Coal Tip Safety and New Extraction Licences Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebatePippa Heylings
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(1 day, 21 hours ago)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) on securing this important debate, which brings together two deeply interconnected issues: the safety of coal tips and the prohibition of new coal extraction licences. Both go to the heart of how we reckon with our industrial past, protect our communities in the present and deliver on our climate responsibilities for the future.
In September last year, we hailed the historic moment that the UK closed its last coal-fired power station and we became the first country in the G7 to phase out coal power generation, fulfilling the pledge that we made alongside other countries at COP26. That was a key milestone in our climate targets and our efforts to reduce polluting emissions. At the same time, we paid tribute to the men and women who had worked in terrible conditions in our coalmines and coal-fired power stations for many years while they kept our lights on and powered our industries and economy.
That now leaves, across the United Kingdom, about 5,000 disused coal tips, more than half of which are in Wales. Many of them sit close to the communities that once powered our country: the valleys, towns and villages built around the coal industry. As we have heard, as climate change accelerates, and rainfall and extreme weather events become more frequent, the danger the tips pose is growing. This is not a risk for some point in the future; it is happening now.
This week we remember the tragedy in Aberfan in 1966, when 144 people, including 116 children, died. Just last year, 40 homes in Cwmtillery were evacuated when a tip collapse sent tonnes of slurry and debris through the village. These incidents are a reminder that this is not simply a historical concern, but a very real and present danger for communities today. Such tragedies should not be allowed to happen again.
The Government’s commitment of £118 million over three years for coal tip safety, together with the Welsh Government’s £100 million investment, is of course welcome, but the Welsh Affairs Committee heard clearly that the funding only scratches the surface. The cost of long-term remediation and monitoring is so much higher, and the risks are increasing as the climate changes. Though the funding is welcome, it is reactive and not strategic.
What we need is a strategic long-term plan—a proper partnership between the UK and Welsh Governments—with sustainable funding for the disused tips authority, which is due to be established in 2027. That body will succeed only if it has the skills, resources and the authority it needs from day one. As the Liberal Democrats have consistently said, we have to view this not just as a safety issue but as a climate resilience issue. Climate change is causing ground instability, which means that, as we have heard, living at the foot of a coal tip is becoming even more dangerous, year by year and day by day. The response must be integrated with the UK’s broader climate adaptation strategy.
At the same time, we need to ensure we have truly confronted the unfinished business of coal itself. Liberal Democrats welcomed the Government’s announcement last November that they would prohibit new coal extraction licences, but that has to be a watertight ban. As it stands, there is a loophole that allows coal to be commercially extracted from disused tips, as we have just heard so powerfully.
In practice, extracting coal from a tip is no different from open-cast mining. The method is the same, the disruption is the same, the risks are the same and the emissions are the same. The contradiction can be easily resolved. Leading environmental lawyers, working with the Coal Action Network, have proposed an amendment to the Coal Industry Act 1994 to clarify that the mining of coal from coal tips also requires a licence. That small change would ensure that the Government’s coal ban is comprehensive and future-proof.
Future-proofing is vital, as changes in our political landscape could put all this at risk. There are political parties that would seek a very different route. Rather than invest in the new green jobs of the future, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), the leader of Reform UK, has demanded—I repeat, demanded—the reopening of coalmines in Wales. He argued that Welsh people would happily return to work down the pits—and, I assume, also have slurry tipped over the beautiful Welsh countryside. There is no vision for jobs of the future, only a return to the jobs of the past, and no concern for the planet that our children and future generations will inherit.
Reform UK opposes green renewable energy. Instead, it wants to reopen coalmines and frack stupid frack, ripping apart our beautiful countryside by digging deep, with the threat of earth tremors, polluted water and devastation to our precious nature and wildlife.
Does the hon. Lady acknowledge the leadership of the Welsh Government, who have used their planning powers to become the first part of the UK to completely ban fracking?
I definitely welcome that, and I hope that the Minister will ensure that we have the same powers in planning and all other legislation to follow that here in England.
Reform UK, in true Trump style, would destroy our green and pleasant land—and for whom? It would make oil and gas giants richer while keeping our households and businesses stuck on volatile, skyrocketing energy bills and sending our young people back down the pits. The Liberal Democrats have been clear that there must be no new onshore fossil fuel extraction anywhere in the UK. This is the decisive moment to leave coal behind once and for all.
We must have a just transition, with new investment, new skills and new opportunities rooted in the very same communities. That is why we are calling for an independent just transition commission to hold Government and industry to account, ensure that jobs in clean energy and green manufacturing reach the regions that need them most, and give workers the certainty that they deserve as industries evolve. I ask the Minister to agree with us that we should close the loophole and there should be no more new onshore fossil fuel extraction in the country.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) on securing the debate.
The themes of the debate are at the centre of Britain’s industrial sanity. The Government’s approach to our own resources, making us more dependent on dirtier foreign imports of materials rather than producing them at home, is not climate policy; it is economic vandalism dressed up as the same old virtue-signalling that we have come to expect from the incumbent Secretary of State.
It is fair to say that this country’s methods of energy production have changed dramatically since the industry peaked in the 20th century, particularly after the second world war. But what we are witnessing from this shambolic Labour Government is an accelerating obsession with shutting down productive, strategic British industries in the name of ideology. The Government seem determined to pursue a hollow version of net zero, not as a plan for environmental stewardship, but for the purpose of political point scoring and making this country economically neutered and directionless.
As the Leader of the Opposition has rightly stated, the Conservatives remain committed to maximising the responsible extraction of our own natural resources, particularly at a time when ordinary working people are grappling with astronomical energy bills, which are now among the highest in the developed world, and our steel industry is on its knees. Yet rather than backing British industry and jobs, the Government continue their relentless campaign to strangle domestic industry in the name of tackling climate change, when they could be looking towards places such as the North sea to bring in tens of billions of pounds in tax revenue, skilled, well-paid jobs, and inward investment.
When the Secretary of State decided not to challenge the court’s blocking of the proposed Cumbrian coking coalmine, he sabotaged an opportunity for investment and skilled employment. British Steel executives made it clear that UK-mined coal could power their blast furnaces efficiently and cleanly, cutting import costs and emissions alike. We all know where that ended. It makes no sense to make ourselves more reliant on other countries for things that we could produce ourselves here in the United Kingdom just because they do not count towards our climate targets.
It was the leader of the Conservative party who made the pledge at COP26 to phase out coal extraction. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Conservatives would do a complete U-turn and restart coal extraction?
The ending of coal-fired power stations was incredibly welcome, but the reality of the transition is that just turning things off overnight does not work. In the example of the steel industry, had we opened the coalmine in Cumbria and delivered cheaper, less carbon-emitting coal from our own shores into the blast furnaces operated by British Steel, the Government may not have had to nationalise it. We now see an industry that will only have electric blast furnaces that cannot produce virgin steel, leaving us incredibly vulnerable, particularly on domestic security and defence infrastructure.