Coalfield Communities

Debate between Luke Akehurst and David Simmonds

Thursday 6th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds]

I remember those debates, of course, as the backdrop to my experiences growing up, along with the miners’ strike and the various interventions that occurred. There is an opportunity—I will put it this way—to learn lessons from that and ensure that the new Government’s approach and future Governments’ approaches take those into account and handle those situations better.

[Luke Akehurst]

If we could move forward from the events of the 1980s, in the last Parliament, the Conservative Benches were full of Members representing former mining constituencies, including three of the constituencies in County Durham. Perhaps the reason those Members were not returned at the last general election was that Government’s sorry failure to deliver the levelling up they promised. Can the shadow Minister in any way defend the failure to economically regenerate mining areas that in 2019 had Conservative MPs for the first time?

[David Simmonds]

I am sure that all those former Members of Parliament, and, indeed, some of their Labour predecessors, would also be happy to answer for the work they did, some of which was successful and some of which was not, to bring new jobs, opportunities and educational chances to those communities. There are many things we can debate that have brought benefits to those communities. If we examine the statistics in the Library briefing on the impact and legacy in different coalfields around the UK, we see quite a different picture. There are some places where those interventions—based on the statistics—appear to have been effective because there are few, if any, super output areas listed that remain affected by those issues of poverty and ill health today, and there are other areas that have struggled to move on. We all know and understand why that is in some places. If the economy of an area has long been based on mining and natural resource, and there is no other direct employment opportunity there, something different needs to be found, and many Members have referred to the impact of that. I have touched on infra- structure as one element.