Miners and Mining Communities

Steve Double Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to speak in this debate. I am the furthest south, by a long way, among the Members who will participate, but the fact is that Cornwall has an incredibly proud heritage and history of mining. It is not just about our history; we still have a thriving mining sector in my constituency, and some amazing opportunities to come. When most people think about my constituency, they are aware of the beaches, the coasts and all that we have to offer tourists, but the middle part of my community—what we often call the clay villages, because of the history of china clay mining there—has far more in common with former mining villages in the north of England than it does with the rest of the south of England. Representing such a diverse constituency that contains so many different elements presents me with some interesting questions and challenges.

Our mining history in Cornwall goes back literally 4,000 years—it goes back to the bronze age, when tin was discovered and mined to create the bronze that was needed in that era. By Roman times, tin was already a much traded and sought-after commodity that was being extracted in Cornwall. At that time, Cornwall was actually described as one of the wealthiest strips of land anywhere on earth, because of the incredible wealth brought by tin mining. By medieval times, Cornwall’s status as the tin mining capital of the world had become so important, and the wealth it generated for the Crown had become so significant, that a set of special bodies and laws was established through the stannary courts and parliaments to protect that mining wealth. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Cornish tin and copper mining reached its zenith: the metals mined from Cornwall helped to provide the raw materials for the industrial revolution and were a major contributor to the economic growth of our nation, and indeed of the empire.

Cornwall has also been at the forefront of pioneering in mining. The high-pressure steam engine was invented in Cornwall by Richard Trevithick, which led to the creation of the iconic engine houses. At one point there were over 200 engine houses in Cornwall, and when Cornish miners went around the world they took that technology with them—in many parts of the world where mining takes place, the same engine houses can be seen. We in Cornwall also invented the safety lamp: Humphry Davy’s invention was another major bit of pioneering safety equipment for miners of the time.

More recently, the extraction of china clay in my constituency has been at the heart of the Cornish economy. Cornwall has the largest and highest-grade deposit of kaolin—also known as china clay—anywhere in the world, and for 250 years now has been extracting, producing and exporting high-quality china clay. I am proud that several of my ancestors, and my grandfather and my uncle, worked in the china clay industry. By 1910, Cornwall was producing 50% of the world’s china clay, which revolutionised mid-Cornwall, the part of Cornwall that I am proud to represent.

For example, the tiny village of West Polmear had only nine residents, but then Charles Rashleigh invested huge sums of money to create factories and homes for the china clay workers, and very quickly it became a village of several hundred people. He renamed the village Charlestown—not after the King, as many think, but after himself. Many people will be familiar with Charlestown today as a thriving visitor centre, and will probably also recognise it as one of the places that was regularly featured in the BBC’s “Poldark” series.

That period also saw the Cornish mining diaspora, where about 250,000 Cornish miners and their families left Cornwall to spread literally around the world. At that time, it was said that if you found a hole in the ground anywhere in the world, you would find a Cornishman at the bottom of it. Today, statues commemorating Cornish miners can be found in the state of Victoria in Australia; and there is a Cornish waterwheel in British Columbia in Canada, a Cornish cultural society in Mexico and, most importantly, a Cousin Jack’s pasty shop in California. All are clear signs of how Cornish miners spread around the world.

However, like many of the stories we have heard this afternoon, the clay villages in my constituency, as with any mining sector, have faced huge challenges as the number of people employed has fallen. The china clay industry used to employ around 10,000 people in my constituency, but today that figure is just over 1,000. That has presented a number of challenges for those communities, economically, socially, and in terms of health. They are some of the most disadvantaged communities in Cornwall, and indeed in the country. They face challenges in finding jobs: many of the jobs we now have in Cornwall that are linked to tourism or food production are lower paid and often seasonal. As other Members have mentioned, the lack of good transport links also presents a huge challenge.

However, great work has been going on in recent years. We are seeing the regeneration of old china clay pits through the creation of a garden village, with the construction of about 1,300 new houses, a new school and new workplace buildings, and real investment in that area. A new link road is being built through the china clay area, with £80 million of Government investment, which will improve connectivity. That is the single biggest investment in mid-Cornwall by any Government. The Government have also provided £50 million through the levelling-up fund to upgrade the branch line between Newquay and Par and connect it through to Truro and Falmouth—what we call the mid-Cornwall metro—which will also greatly improve transport connectivity for many of those china clay villages.

We are also seeing significant investment in St Austell Hospital, which serves many of those communities—a £15 million surgical hub is being built right now and will be opened in the coming months—and the redevelopment of Cornwall College in St Austell will serve many of those communities, with a brand-new campus about to be built in the coming months. The Government have recognised the needs of those communities. More than any previous Government, they have provided those villages with investment to help to address some of the disadvantage they face.

However, this is not just about the mining of the past. Cornwall has a great opportunity that I believe will breathe new life into and revive our mining sector: lithium extraction. We have known for 200 years that there is lithium in Cornwall—I have seen old mining maps from the 1800s showing significant deposits of lithium in Cornwall—but it is only recently, because of the need for lithium for producing batteries, particularly for electric vehicles, that there has been a market for the mineral. Two companies, Cornish Lithium and Imerys British Lithium, are looking to develop the extraction of lithium, which will provide the UK with a secure domestic supply of what will be one of the most sought-after elements in the decades to come. It is estimated that they could produce 50% of the lithium that British car manufacturing will need for the batteries we will have to produce.

That is very good news not only for Cornwall, but for the UK. In one of his previous jobs, the Minister came to visit us, and he is aware of the opportunity presented. It is not only a great economic opportunity, but I believe it provides us with an opportunity to ensure that the extraction of elements going into the manufacturing of batteries in the UK has the highest environmental and ethical standards. One concern that local people sometimes raise with me is that lithium extraction does not have a particularly good reputation around the world either in the ethics applied to it or in its environmental impact. However, we can produce lithium in Cornwall to the highest possible environmental standards and to the highest ethical standards, which I think puts us in a very strong competitive position in the global market.

There is a great opportunity to revive the mining sector and give mid-Cornwall a great future for decades to come. Being good at taking things out of the ground has been part of Cornwall’s history, but a lot of the value and the higher-paid jobs have ended up elsewhere. This time, we want to ensure that we capture as much as possible of the value of lithium extraction and that we keep it in Cornwall. We must create the well-paid jobs in Cornwall and keep the value there as much as we can, so that there is a lasting and positive impact on our economy.

We are incredibly proud of Cornwall’s heritage and history of mining—it is in our DNA; it is what our people have done for thousands of years—but there is also a huge opportunity for it to be part of Cornwall’s future, and for Cornwall to play a significant part in our national prosperity once again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Let me start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and the hon. Member for Leigh (James Grundy) for securing this debate.

I also thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Easington, for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather) and for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), and from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). All of them spoke about the Coalfields Regeneration Trust’s “State of the Coalfields 2024” report and the miners’ pension scheme. It is a pleasure to respond to the debate on behalf of the Opposition, not least because these issues are deeply personal for my constituents, as they are for Members from across coalfield communities.

It would be difficult to overstate the impact of the coal industry on my constituency, and on the north-east as a whole. Its history is woven into the fabric of our community. Many towns and villages owe their existence to the pit. Today, statues and colliery wheels commemorate our past, and community facilities set up to serve mining families remain in use. In my constituency, there were many collieries, from Chopwell to Kibblesworth and from Greenside to Bewicke Main. Each pit was surrounded by a community in which coal was not just a job, but a way of life. Like other right hon. and hon. Members, I could not go without mentioning the annual big meeting, the Durham miners’ gala. Each year, brilliant flying banners and marching brass bands bring together thousands in our region to celebrate working-class life and solidarity.

So far, I have talked about my local area, but the mining history of the UK stretches far and wide, from the coalfields in Lanarkshire to mines in the midlands, on to the Welsh valleys and all the way down to Kent.

[Steve Double]

I think the hon. Lady has missed Cornwall from her list.

[Liz Twist]

Indeed. I noticed the similarities in what the hon. Member said between his community and our coalmining communities.

Let us be clear that the reality of working down the pit was far from romantic. Miners toiled in brutal working conditions, doing backbreaking work in the near darkness. As we have heard, many people lost their lives in disasters or developed industrial diseases, such as pneumoconiosis, as a result of their work. It is important that we remember and pay tribute to them.

Mining communities knew better than anyone that this work was tough and dangerous, but whole ways of life were built around the pits. Their rapid closures caused mass upheaval, the consequences of which are still felt to this day. As the reports from the Industrial Communities Alliance have highlighted, former coalfield areas still suffer from a lack of skilled, well-paid jobs, as well as from high levels of economic inactivity. While employment rates have improved since the days of mass unemployment, many people still feel there are few meaningful and secure alternatives to the work that was once available.

Labour is determined that we will not abandon our communities to the whims of industrial change. Through our green prosperity plan, we will seize the opportunities of energy transition to deliver economic justice and rebuild the strength of our industrial heartlands. We will create secure, clean jobs, backed by strong trade unions, with individual and collective rights guaranteed for all workers. Our former mining communities powered us through the industrial revolution, and it is not right that many people within them are forced to rely on insecure, zero-hours contracts, or left vulnerable to fire and rehire. That is why Labour’s new deal for working people will put an end to those practices and build our economy from the bottom up, and the middle out, to deliver a high-growth, high-wage economy for all.

This Government came to power talking about levelling up, but inequalities remain as stark as ever. A report from the APPG on coalfield communities, in partnership with the Industrial Communities Alliance, speaks of the failure of the current approach to deliver for former coalfield areas. Pots allocated by competitive bidding are too haphazard and too short term to allow for the developments that are needed to transform former industrial sites. Coalfield communities must be allowed to come together, and to learn from each other, not made to compete like contestants on “Dragons’ Den”.

Not only must we deliver a better future for our communities, but we must right the wrongs of the past. As we have heard, the party in Government have broken promises about the mineworkers’ pension scheme. Does the Minister think it is fair that the Government make vast amounts of money from the current arrangement, while former miners struggle to make ends meet? Let me be clear: this is a historic injustice that should never have taken place, and the Government should not be in the business of profiting off mineworkers’ pensions.

After so many years of silence from Parliament on this issue, the BEIS Committee inquiry was very welcome. The Labour party will work with mineworkers and their families to right this wrong, and we will set out our full plans on this by the time of the election. People should be in no doubt that we will deliver justice for mineworkers and their families with the urgency required.

We must never shrug off injustice. We all remember the violent images of the strike in 1984 and 1985, perhaps no more so than the sight of Lesley Boulton cowering in the face of a police truncheon at the Orgreave coking plant. Earlier this year, new footage from Orgreave was shown in a Channel 4 documentary, which clearly set out the police brutality and allegations of a cover-up. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), considered the case for an inquiry, but it seems that the Government no longer think that they have any lessons to learn. Their memories are clearly short. The Labour party has long supported a full investigation or inquiry into the events at Orgreave, and we are committed to putting a new Hillsborough law on to the statute book to prevent future injustices. I hope the Minister shares my conviction that the truth must be heard.

Our coalmining days may be behind us, but we must not forget the communities that formed around them. They were the engine that powered Britain’s industrial success, and we owe it to them that they should share in the rewards.