of people in difficulty. If we are to have a just transition away from fossil fuels in the future, we must learn from the past mistakes of all Governments in respect of coalfields, and incorporate the lessons into effective policy for a better future for all affected communities.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Minister.