Coalfield Communities
Debate between Jim Hood and David T C Davies
Mr Jim Hood (Lanark and Hamilton East) (Lab)
I welcome the debate, which is 30 years after the miners’ strike. Much has been written and said of that period, but so much of what really happened to miners, their families and communities—there was evidence earlier today—has not been told. Today, I want to put on record the miners’ strike through the eyes of a Nottinghamshire miner, which I was proud to be.
In 1984, I was a miners’ leader at one of the most profitable pits in the country. I was the National Union of Mineworkers secretary at Ollerton colliery. We hear so much about the Government, but there is now a Tesco where that top 10 pit once was. We were five years into Margaret Thatcher’s reign as Tory Prime Minister. She was well into her Government’s de-industrialisation of the British economy and it was the miners’ turn. From her point of view, it was unfinished business from the 1972 and 1974 miners’ strikes.
Margaret Thatcher commissioned Nicholas Ridley, her head guru, to devise a plan to run down the mining industry and destroy the National Union of Mineworkers. The 1979 Ridley plan was born. Its basis was to build massive coal stocks, double the number of nuclear power stations, change trade union laws to weaken trade unions’ right to strike and defend their members, and to use the powers of the state to attack working people.
Mr Hood
No, I am not giving way.
The Prime Minister had tried that in 1981 but had to back off when her coal stocks were too low. The hapless Energy Secretary, now Lord Howell, was the fall guy for her failure, and she later sacked him, but her 1981 unpreparedness was not to be repeated in 1984, when she decided she was better ready to crush the miners and their union.
At the beginning of the miners’ strike, there were 250 pits and 250,000 miners. Thatcher had previously appointed Sir Ian MacGregor, the former American banker, as chairman of British Steel to run down the steel industry. His reward for his success in that was to be given the reins to do the same in the coal industry. He was made chairman of the National Coal Board.
The miners had been on an overtime ban for six months to oppose the declared NCB pit closures. The NUM did not want to go on strike and would have continued with the overtime ban indefinitely—the overtime ban was running the coal stocks down by the hour. Mrs Thatcher was facing another 1981 defeat and decided to provoke the NUM into taking strike action. On 5 March, the Tory Government announced an accelerated closure of five pits: Cortonwood colliery in Yorkshire, Bullcliffe Wood colliery in Derby, Herrington colliery in Durham, Snowdown colliery in Kent, and Polmaise in Scotland. The NUM in those areas immediately went on strike, and Ollerton, where I was the lead official, was picketed by Yorkshire miners the very next day, fighting to defend their jobs.
For the next week, thousands of police were imported into Nottinghamshire to stop picketing. Hundreds of miners were arrested and imprisoned in Mansfield police station and other places before draconian bail conditions were imposed on picketing miners.