Coalfield Communities

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The time limit at the moment is set at five minutes, although it could be revised downwards. Only Opposition Members now wish to speak, so with what I will describe as comradely co-operation, more comrades will have a chance to contribute. You do not have to speak for five minutes, so do not feel obliged to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am afraid that the limit will have to be cut to four minutes after the speech we are about to hear.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

To help, Mr Speaker, I will not take interventions.

I was amazed by the lack of seriousness among Government Front Benchers when they thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) was talking about Jimmy Savile. He was talking about Lord Saville’s report on Bloody Sunday and the Hillsborough report. This issue has exactly the same stature: things went on in the name of the state and, whatever our views about what happened in the past, we as representatives of the state today have a responsibility to the future to release the papers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) said.

This debate is opportune because there have been reports in the papers over the past few days about the state of energy supplies in this country. A recent report in a newspaper called The Register stated:

“The capacity crunch has been predicted for about seven years… Everyone seems to have seen this coming—except the people in charge.”

We saw a lot of it coming 30 years ago, but nobody listened to us. What do we have now? We have a situation in which, as we are told in the same report:

“The UK government will set out Second World War-style measures to keep the lights on and avert power cuts”.

What a farce. One of the worst things about it is that one way the Government will do so is by continuing every year to import 50 million tonnes of coal that has blood on it—the blood of Chinese miners, of Russian miners and, as we saw earlier this year, of the 300 Turkish miners who died.

The hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) was absolutely right to say that we should have had a much more pro-coal attitude in this country. The problem is that they shut the coal mines when we were the leading proponents of clean coal technology in this country. The film “Brassed Off” was mentioned earlier. It was set around Grimethorpe colliery, where we were making oil out of coal 25 years ago, but it was closed on a whim and at a stroke of a Minister’s pen.

I want to ask Ministers four specific questions. They are about going forward, not about the past, and about how we should address this issue today. First and foremost, will they give a commitment to release all the papers identified from the 1980s? Without that, we are wasting our time.

Secondly, will Ministers give the Coalfields Regeneration Trust the real support it needs? People passionately support the CRT—including the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), whom I respect massively—but the truth is that it has been cut, cut and cut again, and it has been told that it must become supported by grants because it will not be getting any public money. We need such public money to rescue these communities.

Thirdly, will Ministers accept the details of the report produced by Sheffield Hallam university, and will they work with it and the all-party group on coalfield communities to try to address the problems that there are in every coalfield across this country?

Fourthly, the Minister for Business and Enterprise mentioned the support for Kellingley and Thoresby collieries several times, but will Ministers confirm for the record and admit that the money—it is a loan, because UK Coal has to pay it back—was only lent to the two collieries if they agreed to be shut down within 18 months and not, as was said earlier, have their life extended to 2018? It is a fact that that was the only ground on which the money was loaned.

There is no doubt that we are where we are because of a deliberate policy. Through the 1980s, there was an attempt to cut back: between 1985 and 1991, some 120 pits closed. I have to be honest about the fact that many of them were well past their sell-by date. I worked at one of them: it had been going since 1825 and was on its last legs. In 1992, on the back of the election, Michael Heseltine came up with a hit list of 31 top-quality mines that could still have been producing coal for this country. By the way, there was not a word about that in the manifesto—not one word. At the time, they said Arthur Scargill was lying, but they proved that he was not, because those 31 pits were shut within weeks.

As well as the pits being closed, the manufacturing industry in parts of the world like mine was decimated. Companies such as Huwood, Anderson Boyes, Gullick Dobson and Dowty, which had been leading the world, went to the wall. I have a friend who still works in coalfield engineering. In 1984, he worked in Motherwell. In the 1990s, he worked in Ilkeston in Derbyshire. He now travels every week from Leeds Bradford international airport to Dortmund because we no longer have that industry in this country, when we used to lead the world in it. Hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses closed, including shops, and communities were decimated. The truth is that we have left no future for our kids.

I say to the Minister today: please give us justice, give us some relief, give us the truth.

[Mr Speaker]

A four-minute limit now applies.

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[Helen Goodman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister who opened the debate said that unemployment in my constituency, and in several others, had fallen. I have checked, and the Office for National Statistics says that in June 2010 unemployment was 4,300, while the latest figures are 4,400. I wanted to give the Minister the opportunity to correct himself at the Dispatch Box.

[Mr Speaker]

The point is on the record, but that is not a matter for the Chair. The Minister will respond if she chooses to do so, and not if she chooses not to.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Not much has been said by Labour Members about the issues of concern to all our constituents, so I am happy to provide some balance. I can understand Labour Members not wanting to talk about growth or job creation in their own constituencies, but I had thought that at the very least they might wish to address some of the outstanding issues. Today, for example, there has been some sad news that a manufacturing plant in Barnsley has announced that it is going to close, with the loss of 120 jobs. I am pleased to see that those whose jobs are at risk are being properly supported, but I was surprised not to hear about that in the opening speech of the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher).

As I say, I can understand the Opposition not wanting to talk about growth and jobs, but I would have thought that they would want to discuss the remaining challenges. That is our focus. It is we who are focused on getting people back into work and supporting businesses and helping communities to regenerate themselves and achieve their ambitions. Unfortunately, Labour seems to have different priorities.

The contributions we have heard this afternoon have fallen firmly into two camps. From those on the Opposition Benches, we have heard speeches that have made the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) and his hybrid car look positively “with it”—speeches that have been focused on the past or on smearing members of the upper House. There was not a pipsqueak from the hon. Members for North West Durham (Pat Glass) or for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) about the achievements of businesses in their constituencies and how they are reinventing themselves in rail manufacturing, to give just one example. No Labour Member has sought to explain this afternoon why they did not reverse any of the trade union reforms they have so vilified today, or why in its 13 years in government, Labour did not tackle any of the issues Labour Members have raised today.

By contrast, contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), for Warrington South (David Mowat), for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) have been focused on the future, on growth, job creation and helping their communities to achieve their ambitions.

Let me put on record the achievements of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, which now has a sustainable future, after its investment in property and other assets. There is also the work of the Homes and Communities Agency’s coalfields programme, which was due to progress the physical regeneration of former coalfield sites. This work is nearing completion, and the associated land assets are expected to form part of the HCA’s up and coming programme to dispose of public sector land. The HCA has invested about £660 million in coalfield areas during the life of the coalfields programme. The DCLG’s coalfields funds, the coalfields enterprise fund and the coalfields growth fund have also been investing in innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in deprived former coalfield areas. This will continue until 2016, when the investment phase is due to end. Other sources of investment for SMEs across the board are now available, and these funds have proved to be much more effective than the coalfield fundings, being directed through local enterprise partnerships. Much has been achieved, but there is obviously much more to do.

In closing, I will say sorry. I am sorry that Her Majesty’s Opposition are stuck in the 1970s. Their constituents and their businesses are firmly in 2014, and I hope that for their sake, their Labour representatives join them in the 21st century some time soon.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House acknowledges the economic legacy of the pit closure programme in coalfield communities across the United Kingdom; notes that the recent release of the relevant 1984 Cabinet papers showed that the Government at the time misled the public about the extent of its pit closure plans and sought to influence police tactics; recognises the regeneration of former coalfield areas over the last fifteen years, the good work of organisations such as the Coalfield Regeneration Trust, and the largest industrial injury settlement in legal history secured by the previous Government for former miners suffering from bronchitis and emphysema; further recognises the ongoing problems highlighted recently by the report produced by Sheffield Hallam University on The State of the Coalfields, which revealed that there are still significant problems for the majority of Britain’s coalfield communities, such as fewer jobs, lower business formation rates, higher unemployment rates, more people with serious health issues, higher numbers in receipt of welfare benefits and a struggling voluntary and community sector; and therefore calls for the continued regeneration and much needed support for coalfield communities as part of a wider programme to boost growth in Britain’s regions.