UK Coal Operations Ltd

Lord Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I congratulate and thank my near-neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Sir Alan Meale), for calling for and securing this timely debate. I hope that the Minister, who is listening hard to his party’s MPs, is already mulling over how the Government’s commitment to abolish green taxes will only mean anything in reality when Harworth colliery is reopened and re-mined. The coal there—there is enough for at least 30 years, and the possibility of more, if more shafts are sunk in the mine, which is on my constituency’s Lincolnshire border—would provide him with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that the Government are serious about that commitment.

I hope that we will not have to take legal action for one sub-group of those affected by the issue that we are discussing—the former miners who have had accidents, and the widows of those who died in accidents. There are up to 2,000 of them; my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) has already spoken about them. Some legal settlements relating to accidents incorporated the issue of concessionary coal, and therefore the obligation for that sub-group or subset will almost certainly fall legally on the Government. That is because those people who had accidents—by definition, through no fault of their own—including some of my constituents, settled for an amount from the National Coal Board based on concessionary coal being part of their compensation. For that subset of people, the Minister has no choice. I hope that common sense will be used, and that they do not have to waste our time and his, or pay legal costs to pursue compensation through the courts.

I will leave some time for my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) to speak. However, I must mention the issue of gas. In Bassetlaw, which is in north Nottinghamshire, 6,000 properties are without access to gas, so using gas is not an option for their owners. Indeed, some of those properties, which include terraced properties, could not safely have oil either. With fuel poverty, sometimes a calculated choice is made, but often there is no choice at all. Indeed, I and others have battled to get gas to particular streets, in order to provide that choice for those who want it, but the costs involved are prohibitive, because installing a gas main is not the cheapest thing in the world, and villages may be many miles away from other places. For many, when it comes to fuel poverty, there is no choice. The most vulnerable, and the most vulnerable to fuel poverty, are among my constituents.

Further clarification is needed, because the term “concessionary coal” suggests a give-away or perk, but the coal is part of the employment conditions and part of the pension. A good comparator would be Ministers and Members of Parliament who require remuneration for a second home. They need a second home to do the job and rightly are not taxed—indeed, they get the money back—on something that is legitimately used to do the job. It is right and proper that that is not a taxable benefit. There are many other areas of life where there are similar comparators. Exactly the same applies to concessionary coal. It is not a perk; it is part of the retirement pension.

I have only two more things to say, but one will take a little time. First, though, I want to refer to the letter recently received by my constituent, Mr Philip Hall of Manton, who is one of those affected. Mr Hall has received what has twice been described by the administrator as a “generous offer”. He is being offered two sacks of coal—not a week, a month or a year, but two sacks of coal for the rest of his life. He wants me to make the point that he does not feel that that is reasonable or generous. He feels that it is an insult.

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I, too, have been made aware by one of my local retired miners that they have been contacted, I understand, via UK Coal and offered coal at a price that is higher than they would pay if they went down the local coal merchant’s to buy it. It seems a rum do, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind my saying so.

[John Mann]

No wonder the administrators are calling Mr Hall’s offer generous. By comparison it is, but a country in which people living in fuel poverty are given two sacks of coal for life, for their pension, is not the kind of country that we aspire to have, or that the Minister aspires to have. I am sure that he would not want that to be part of his legacy as a Minister.

The second and final issue of substance that I want to raise is a matter that I have referred this week— the Minister has been copied in to the letter; it will be arriving—to the Serious Fraud Office. I hope that the Minister, not now but in the next few days and weeks, will investigate this fully. I do not believe that the splitting up of UK Coal has been done properly. I am not referring to the old logo being used in adverts at the moment, because that is peripheral. The company was split in two on 10 December. The land assets were put into a separate company called Harworth Estates Property Group Ltd, and that is where the value is—the huge value of those land assets—because this Government and Her Majesty’s Opposition are keen on house building, and they want the houses built in places such as Harworth. These are former coal sites, brownfield sites. There would be consensus, if the relevant Ministers were here, on building housing in these places. They would be saying, “Yes, this is exactly the kind of land on which we want to see lots of houses.” It is a huge asset—a fortune—that this company is sitting on.

I am not an expert on the legalities of splitting up companies, which is why I have referred the matter to the Serious Fraud Office and to the Minister, but I am pretty sure that people have to be honest about the values of companies. On 10 December, the company was split. I have with me a planning application dated 14 December. The planning application is from UK Coal Mining Ltd—a company that does not appear to exist any more or, if it does, is the one that we are talking about today, which owes the miners the money and the coal. The application is dated 14 December—four days later. This was over a weekend, so it was even fewer working days later. It is a planning application to Bassetlaw district council for 996 houses and other employment opportunities that was put in by this company. The profit on just this one piece of land is worth more than the money required for these miners and widows for the rest of their lives, and the application was put in a few days later.

The reason why I have referred the matter to the SFO is that things have to be done in the open when company changes are taking place, as far as I am aware, and I see on the application that the box has been ticked, and the officers have been named, for pre-planning application discussions. A little fee has been paid to Bassetlaw council, and there have been discussions with three named officers. Documents that I have seen demonstrate that the applicants are told that they will get approval. They know that the council, which is required by Government to have housing, wants housing built in that place. These people put the application in, having split up the company.

Which half of the company will see the profits from this when the application is in the name of UK Coal Mining Ltd? This seems to me very straightforward, and this is where we will need Government intervention. It will need to be the bit that owns the liability, because it seems to me that that is the name in which the application has gone in. It is the basis on which these people split the company up, and the basis on which they approached people, including me, to argue the case for developing the land assets in order to allow the mining operations to continue.

I went to my council of many years and persuaded it that what we want is not just a coal mine in Harworth. We want the land used for industry and for housing. We want a deal doing to allow the industry to survive, and to ensure that it is meeting its proper obligations to the retired. That is exactly what I did, in exactly those terms.

The company restructured just before it put in the application. I have a redacted copy of the application, but I see that it was put in by the applicant just days after the split-up. If that is not fraud, I do not know what is. These people have split a company up, knowing that there is a hidden value there—because they have had the discussions with the council—that needs to be built into the calculations. That value should be with the part of the company with the liability. They should not be allowed to get away with this. I am looking forward to hearing how the Minister will tackle his obligations and give the guarantees, in the language and detail that the Chancellor of the Exchequer used yesterday, and also how he will hold to account these people, who have stolen this asset from the taxpayer, miners and former miners, and ensure that they do not get away with it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We will now hear from an ex-miner, Kevin Barron.