Oral Answers to Questions

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

And not only in Worcester. Indeed, one of the most rapidly growing programmes, operating through the British business bank, is the start-up loans scheme. My hon. Friend may be aware that approximately 19,000 start-up loans have now been made, with a value of over £100 million.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

One business that is not growing—the Business Secretary knows that as well as me, because we met him a few weeks ago to talk about its demise—is the deep-mine coal industry. There are only three pits left now. Does he really want to preside over the demise of the last deep-mine coal pits in Britain? Two of them are in Yorkshire, and one is in Nottinghamshire. They are reaching the end of their lives, but they have reserves that should be exhausted. I have got a plan, and he knows about it. The Government should apply for state aid and get £70 million, which is only a tiny proportion of the £700 million that this Government took from the National Union of Mineworkers pension fund in February. That is all we need in order for those three pits—Hatfield, Thoresby and Kellingley—to be able to exhaust their reserves. Those are the conditions in Europe. Why does he not apply for the money, instead of being led by the Tories surrounding him, who are determined to see the end of the pits in Britain?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we had a very good and constructive meeting with him and his colleagues on the future of the remaining deep-mine pits. He will be aware, because I think we explained this, that the state aid issue is much more difficult than he—

[Mr Skinner]

No, it isn’t.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

North Yorkshire did pretty well out of the local growth fund. It has the BioVale campus, which I know my hon. Friend is strongly in favour of. Such was the calibre of the projects that we were able to allocate £6 billion of investment. I am now keen to move on to the next set of allocations, and she has just made a strong pitch for investment in her area.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

I wonder if the Secretary of State would care to amend the reply he gave to me about when the pits closed. Just for his information, between the end of the pit strike in 1985 and the onset of the Labour Government in 1997, 170 pits were closed, out of less than 200. Those are the figures. They cannot be denied, and if he checks the record he will see that I am speaking the truth. On a second issue, is it not stupid to be getting rid of 3,000 mining jobs in the three pits that I have referred to while at the same time importing more coal from Russia when there are supposed to be sanctions? Is there not a stench of hypocrisy here?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, right on the figures. When we came into office there were only three pits left and none of the 170 he mentioned had been reopened, although there was a long period of Labour government during which that could have happened if the economics had been as he describes them. We have been actively involved in the case of these three pits; we have no wish to see a sudden closure and mass redundancies, and we continue to talk to potential commercial parties about it.