Miners and Mining Communities
Keir Mather Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Keir Mather (Selby and Ainsty) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans). I thank the hon. Member for Leigh (James Grundy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for securing the debate. My hon. Friend spoke poignantly about the rich tapestry of community organisations that tie together coalfield communities. Although I was not around when the coalmine in Clara Vale, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), was open, I spent a lot of my youth going up there to visit family members. Whether it is the pit banner on the wall, the Methodist church or the community groups, the heritage of coalmining communities is alive and well in the north- east, and being championed by people like my hon. Friend the Member for Easington.
As the newest coalfield Member of Parliament, I have the distinct privilege of representing the entirety of the Selby super-pit, which in its time was regarded as the most technologically advanced coalmine in Europe. The last coalmine in my constituency was still producing coal within the last decade. Kellingley colliery—or the Big K, as it was known—was the last deep-pit coalmine to close in Britain, with the loss of over 600 jobs. So in Selby we know a thing or two about coal, and we are living through the consequences of what the industry’s end can bring, both for our communities, and for ex-mineworkers and their families. I would like to send special thanks to the Selby branch of the NUM advice service for all the work it does to advance its members’ interests.
We inherit a proud past in Selby, but we in this House need to consider the future that we hope to build as proud representatives of coalfield communities. Our work is twofold: to provide dignity, recognition and support to ex-mineworkers and their families; and to unlock the economic and social potential for future generations in areas, such as mine, where coal was once king.
Nowhere are those questions of justice more pressing than in relation to the mineworkers’ pension scheme, which many Members have spoken about so eloquently today. Since 1994, successive Governments have received over £4 billion from the scheme, and are due to receive at least another £1.9 billion in due course. Yet the mineworkers who built the profitability of Britain’s coal industry and the wealth of our entire nation have not gotten a fair share of its proceeds.
During the 2019 general election—since when, I should note, the Conservative party has received no democratic mandate from the electorate—Boris Johnson said categorically that the Tories would make sure that no
“miner signed up to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme is out of pocket…we will make sure all their cash is fully protected and returned, I have looked into it and we will ensure that’s done.”
That was a solemn, black-and-white, categorical assurance made by a Conservative Prime Minister to coalfield communities. It was the reason some mineworkers decided to vote for Mr Johnson’s party in 2019. It is the reason some Members on the Conservative Benches are sitting here at all.
Having collected his votes and gone back down to London, what did that Prime Minister proceed to do about the promises he had made to coalfield communities such as mine? Absolutely nothing. It is yet another damning example of the age-old Conservative habit of breaking promises made to northern communities in England and to the British people overall; a final kick in the teeth for mineworkers to endure. They have lived for 40 years with the legacy of Thatcherism and are faced with the indignity in retirement of being peddled Tory false hope. Meaningful MPS reform requires a Government with empathy and a desire to see that justice is done. That is why I am pleased to see the Labour party’s ambition to reform the scheme to provide ex-mineworkers with the dignity in retirement that they deserve.
But we cannot have dignity without our health. If I could encourage Ministers to take away one thing from this debate, it would be to try to bring greater compassion and greater speed to the assessment of ex-mineworkers for industrial illnesses by the Department for Work and Pensions. My team and my local NUM branch have been fighting hard for Mr Anthony Rock, who is receiving a percentage of his industrial injuries disablement benefit for pneumoconiosis, but not for his progressive massive fibrosis which is known to develop directly from his condition. There have been egregious and unacceptable delays from the DWP in the several claims that Mr Rock has made regarding his illness. He is becoming seriously unwell, so I would appreciate it if the Minister could meet me to discuss how we can advance his case as quickly as possible. I wish that Mr Rock’s case was an isolated one, but sadly his experience is all too common for mineworkers across the country. It is time for the DWP to shape up and take responsibility for treating mineworkers with the respect they deserve.
Finally, and on a note of optimism, I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Coalfield Regeneration Trust’s business park at the site of the former Kellingley colliery. It has managed to turn a site where 600 people lost their jobs into a thriving business centre for Yorkshire’s small and medium-sized enterprises, employing local young people in well-paid and skilled employment. That work must not just continue but expand and flourish, because it has been proven that it works and it benefits communities such as mine. The proposal by the all-party parliamentary group on coalfield communities and the CRT to return CGF and CEF funds to allow it to expand its work should receive extremely thoughtful consideration from Members across this House.
For places such as Selby, our value lies no longer in the coal beneath our feet, but in the spirit of our people and communities; a legacy bequeathed to us by our coalfield heritage. The industrial pride, skills, ingenuity, solidarity and communal spirit that are hardwired into such communities are some of the most potent tools we have to build a better future for our country, both back home in Yorkshire and across the length of Great Britain. It is our responsibility in this House to do all we can to empower coalfield communities to realise that enormous potential. I thank all Members from across the House who are doing incredible work to achieve that aim.
Oral Answers to Questions
Keir Mather Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Michael Gove
That is a fair point. The ad hoc structures that the hon. Gentleman described work well. All the existing Mayors work well together, and all party politics aside, it has been instructive to see the kind words that Andy Burnham has directed towards Andy Street and vice versa. Now that the mayoral model, which has worked overall with one or two slight bumps in the road, has reached a level of maturity, his point is very fair.
Keir Mather (Selby and Ainsty) (Lab)
Voters in the upcoming North Yorkshire mayoral election are facing significant economic hardship and deserve to know that their money is being spent responsibly. Does the Secretary of State share my concern that one candidate in the North Yorkshire mayoral race has made over £300 million of unfunded spending commitments for the county? Could central Government perhaps provide an assessment of the economic impact of such spending commitments?
Michael Gove
It is striking that the Conservative candidate in North Yorkshire is the only one who has a plan for growth, and a long-term plan for York and North Yorkshire’s economy. When it comes to value for money for our Mayors, I should point out that the Conservative Mayors for Tees Valley and for the West Midlands, Ben Houchen and Andy Street, levy not a penny in extra mayoral taxation, unlike the Labour Mayor in London, whose spendthrift ways will see him thrown out on 2 May.
Leasehold Reform and New Homes
Keir Mather Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Keir Mather (Selby and Ainsty) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris, and I thank the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) for securing this important debate. I want to focus on the issue of maintenance charges, given that the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill gives homeowners paying charges for the maintenance of communal areas the right to challenge the reasonableness of those charges and the standard of the service provided.
This Parliament has run out of road on so many issues. The Government have in deed, if not in word, taken the decision not to meet many of the challenges that people in my constituency face—problems I see every day—with measures such as social care reform, special educational needs and disabilities expansion, and fair changes to small and medium-sized enterprises taxation. However, I am glad that they are finally willing to tackle maintenance charges. Whether that is due to the particular passion of the Secretary of State will mean little to my constituents, many of whom are leaseholders and freeholders on new build estates who so desperately need this place to sit up and take notice of their plight.
The present system of maintenance charges and management fees is outrageous. A cowboy system with limited regulation has taken root and left residents with no transparency over how funds are used and no clarity on whether services provide value for money, and the fees charged are exorbitant and quite frankly offensive in the context of a crippling cost of living crisis and the highest tax burden on working people for 70 years. My constituents, as well as many of the constituents of Conservative Members, are being fleeced by these charges.
In the seven months since becoming the Member of Parliament for Selby and Ainsty, I have seen many instances of these charges being levied unfairly on local residents. I have already written to the Minister about a particularly egregious example in Carlton, so I will refrain from mentioning that case to give him adequate time to respond. However, I will mention the Harron Homes estate off Flaxley Road in Selby. The estate has been built for five years and is still plagued with problems. Residents still do not have working street lights, with families not able to go out in the dark. They have to put up with roads that have literal craters in them, ruining the cars on which people rely for work, since public transport in my area is so poor. I spoke to one resident who cannot even lock her front door at night, due to shoddy building work, and has to prop her door closed with a chair so that criminals do not break in and steal her possessions. That is all while each resident on the estate is shackled with eye-watering maintenance charges.
The lack of transparency and accountability in the new build homes sector has led to countless issues. From construction defects to unfair lease terms, homeowners are left feeling helpless, hopeless and at the mercy of developers who are seemingly determined to squeeze every penny they can out of hard-working people. That is a sad part of life in modern Britain. On new build estates across the Selby district, working people live in a broken system, being asked to pay more and more for less and less in return. They have been waiting for the Government to come and help them.
Perhaps the Bill will be the answer, but I caution against any watering down of its provisions; rather, I encourage ambition to ensure that it goes further and gives residents the support that they so desperately need, as the hon. Member for Harborough so eloquently outlined. I am sure that my constituents regret the lack of ambition that we have seen in the past, and although the Government are not going the whole way to provide leaseholders in my constituency with the help that they need, I am glad that they are taking action after 14 years to deal with the problem that, as the hon. Member outlined, has existed since at least 2002.
We can and should go further on this issue, and I am proud to support Labour’s plans to make it a requirement to establish and operate a residents’ management company responsible for all service charges, to give homeowners the accountability and responsibility that they deserve. I support the implementation of the Law Commission’s proposals on the right to manage, covering both flats and houses, as well as the proposals on enfranchisement and on commonhold reform. It is imperative that we address these challenges head on and enact meaningful reform to ensure fairness, transparency and security for all homeowners. The Government have started the job, but ultimately it will be a Labour Government who finally liberate leaseholders from the mercy of an arcane and discriminatory industry.