Coal Tip Safety and New Extraction Licences

Debate between Pippa Heylings and Nia Griffith

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) on securing this important debate, which brings together two deeply interconnected issues: the safety of coal tips and the prohibition of new coal extraction licences. Both go to the heart of how we reckon with our industrial past, protect our communities in the present and deliver on our climate responsibilities for the future.

In September last year, we hailed the historic moment that the UK closed its last coal-fired power station and we became the first country in the G7 to phase out coal power generation, fulfilling the pledge that we made alongside other countries at COP26. That was a key milestone in our climate targets and our efforts to reduce polluting emissions. At the same time, we paid tribute to the men and women who had worked in terrible conditions in our coalmines and coal-fired power stations for many years while they kept our lights on and powered our industries and economy.

That now leaves, across the United Kingdom, about 5,000 disused coal tips, more than half of which are in Wales. Many of them sit close to the communities that once powered our country: the valleys, towns and villages built around the coal industry. As we have heard, as climate change accelerates, and rainfall and extreme weather events become more frequent, the danger the tips pose is growing. This is not a risk for some point in the future; it is happening now.

This week we remember the tragedy in Aberfan in 1966, when 144 people, including 116 children, died. Just last year, 40 homes in Cwmtillery were evacuated when a tip collapse sent tonnes of slurry and debris through the village. These incidents are a reminder that this is not simply a historical concern, but a very real and present danger for communities today. Such tragedies should not be allowed to happen again.

The Government’s commitment of £118 million over three years for coal tip safety, together with the Welsh Government’s £100 million investment, is of course welcome, but the Welsh Affairs Committee heard clearly that the funding only scratches the surface. The cost of long-term remediation and monitoring is so much higher, and the risks are increasing as the climate changes. Though the funding is welcome, it is reactive and not strategic.

What we need is a strategic long-term plan—a proper partnership between the UK and Welsh Governments—with sustainable funding for the disused tips authority, which is due to be established in 2027. That body will succeed only if it has the skills, resources and the authority it needs from day one. As the Liberal Democrats have consistently said, we have to view this not just as a safety issue but as a climate resilience issue. Climate change is causing ground instability, which means that, as we have heard, living at the foot of a coal tip is becoming even more dangerous, year by year and day by day. The response must be integrated with the UK’s broader climate adaptation strategy.

At the same time, we need to ensure we have truly confronted the unfinished business of coal itself. Liberal Democrats welcomed the Government’s announcement last November that they would prohibit new coal extraction licences, but that has to be a watertight ban. As it stands, there is a loophole that allows coal to be commercially extracted from disused tips, as we have just heard so powerfully.

In practice, extracting coal from a tip is no different from open-cast mining. The method is the same, the disruption is the same, the risks are the same and the emissions are the same. The contradiction can be easily resolved. Leading environmental lawyers, working with the Coal Action Network, have proposed an amendment to the Coal Industry Act 1994 to clarify that the mining of coal from coal tips also requires a licence. That small change would ensure that the Government’s coal ban is comprehensive and future-proof.

Future-proofing is vital, as changes in our political landscape could put all this at risk. There are political parties that would seek a very different route. Rather than invest in the new green jobs of the future, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), the leader of Reform UK, has demanded—I repeat, demanded—the reopening of coalmines in Wales. He argued that Welsh people would happily return to work down the pits—and, I assume, also have slurry tipped over the beautiful Welsh countryside. There is no vision for jobs of the future, only a return to the jobs of the past, and no concern for the planet that our children and future generations will inherit.

Reform UK opposes green renewable energy. Instead, it wants to reopen coalmines and frack stupid frack, ripping apart our beautiful countryside by digging deep, with the threat of earth tremors, polluted water and devastation to our precious nature and wildlife.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge the leadership of the Welsh Government, who have used their planning powers to become the first part of the UK to completely ban fracking?