Coalfield Communities

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I will not give way.

This happened not in Pinochet’s Chile or in South Africa during the apartheid regime; this happened in the 1980s in Thatcher’s Britain.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case and I am very pleased that she has paid tribute to the role of women in the miners’ strike and talked about the solidarity and the shining example that they set. Does she agree that it is still the women in coalfields such as ours who feel most angry that this Government are refusing not only to apologise but to put in the public domain all the information pertaining to that time that would allow us to get justice for the coalfield communities?

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It was the women—the wives and daughters of the miners, as well as women in trade unionist families—who were quite simply doing the right thing in their communities. And yes, those women are extremely angry that these issues have not been opened up to proper public scrutiny.

I support the call for Ministers to set out all the details of the interactions between the Government and the police at the time of the strike, and to release all the information about Government-police communications relating to Orgreave and all the other incidents that we have heard about today. I also support the call for Ministers swiftly to initiate an independent review of what happened at Orgreave and elsewhere if the Independent Police Complaints Commission cannot or will not undertake a proper investigation of these matters.