Miners and Mining Communities

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered miners and mining communities.

I thank my good hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who chairs the Backbench Business Committee, and the members of that Committee for granting this debate. Thirty-one Members from across the House supported the application for this debate, including the late Sir Tony Lloyd. He was a good friend, sadly missed, and a steadfast supporter of miners and mining communities.

Yesterday I marched with Bert Moncur, a former Murton miner and a constituent of mine who worked underground alongside my late father and my mentor and predecessor in this place, John Cummings. Hundreds of pensioners from across our coalfield communities marched on Westminster with a clear message, “We want our money back.”

We know the Government’s position. They claim to protect pensions while balancing the needs of the scheme and the taxpayer but, in reality, there is no fairness or balance. The Government have taken nearly £5 billion from the pension fund without contributing a single penny since 1984. Despite challenges such as the covid-19 pandemic, the global banking crisis and the Government’s financial meltdown, the mineworkers’ pension scheme has endured, without any Government financial support. The miners I marched with yesterday are taxpayers, who were once part of thriving mining communities that had full employment and decent wages. They contributed to their pensions assuming that they would have security in retirement, yet their jobs, wages and now pensions have been taken by this Conservative Government.

I was born into a mining family, in the coalfield community of Murton, in 1961. It is hard to explain to someone who was not born in a mining community how life was organised around the pit. I remember Murton pit pond, our swimming pool, which was heated by surplus hot water from the mine. I had my first shower at Shotton colliery pit baths. Every village had a network of colliery clubs, parks, sports teams and welfare facilities vital to community life, funded by contributions from working miners. Our culture and heritage remains, and it is celebrated in our miners’ banners and brass bands that are showcased every year at the Durham miners’ gala. On the platform, we have heard the greats of the Labour and trade union movement, the likes of Nye Bevan, Tony Benn and my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). The illustrious list will surely grow this year when my good and hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) addresses the gala. There is no feeling quite like marching to the racecourse, following your village banner and brass band—it is a unique privilege.

When I grew up, in the 1960s and 1970s, life was never easy in mining towns and villages, but in the main we were happy, and life had purpose and meaning. The pit provided full employment for all ages and abilities. Our streets were not paved with gold, but our communities were rich with pride and honour, and we had a sense of self-worth. The men in the mines during my childhood were from the wartime generation. They were those who had risked their lives to defend our country, democracy and way of life. They were men such as Bill McNally, a Murton miner who was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in world war one. His family still reside in the village. His grandson, Kevin McNally, is a diamond and one of my closest friends.

The coal industry was crucial in creating our nation’s wealth. It fuelled the fires of the industrial revolution, sustained us through two world wars, and enabled the growth of new sectors in finance and the City. There is no doubt about it: this country, this nation, owes the mining communities a debt of honour and gratitude, one that is yet to be repaid.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I am pleased to make a brief intervention in this debate. The hon. Gentleman may not know that I was vice-chair of the all-party group on coalfield communities for some time, and I, too, wish to pay tribute to the miners, for whom I fought during the miners’ strike. I did so for the UDM—Union of Democratic Mineworkers—side of things. Those of us who were brought up in the 1950s know well the conditions of the miners at that time, and I have always had enormous, deep affection for them, which I carry through to this day.

[Grahame Morris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Characteristically, he was generous in his remarks and we appreciate it.

The last pit in my constituency, Easington colliery, closed in 1993, at a time when coal provided 50% of the UK’s electricity production. The decision at the time to close the British coal industry made our country dependent on imported coal, which until 2014 still accounted for 35% of energy generation. Coalfield communities have never fully recovered from de-industrialisation, as was proven in the new “State of the Coalfields 2024” report published by Sheffield Hallam University and the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. In response to the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), the all-party group continues to take up causes and issues, ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones).

The Government continue to undermine the local economy, as evidenced in the excellent report, despite the regular trumpeting of levelling-up policies. In reality, the Conservative party chooses to invest levelling-up funding in places like Richmond and Cheltenham, rather than in places like Horden, in my constituency, which is in the top 1% of the most deprived areas in the country. Levelling up offered hope, but the ready-to-go Horden masterplan for regeneration was sidelined by a Conservative- led coalition from Durham County Council that favoured a single bid from Bishop Auckland, a constituency represented by a Conservative MP and a former Minister in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The Government have ignored and neglected our most deprived mining communities. Far from levelling up, Conservative Ministers have widened economic inequalities.