Coalfield Communities

Debate between Michael Dugher and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

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.

After 30 years under lock and key, the Cabinet papers and the Prime Minister’s private office correspondence, recently released under the 30-year rule, about the 1984 miners strike have exposed one of the darkest chapters in our history. Contrary to denial after denial from Conservative Ministers at the time and from the National Coal Board, the Cabinet papers show that the Government of the day did have a secret plan from as early as September 1983 to close 75 pits, run down capacity by 25 million tonnes and make 65,000 men redundant. Many people warned at the time that there was a secret plan, but it is no less shocking to see, in black and white, in official Cabinet papers, just how much the public were misled.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman apologise now to the British people for making out the Thatcher Government were the major closer of mines and the cause of lost jobs, given that the Labour Government in the ‘60s and ‘70s closed 129 more mines than the Thatcher Government and caused the loss of more than 30,000 excess jobs? Apologise now.

[Michael Dugher]

That is pretty desperate stuff, at an early stage of the debate.

[Mr Stuart]

It is true.

[Michael Dugher]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to come to Barnsley and across south Yorkshire—across the coalfields—and say that Labour closed all the pits, I say good luck with that. He is even more out of touch than we thought.