Coalfield Communities

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Josh MacAlister (Whitehaven and Workington) (Lab)]

I thank all Members who were involved in bringing forward this debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee).

The coastal coalfield of west Cumbria stretches 14 miles from Whitehaven up the coast to Maryport. The coal seams in my constituency were mined for over 420 years before the last mine closed in the 1980s. The miners and collieries of west Cumbria helped to fuel Britain’s economy for centuries and sparked numerous innovations. Entire towns and communities in my constituency were built out of the coal, iron and steel industries.

Our mining history is, however, also marked by terrible tragedy. Over 1,700 men, women and children are estimated to have been killed while mining coal in Whitehaven as a result of multiple major disasters, including at the Wellington, Haig and William pits. These terrible incidents are remembered to this day by members of the Pit Crack West Cumbria group, which organises annual remembrance events and creates a community for retired miners. Let me put on record my thanks to Dave Craddock, Joseph Ritson and others who are involved in the group. I also pay tribute to Patrick Robertson and others who are working to keep the memory of Workington’s mining heritage alive with their campaign for a mining memorial in Workington, which I wholeheartedly support.

Despite those tragedies, west Cumbria remembers our mining history proudly. Having witnessed the loss not just of our mining industry but, over time, the generation of new nuclear power—despite being the site of the world’s first civil nuclear power station—that loss is felt profoundly. When not replaced, that loss does something to the psychology of a community. People yearn for work that provides a sense of shared purpose.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

The hon. Member is being generous with his time. He speaks passionately about coalmining in Cumbria and Whitehaven. He will be aware that there is a chance in Whitehaven to open a metallurgical coking mine, which would produce coke for steel and cement in this country. Will he have a word with his own Government to persuade them to open the coalmine?

[Josh MacAlister]

The hon. Member’s intervention was perfectly timed, because I was about to say that it is in these communities that the easy soundbites of populists can take hold. I will answer his question in time.

Our response must be economic revival in coalfield communities that can generate a renewed sense of purpose and pride. The cynical promise of the last Government to my constituents was that they would reopen a coalmine that they knew would likely never come. They told my community that the best it could hope for was jobs in a dying industry—jobs that would be tied to exporting a volatile commodity that lacked a domestic market. My job, and the Government’s job, is to put other options on the table. I have produced an industrial plan for west Cumbria, and since the election I have commissioned and updated a more detailed version of the plan, which I will publish shortly. It sets out how we might secure new nuclear, upgrade the port of Workington, and fuel new advanced manufacturing and industrial jobs in the area. The plan would revive and diversify west Cumbria’s economy and boost our sense of pride—looking to the future, not the past, for the answers that my community deserves.

Those plans stand a chance of success only because we have a Government who are committed to an industrial strategy; who are serious about new nuclear power generation, as announcements earlier today indicate; and who recognise the vital role of upgrading our ports, and have set the national wealth fund on a footing to support those initiatives. The Government’s growth mission, actively backing those kinds of plans, offers an answer to revive our coalfield communities. I look forward to continuing to work with the Government to deliver this change for my community, and invite the Minister to west Cumbria to talk not only about these plans but the opportunity that the recently announced devolution deal might offer to revive the prospect of jobs and economic opportunity in my community.