Coal Tip Safety and New Extraction Licences

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)]

I beg to move, 

That this House has considered coal tip safety and the prohibition of new coal extraction licences. 

Diolch yn fawr, Gadeirydd. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg.

Just as coal ran in rich veins beneath the Welsh valleys and mountains, it also runs deep through the history of the people of Wales. Around this industry, thriving and vibrant communities developed all across the south Wales valleys. Miners’ institutes, public libraries, trade unions and public healthcare all bloomed in the Welsh coalfields. Those institutions were founded and funded by miners, laying the foundation for the modern welfare state. Despite this dynamism, we should not forget that those communities were exploited, with vast amounts of wealth from coal profiting Westminster, not Wales. Mining was also dangerous work and took a terrible toll on the health of far too many men and young boys.

When Margaret Thatcher began closing the mines in the 1980s without replacing those jobs, she destroyed livelihoods and left communities that once powered the world bearing economic and social scars that would pass on through generations. Thatcher’s decision to kick-start deindustrialisation in Wales—and the acceptance of this decline by both Labour and Conservative Governments—means that west Wales and the valleys are now among the poorest parts of Europe.

The economic legacy is compounded by a physical one, too. The valleys are now littered with coal tips—black monuments from the past that cast long shadows over the present. Also known as spoil tips or slag heaps, these are the waste materials removed from the mines and left abandoned above ground. Today, over 50% of all coal tips in the UK are in Wales, despite our nation making up just 8.5% of the UK’s total land mass.

Of the 2,590 coal tips, many are considered dangerous to the public. There is a risk that a significant number may collapse due to increasingly extreme weather, and that is not hypothetical, as history has shown us. Today’s debate is taking place just a day after the 59th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, which involved the collapse of a colliery spoil tip in 1966, killing 28 adults and 116 children.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Aberfan disaster; it is the same day as the anniversary of the flooding of Capel Celyn. Both were terrible reminders to communities in Wales of how little say they had over the fate of their communities, and of how little effect Westminster had, naturally, on amelioration and making people’s lives better. Those terrible incidents—the terrible deaths in Aberfan, as well as the flooding of Capel Celyn—reminded people where they stood, sadly.

[Ann Davies]

That is true. It is ironic that the two incidents happened on exactly the same date—a few years apart, but on 21 October. We must never forget either.

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[Ann Davies]

Absolutely, but we need £600 million to make these tips safe. The Government responded to my written question in June that the Labour Welsh Government had not asked for the full amount of the estimated £600 million needed to make all tips in Wales safe. Plaid Cymru believes it is a grave injustice to the people of the valleys that the full cost is not covered by Westminster. I reiterate our call on the Government to fully fund remediation work to make coal tips safe in Wales.

Without full funding from Westminster, it leaves the door open to a new generation of mining companies waiting to mine these coal tips under the guise of remediation. That is because the new Welsh Disused Tips Authority will require landowners to make the coal tips safe, and they will likely seek to avoid that extra cost. There is a real risk that mining companies will offer to carry out remediation work on behalf of landowners for free, in return for the commercial rights of any coal that they extract. These companies have proven to us that they cannot be trusted with the stewardship of our environment.

The local authority area of Carmarthenshire has 170 coal tips. My constituency borders some of the largest tips in Wales, one of which is the waste from the East Pit open-cast coalmine, a prime example of where a company has betrayed the trust of the community. In that instance, the company, Celtic Energy, continued to mine coal from the site beyond the expiry of its planning permission. It then failed to restore the coalmine and remediate the local coal tip, abandoning the site and the community with the task incomplete. We cannot allow this to become a pattern by letting the coalmining industry of Wales’s past return to carve open our countryside once again. Making coal tips safe for our communities should be the priority, whether that is through flattening, removing or reprofiling them.

The UK Government have pledged to ban new coalmining licences, but they have confirmed their belief that re-mining coal from the tips does not require a licence, meaning that such activity falls outside the scope of the proposed ban. Although the Welsh Government believe that their own planning policies will prevent re-mining, a loophole allowing coal extraction in “wholly exceptional circumstances” has raised concern among campaigners such as the Coal Action Network. I thank Anthony, who is here today, for his help in preparing for this debate. I also congratulate him on his wedding anniversary—when he should be home, he has come to support us here.

The loophole can be resolved by amending the Coal Industry Act 1994 to require licensing for the re-mining of coal tips, and ensuring that that is included in a UK-wide ban. We must prevent a new industry of commercial coal tip mining from taking root and perpetuating fossil fuel pollution. I urge the Government to extend their coal licence ban to cover the re-mining of coal tips.

Tomorrow is the Senedd by-election in Caerphilly—a local authority area with 207 coal tips, 56 of which are deemed a clear threat to public safety. As we know, voters will get to choose between two different visions for the future of Caerphilly. The vision of Reform and the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is one of reopening the coalmines in Wales. He wants to send our people back down underground to slave away in the dark for hours, developing pneumoconiosis from inhaling toxic dust—all to exploit the people of Wales yet again.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

My hon. Friend is being kind with her time in giving way. She draws attention to the policies of another party. It is striking that Reform Members are conspicuous by their absence. They once again took part in Prime Minister’s questions only from the Gallery, and when they could be talking about coal and the future of communities blighted by the remains of the coal industry, they are not here to stand up for the communities of Wales. I am sure that a number of hon. Members will join us in our dismay at their lack of presence.

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[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) on securing the debate.

As the hon. Lady outlined, the debate comes the day after the 59th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster in my constituency—an event that illustrates, more than any other, the need to ensure the safety of coal tips. As I joined community members and civic leaders in Aberfan yesterday, it was heartbreaking and humbling to see at first hand, yet again, the true price of coal in our communities.

For many years, coal extraction built wealth right across the UK. It powered the Welsh and UK economies for decades. However, the previous UK Government failed to support any costs associated with the remediation of coal tips, owing to the fact that it is a devolved area. This Labour Government recognise that the legacy of coal and coal tip safety is very much a shared responsibility, and I welcome the £25 million that the Government provided in the first Labour Budget in 14 years last October. They then built upon that with a further £118 million in the spending review to support the vital work to keep our coal tips safe.

The hon. Member for Caerfyrddin mentioned calls for further investment, at a full cost of £600 million. Perhaps, in her reflections, she could be clear on how much less money would be available for public services in Wales if her party ever pushed its Welsh independence fantasy, which could cost every adult in Wales something like £11,000 per year.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It has now been shown that the £11,000 is based on the present state of the economy, and not the potential if Wales were to be independent. It is very important that we use statistics and figures with some care and show their sources.

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[Greg Smith]

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.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Surely the hon. Gentleman would agree that it is time for the UK to follow in the footsteps of nations such as Norway that are looking at alternative technologies, such as hydrogen, for the blast production of steel, and that we should be directing our energy there rather than resorting to fossil fuel, which is only temporary.

[Greg Smith]

I do not think that the right hon. Lady and I are a million miles apart on this. I am suggesting that those great technological innovations that are coming on board but are not ready right here, right now in 2025 need time to develop and become commercially viable, and that in the transition we will still need coal for certain functions. Simply turning it all off overnight is not the responsible thing to do.

Coal tip safety is an incredibly serious issue and deserves resource, engineering expertise and local accountability. Communities across Wales and England in particular live with the physical remnants of our industrial past. Those sites must be monitored and maintained responsibly. When tips are abandoned and left unmanaged, they become dangerous, as we have seen in past tragedies.

Cutting off the licensing regime entirely risks creating more orphan sites with no responsible operators to maintain them. We should be modernising the licensing system, not abolishing it. A well-regulated extraction framework would provide both the revenue and the oversight needed to ensure tip safety for generations to come. By banning new coal extraction licences, the Government have not reduced demand for coal; they have simply exported that demand abroad. That is exactly what we have seen with the approach to the North sea and to British industry more generally.

The Times recently reported comments from the industrialist Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who warned that the UK faces a “chemical breakdown” if Ministers continue ignoring the realities of domestic energy and feedstock production. His message was blunt: if we keep shutting down energy-intensive industries here, we will just import the same materials from countries with far higher emissions, fewer safeguards and lower labour standards.

The Government are just lost. To give an example, even the GMB’s general secretary, Gary Smith—no relation—rightly called this strategy “catastrophic” for not just jobs, but the environment. He warned that importing coal, gas and manufactured products from overseas is far more carbon intensive than producing them domestically. He went further, saying that the Government’s net zero drive is “bonkers”—his word—because it undermines the workers who will be essential to any genuine green transition. When even the trade unions are pleading for common sense, it is a clear sign that Labour has lost touch with not just the science, but the people they apparently represent.

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[Michael Shanks]

I cannot give an exact date, I am afraid, partly because bringing forward legislation is not in the gift of any one Minister, but I can say that it is entirely still our aim to bring forward that ban. To pick up a point made by a couple of other hon. Members, it is also our aim to bring forward a ban on fracking across the country; we will do so as soon as we are able to introduce legislation. We had a Bill in the King’s Speech, and we still intend to bring forward that legislation as soon as possible, but that is dependent on parliamentary time.

I will conclude by addressing the wider context. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire made the point about phasing out coal; the shadow Minister reflected on the same point. To me, one of the great sadnesses of the past year is that we have moved away from a consensus that was so incredibly important for this country. We were a leader on tackling climate change under different Governments, and that was reflected across the world in some of the strongest possible ways, by driving other countries towards ambitious targets of their own.

In September last year, I was at the closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the last coal-fired power station in Britain. I had the privilege of being in the control room with the workforce who had been there for decades, as they were switching off coal for the last time. It was a huge achievement, under Labour Governments, Conservative Governments and, briefly, the Liberal Democrat and Conservative Government. That consensus allowed us to move forward as a country, recognising that the future of our planet is important. It saddens me greatly that that consensus does not now exist. We now have a script that is, frankly, one of climate denialism. It also misses the point about the economic opportunity that our country faces.

A few weeks ago, for the first time ever, we powered this country without any fossil fuels at all. That is a huge milestone for us. It is an example of how we can be climate leaders, but also build legacies and communities right across Wales and the UK with good, sustainable jobs—the jobs of the future, not a harking back to a bygone era. It is about securing jobs; as the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) said, it is about renewal, not nostalgia. That is an incredibly important point about building the economic system of the future.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Shanks]

I must come to an end, so that the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin has some time to wind up.

We will deliver on our manifesto commitment not to grant new coal licences. We will continue to build the energy system of the future. We will create good, well-paid jobs across the country. We will be forward-looking—not just delivering for people now and dealing with the legacy of what we built in past decades, but ensuring that we can pass our country and our world to future generations. We need to be safe for the future, with an economic and energy system that is built for the future as well.

All those things come together in our clean power mission and in what we are trying to do. Those who oppose that should recognise that they are against the economic opportunity of the century and against the climate action that is necessary now, not in the future. Together, we can rebuild this consensus. I look forward to working with hon. Members across the House on how we deal with this specific issue, but also on how we rebuild the wider consensus on the future of our planet.