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Mr. Campbell : Indeed, he took the Maxwell money.
The Government have hit the coal industry on the head with a sledgehammer. Subsidies to the nuclear industry amount to £1.3 billion. As we argued earlier, if the coal industry had even half that money we could practically give our coal away--what is left of it. I read in the paper the other day that the Magnox reactors are to be demolished, but God forbid--new ones are to be built. If we got rid of Magnox tomorrow we could put 9 million tonnes of coal into the coal-fired power stations. But the Government are going the whole hog on nuclear power, although they have not got the thermal oxide reprocessing plant off the ground yet. They cannot even reprocess the damn stuff.
Opencast mining is a big worry for us in the north east. We have only two collieries ; one has a bit of a guarantee, but it looks as though the Government's sledgehammer will send Wearmouth sliding down the slippery pole. Unfortunately, opencast mining is a great threat. Last week I asked the Minister what opencast reserves there were in Northumberland and Durham, and I received the following written answer :
"British Coal has informed me that, as at March 1993, total reserves of coal estimated to remain unworked in approved opencast sites in Northumberland, Durham and Tyne and Wear were 16,696 million tonnes."--[ Official Report, 25 October 1993 ; Vol. 230, c. 432 .] In Northumberland there are already 12 applications waiting to be processed, so in addition to those approved amounts there are more millions of tonnes to come.
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I fear that the whole of the north-east is likely to be dug up from one end to the other for opencast mining. That is my fear for Ellington colliery. I hear whispers, but I have not been told officially--the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Thompson) might have been told officially, but I have not--that Northumberland county council is talking secretly to an American firm about a plan to build a coal-fired power station in Northumberland. What does that say about the marketing side, if an American firm wants to build a brand-new coal-fired power station in Northumberland? Why are British Coal and National Power not doing that? Why is it left to the Americans? I have just given the House the reason ; it is the abundance of opencast coal. That will be the fate of the collieries in the north-east, and that is one of the reasons why the Government want to close them. Clearly opencast coal is in competition with deep-mined coal; it is cheaper to mine and there are subsidies. At least 80 per cent. of opencast coal goes to the power stations. Imports of coal have increased dramatically over the past two years. The cost to our balance of payments is £700 million. As has been said before, that money would enable us to avoid putting VAT on fuel for old people. National Power gave evidence to the Trade and Industry Select Committee last year that the average price of imported steam coal was £35.50 per tonne. A contract had been offered at £36 a tonne, yet the DTI said that British coal was not competitive. Boyds' claim was even worse. The report said that British deep -mined coal cost three times as much as United States, Australian and South African coal. Of course, the Government were head over heels with Boyds when they commissioned it to do a job on British mines--and that is what it did. However, what Boyds did not say at the time was that the United States coal industry receives $700 million in subsidies for research and development. Australian mining receives a subsidy of a 150 per cent. tax rebate on research and development. There is also a subsidy to transport coal from the mine to the port. Again, I cannot find out what the figure is, but there is a tax rebate and, again, Boyds did not say. South African mining receives 10 per cent. subsidies. If we had such a subsidy, as Arthur Scargill has rightly said many times, we could give our coal away.8.49 pm
Mr. Quentin Davies (Stamford and Spalding) : It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell). He always speaks with particular eloquence on any matter concerning his constituency or the region of his constituency, and of course he speaks with passion and knowledge about the coal industry. The only thing that is surprising about the debate--it must cause the hon. Gentleman great distress--is how little Labour Members who spoke with such feeling about the coal industry have been supported by the main body of the Labour party. If there had been a debate on this subject-- [Interruption.] I thought that I was touching a sensitive nerve. I see that I am proved right on that if on nothing else.
If there had been a debate, as there frequently was, on this subject at any time over the first three quarters of our century, the Opposition Benches would have been packed with Labour Members eager to defend what they saw as the interests of their industry. Everything changes, including the coal industry.
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The important thing, however, is how we adapt and respond to change. I was one of the many Conservative Members who felt great concern and disapproval last year at the manner in which British Coal was addressing change, and particularly the manner in which it proposed to dismiss a large number of employees, many of them hard-working, long-serving and loyal, at 48 or 72 hours' notice. That is no way for a humane and responsible employer to behave. I was extremely glad that my right hon. and hon. Friends, after little hesitation, ageed with that view and gave instructions to British Coal accordingly. In the same spirit, I welcome the Government's move to smooth the transition of British Coal to the new market conditions in which it finds itself, and I greatly approve the Government's decision to use taxpayers' money to subsidise British Coal in the short term.We have already heard an eloquent account of the extremely useful subsidy that Ellington pit has received to enable it to carry forward a major contract with Alcan. That is very satisfactory. But there is all the difference in the world between deciding to smooth the path of transition for a public sector industry for which the Government bear ultimate responsibility and a decision to persuade all those who work in the industry that they can continue as though nothing had changed in the world and induce in them an entirely false sense of security. That would be a thoroughly irresponsible and inhumane course to adopt. The Government are absolutely right not to accede to the blandishments not only of the Labour party but of certain of my colleagues who urge them to go in that direction. My hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) appeared to suggest that the Government should permanently distort the economy to subsidise the coal industry and ensure that the industry continues to have a guaranteed market for a given amount of coal, irrespective of the price of that coal or the demand for it. That cannot be sensible.
As in other matters, the Government have a clear responsibility to ensure that the country continues to enjoy the lowest possible energy prices and the greatest possible security of supply. If we allow ourselves, for whatever sentimental or political reasons, to be deflected from that objective, we shall not do a good day's work for the country. We shall certainly not do a good day's work for employment. If we have anything less than the most favourable energy prices, we shall add, perhaps fatally, to the costs of energy-using sectors throughout the economy and we shall endanger employment in many industries throughout the land. That would be an extremely foolish and destructive thing to do.
There is a very popular and, at first sight, perhaps, seductive view that, in order to secure the cheapest supply of energy possible, the Government should be devising a national energy policy and deciding exactly what proportion of investment should go into the different sectors of the energy industry and rigging the market effectively to provide for that. Superficially, that might be an attractive view to some hon. Members, but it needs to be considered very carefully indeed because it rests on the extraordinary assumption that the Government have superior knowledge about the future pattern of demand for or supply of energy in the world.
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If we seriously believed that Governments have access to such superior economic knowledge, logically we should decide to put the whole economy into the hands of a Gosplan. At least in other sectors of the economy and economic and industrial policy--even among the Opposition--the light has dawned and it has been appreciated that that is not a very intelligent way to proceed.The Government should not second-guess the aggregate wisdom of the energy industry--the producers and the customers--and say, "If a regional electricity company wishes to sign a contract for the long-term supply of electricity to be produced by combined cycle gas turbine stations, it shall not be allowed to do so, or if people wish to build nuclear plants, they shall not be allowed to do so because we have superior wisdom." The Government's responsibility is to liberate the energy market to allow the full range of judgments of those who are involved in the market and are prepared to invest in it to determine the pattern of new resource allocation and to ensure that we have as competitive and, therefore, as efficient an energy market as possible.
That goes for coal, but of course it also goes for gas. It is about time that we continued the very virtuous process of deregulation of the gas industry so as to deregulate also the retail market below 2, 500 therms consumption per year right down to nothing per year. If anybody wants to get into the business of supplying a retail customer with gas, there is absolutely no reason why he should not be allowed to do so.
Similarly, in the nuclear industry it is about time that we got rid of the nuclear levy which distorts energy markets of all kinds. Equally, as a necessary counterpart to that, it would be necessary for the Government to resume the liabilities that they imposed on Nuclear Electric. We should get rid of the nuclear levy. We should equally get rid of the moratorium on the construction of nuclear power stations. If a privatised Nuclear Electric--I hope that it will be privatised soon--decides that it wishes to build a Sizewell C or further nuclear power stations, it should be allowed to do so. If private sector investors are prepared to put in the money to do that, who are the Government to say that they are making the wrong economic decision and that it should not be done?
Last but not least, the effect of a deregulated, more competitive energy market would be that British Coal, whether privatised or not, would have to begin to respond to genuine competitive pressure for the first time. I do not think that there is anyone, even on the Labour Benches, who genuinely believes that British Coal has done all that it might do to market coal aggressively and to look for new applications for coal and new markets for it. Of course, British Coal has not done that. The sad fact is that it has suffered from a terrible handicap--the debilitation of 50 years of nationalisation and protected markets.
8.59 pm
Mr. Paddy Tipping (Sherwood) : Miners in Nottinghamshire and throughout the country want straight answers to straight questions : will they have a job at Christmas, and can they plan for their summer holidays? They want to know about their future. As miners in Calverton said to me only this week, they cannot take being treated like dogs. They can face the future, but they cannot face continued uncertainty.
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Miners at Bilsthorpe--I am proud to be wearing a Bilsthorpe tie today--want to know whether they will be given an opportunity to keep their pit open. I remind the House that, before the accident in the summer, Bilsthorpe was producing coal at a profitable rate. It was the most productive British coal pit in the country. The accident has put it back. The cost per gigajoule increased but it is now coming down. The men at Bilsthorpe fought for the life of that pit. Some of them have given their lives for it to give them some time to show what they can do at the colliery.Ministers should look at Calverton colliery, which has had £10 million spent on it to open a new face. It is important to recognise that at Calverton, traditionally, 50 per cent. of the coal comes from a domestic market. It is important to acknowledge that 80 per cent. of that coal can be used to keep our fires burning, rather than importing coal from countries such as Poland. It is astonishing that, in the current year, the amount of imported coal will double, yet there is a question mark over Calverton colliery on which £10 million has just been spent. It is important to give the colliery an opportunity to keep our balance of payments down and to supply our needs.
My hon. Friends have followed this debate extremely carefully. They know that the Government not only cannot run the energy market but cannot tell the passing of the seasons. Some of us would like to know what has happened to the nuclear review, which was promised for the summer. It is now the autumn and we are getting into winter. When will an announcement be made on the nuclear review? Will the announcement simply be about economic matters, or will it also deal with environmental issues?
Many people have made the case for nuclear generation. However, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry is that it has not been able to sort out decommissioning and disposal costs. It is astonishing that there is talk of a new Sizewell C at a time when there is so much power in this country. It is more astonishing that, when the Minister of Energy was confronted with the planning application, he washed his hands of the matter.
The issue before us is that of the power market. We have talked a lot about coal, but we should acknowledge that there are 26 coal-fired power stations in England and Wales. By the end of the current coal contract, the number of coal-fired power stations will have shrunk significantly. Less than 10 coal-fired power stations will be left, and places such as Castle Donington, Staythorpe and High Marnham will have closed. About 16 power stations have closed, with 10,000 job losses. The power stations that remain in places such as Didcot, Ferrybridge and Ratcliffe will be used to twin shift. It is a bit like flying a jumbo jet from Manchester airport to Yeadon airport. Power stations should be on base level and the peaks should be covered by gas. There is a place for strong coal-fired power stations in this country.
We are also faced with the prospect of privatisation. Miners will want to give the Government some pointers and to ask why, if they are restructuring, they keep changing the terms of redundancy payments. Why cannot the Government give a commitment tonight that the same terms will apply to redundancy payments throughout the restructuring process?
Miners also want a commitment on pensions. They have read the Government's consultation document on pensions. It is questionable. They want a commitment that any surpluses taken away will be compensated for by improvements in pension rights. They also want to know
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what will happen if they work in the newly privatised industry and their company is taken over. Will their pension continue? Most important, under privatisation, the miners want the coal industry to survive. We are in a highly competitive market and clearly it makes sense that, if privatisation is to come--we will fight it--we should go for a unitary model in England and Wales because we need a core of pits to ensure that coal can compete in the energy market.It is clear to me that the Government are in an unseemly haste to privatise coal. They want to put the coffin lid on the coal industry and bury it. Miners are progressive and hard working. They and the management are a fine body of men. They will not be put down and buried easily. If the Government try a quick and botched privatisation, the ghost will rise to haunt them for ever.
9.6 pm
Mr. George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent, South) : In view of the time, I shall be brief. The crux of the debate is what has happened since the White Paper and that is what all hon. Members should consider and be concerned about. I have heard a lot of sympathy in the majority of speeches from Conservative Members--most contributions have been conspicuous for the amount of sympathy--but I have failed to detect any coherent response from the Government.
I take my hat off to the Government. For a party of competition and free market philosophy, the Conservative party has demonstrated a gritty, dogmatic determination to support a rigged system. The pool pricing system is the best example of that. If ever a system were contrived by people to penalise an industry and meticulously to create--in a connived way--a licence to print money, it is the pool system, which determines the price of electricity. We all know why that is. Like the nuclear industry, the coal industry is being prepared for privatisation. Let us compare the two. The Government are pumping £1.3 billion a year into the nuclear industry until it is ready to be privatised, but they are closing down 85 per cent. of the coal industry--perhaps the private sector might then be interested. That comes across very clearly from the way in which the Government have pursued their policies.
The reality is that the White Paper conceded very little and gave the coal industry no fair chance. Why should we be suprised that it was never intended to do so? It was a bolt hole for Ministers. We must all face that reality this evening, irrespective of which way we shall vote, and I pay tribute to those Conservative Members who have had the courage to say how they will vote.
The Government's approach to the nuclear industry is perhaps the shining example of their prejudice against the coal industry. We have heard references this evening to the much-heralded and promised review of the nuclear industry. I think that we have all seen recent reports that the Government are now thinking of announcing the review at the end of the year. The Minister is reported to have said that, when the review is announced, Nuclear Electrict must not be encouraged to think that that is a signal for it to apply for privatisation. It will not do so because it has been given the message, "Don't worry, wait until you've been fattened up a little more by the subsidies that we're providing. Then you can apply for privatisation." A clear message has emerged from the debate--the Government's
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complete failure to react positively to the concerns that have rightly been expressed by hon. Members this evening and for some time.I conclude with an appeal. The Government may claim that they have a right to act as they are doing because they are the elected Government, but they do not have the right to jeopardise the future energy security of the nation. Yet that is what they are doing. Let me give an example. Trentham colliery in my constituency has closed. It is one of the few that has a private bid to continue mining. Do not leave the decision on that bid to British Coal. It will fight tooth and nail to keep the colliery closed because it does not want the coal on the market. It wants its position protected. That is my concluding plea to the Government this evening. I hope that in reply we will hear a positive response to what is a mini- privatisation, which should be consistent with Government policy, although not with mine. There is good coal there and a bid in, and it should be supported.
9.11 pm
Mrs. Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) : When I came to the House nine years ago in the middle of a miners' strike, I never thought that, nine years later, I would have to defend the last remaining pit in south Wales. It is the Tower colliery in my constituency. It is productive and made £12 million profit last year and will make more profit next year. Yet this week, 250 men are being made redundant. That is incredible, because the mine has a market for its coal. It sells to the Aberthaw power station and exports to Ireland, Spain, France and elsewhere.
This week, I wrote to the Minister and today I got a reply. I asked him why these men were facing the sack and why coal imports for industrial and domestic use had risen when the coal output from pits such as Tower was being cut. He said that nearly two thirds of imported coal is of grades and types for which the United Kingdom has insufficient sources of supply, including anthracite. He continued : "BC's policy is to maximize sales of British coal and only where this is not possible to engage in imports shortages, therefore, have to be supplied by imported coal."
Tower coal is grade 2 anthracite quality. It is precisely what is needed for our domestic market. Tower miners will tell how it is the best low- sulphur coal in the world today and that the domestic market is crying out for the anthracite coal that Tower produces. Instead of supplying this market, Tower coal is being passed over for imported coal.
If the Government's so-called subsidy for British Coal to sell more coal means anything, Tower would have assured markets for its coal. I am glad to see the Secretary of State for Employment in the Chamber. He used to be the Secretary of State for Wales. He will remember well how he congratulated the men from my pit on their productivity and profitability when I took them to see him in February. They thought that their future was assured.
My constituency has the highest male unemployment rate in Wales. One in three men is out of a job. If the pit shuts, 40 per cent. of the working men in my area will be without a job. The area has one of the lowest incomes per household in the United Kingdom--£4,000 a year. That is poverty in Britain. If the Government shut the pit and further destroy the industry in my constituency, £10 million will be taken out of the area.
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The market is rigged and has been rigged all along. The Government are destroying the industry from spite because of how the miners fought them in many coal strikes over the years. The industry should be retained for the future of this country and its energy policy. 9.14 pmMr. Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras) : My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) dealt admirably with the recent history of the Government's chopping and changing concerning the coal industry. My hon. Friends, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), have spelled out passionately the impact of the Government's policies on the communities which they try their best to represent. I do not represent such a community, so I must stick to what might be called the basic facts.
The basic fact that the House needs to remember is that Britain is a fuel- rich country in a Europe that is short of fuel. No other country in the European Community has such large fuel reserves of such variety. Those natural assets should have been used to the benefit of our people by adding weight to our bargaining position with the other EC members. Instead, those advantages have been frittered away and fuel-rich Britain has a fuel trade deficit which further pit closures can only make worse.
Britain's coal mines are the most efficient in the EC and they produce coal at half the cost of that which is mined in Germany or in any other mines in western Europe. No other British industry is twice as efficient as its German counterpart and yet this is the industry which this short-sighted and stupid Government have chosen to close down.
The mines are not being closed because of inexorable market forces but because that is what the Government always intended. They will close because of the Tory policies adopted not just in the past few months but in the past few years. Those mines will close because, in the past 10 yearsment let the cat out of the bag and announced their policy that meant that 31 pits were to close. That announcement confirmed all that the Labour party had said in the past five years as the Tories pushed through the privatisation of the electricity industry.
There was a public outcry at the Government's announcement and the people of this country saw for the first time what the Tories were doing to the mines and they knew that it was wrong. As a result of that public outcry, the Government backed down, or appeared to do so. They carried out a review of their policies and considered a report from the Select Committee on Trade and Industry. They also published a White Paper that has turned out to be nothing more than a con. We argued at the time that the Government's proposals in that White Paper would not save any mine and our arguments have turned out to be true. Almost all the original 31 pits have closed or are doomed to close. Even some pits that were not originally threatened are now at risk.
The Government's efforts to try to con the people were successful when one considers the newspaper headlines of the time. The Financial Times ran the headline :
"Government to save 12 pits".
The headline in The Times stated :
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"Heseltine pit rescue deal to cost £500 million".The Daily Telegraph reported :
"Twelve pits reprieved by Heseltine. £700 million lifeline for the coal industry removes threat of revolt by Tory MPs"
The Daily Express --at that time a supporter of the Prime Minister-- announced :
"Major's £700 million pits rescue"
There was some discrepancy, however, because it is obvious that the journalists were not clear, despite, presumably, carefully reading the White Paper and listening even more carefully to Tory Ministers, whether the possible subsidy was £500 million or £700 million. We have learned today, however, that just £2 million of that subsidy has been called on.
If people think that a subsidy of up to £700 million seems a generous offer in an effort to save a small part of the British coal industry, it is worth reminding the British taxpayer that the Government have used £350 million of taxpayers' money to subsidise property speculation at Canary Wharf. All that money was called upon.
The Government's line now is that they never promised to save any pits, but, as the headlines show, that was not the impression that they gave and they did nothing to correct that impression. I checked with the newspapers published the day after those headlines and found that they contained no letters from the President of the Board of Trade pointing out that they had got it wrong. The Government set out to deceive the news media and the general public, and they succeeded.
That was not the first example of Tory deception over pit closures. For years, the Government pretended that they did not intend to run down the coal industry. Almost two years ago to the day, I published a report which Rothschild, the merchant bankers, had prepared for the Government. It was a secret report by Tory bankers, sent to Tory Ministers, predicting that thousands of miners would be thrown on the dole and that Britain could end up with as few as a dozen working collieries--the process that is going on now.
What was the response of the Government and British Coal to my publication of that report? The then Energy Secretary, now Lord Wakeham, blamed Labour for what he referred to as scare stories about running down the coal industry. He dismissed as
"coming from cloud cuckoo land"
Labour complaints that British Coal was being run down to make way for cheaper imported coal. He used taxpayers' money to do that, as he did it on press statements issued in the name of the Department of Energy.
The boss of British Coal was not backward in denouncing us either. He was reported in the newspapers as
"hitting back at suggestions that the company planned wholesale pit closures ahead of privatisation".
He added :
"We are not in the business of planning to discard pits". He may not plan to do it. Apparently, he just does it by accident. Nobody believes what the Government or British Coal say now, because too often they have not told the truth about their intentions for the industry. When the Tories wanted to hang on to seats in Nottinghamshire at the last election, the then Energy Secretary promised the Nottingham miners, in a press release issued by Tory central office,
"a secure long-term future for your great industry".
He went to Nottinghamshire to say that. Since then, several of the Nottingham pits have closed and none of them is safe.
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Nobody in the coal industry can trust a word that the Government say, which is why no one in the industry now accepts their promises on safety or their reassurances about what will happen to the pension funds if the industry is privatised.The Government now say that they have done their best to help the coal industry, but that there is no market for coal. So that is that--the pits must close. However, the Government have done nothing or next to nothing to help. They can do nothing unless they are prepared to change the energy market in Britain. It is not, has never been and is never likely to be a free market. It is a market that has been rigged by the Government to the advantage of virtually everybody in the world except the British coal industry and the British people.
The nuclear industry, foreign coal producers, France, the foreign suppliers of orimulsion, and the multinational oil companies that sell the British people their own North sea gas all benefit from the rigged market. So do the foreign suppliers of natural gas and the foreign builders of the gas- fired power stations that are going up all over our country. The Government's energy policy seems directed to help every energy industry in the world except ours. They may have it reclassified as part of our overseas aid programme.
The most efficient coal-fired power stations can produce electricity at costs significantly lower than alternative fuel. Do any Conservative Members challenge that assertion? Apparently it is accepted--there are no objections. I am glad about that because that is what John Wakeham said when he produced an article for the people of Mansfield in Nottingham on 11 March 1992, just before the general election. I shall repeat what he said because it is the basis of our case and that of the coalfield communities :
"the most efficient coal-fired power stations can produce electricity at costs which are significantly lower than alternative fuels."
Let us consider those alternative fuels. Let us take French electricity, and--my God!--we take a lot of French electricity, which is produced by nuclear power stations that are subsidised by France. When I say that they are subsidised, I really mean subsidised. The way that the French subsidise their nuclear power stations makes the common agricultural policy seem like the free interplay of market forces. On top of that, our stupid Government decided to give the French another subsidy almost as big as that which the French themselves provide to make their nuclear power even cheaper. Why should British miners have to compete with that?
As to British nuclear power, every electricity consumer has to pay a nuclear levy, and without the takings from that levy Nuclear Electric would be trading while insolvent--for that is what it told the Select Committee. Under the present arrangements, however, nuclear power stations supply power wherever and whenever they can produce it, at whatever cost they can produce it, while coal-fired power stations capable of producing cheaper electricity are forced to lie idle. That is not the operation of a free market.
Under the present arrangements, Nuclear Electric has a legal right to first place in the merit order of operating power stations. When Sizewell B comes on stream, it will go on base load despite the fact that it will be producing not the cheapest electricity in Britain but the dearest. Those are the economics of the madhouse.
Much has happened since I coined the phrase "the dash for gas" three years ago. Many more gas-fired power
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stations are being built, but if one takes proper account of the capital building costs, the cost of the electricity that they produce is higher than that of coal-fired stations. In addition, most of that generating capacity has been designed by foreign companies, because British companies are not in a position to compete.Recently, I was told that I should stop calling orimulsion the filthiest fuel in the world. But I cannot forget that the burning of orimulsion led to the famous headline in The Sun, "Black rain eats cars". Orimulsion can be burned safely only if millions of pounds are spent on cleaning its chimney emissions. If that expenditure were undertaken, orimulsion would price itself out of the market. Deep-mined British coal is denied access to a market in which it is the cheapest fuel. The Tories say that they believe in free markets. The coal industry would be saved from the threat of near- extinction if the Government would end the way that they rig the market against coal.
That is not the only consideration. Energy projects are enormous in their scale, vast in their cost, and take a long time to bring into operation. That is true whether the project is an oil-producing platform in the North sea, a nuclear power station or the sinking of a mine. No market can respond quickly to long-term changes in fuel supply or the demand for energy, which is why such decisions cannot be left to the market alone. In no country of the world are they left to the market alone. Such decisions call for strategic involvement by Governments.
That is not the only reason why there is a role for Government in energy decision-making. Fuel imports and exports make an enormous impact on our balance of trade. In addition, national security and self-sufficiency must be considered. There are also Europe-wide implications that no Government can abdicate. To burn gas in power stations to provide base load electricity is to waste that gas. It is better burnt at the place that it is intended to heat. To burn it in power stations will run down our limited supplies.
If our pits are closed, Britain will be left dependent on foreign supplies of natural gas. When we first raised that issue, Tory Ministers laughed and mocked, and said that we could get it from abroad. When we asked them where, they answered, "The Gulf, Algeria and the Soviet Union" and then they laughed again.
Since then, we have had the Gulf war, the Algerian army has felt it necessary to organise a coup to keep Muslim fundamentalists out of the Government and the Soviet Union has sundered into republics, some of which are themselves descending into separatist chaos. The Tories believe that we and our children should be dependent on the Gulf, Algeria and Russia for long-term supplies of gas. How short-sighted can they get, leaving our country and the rest of Europe to be held to ransom?
Other foreign supplies of coal are scarcely more reliable. Some of them rely on semi-slave and child labour. Why should Britain's miners have to compete against child or slave labour? That cannot be right. A decent British Government would campaign against child and slave labour in pits around the world, making them compete on equal terms with us.
Fuel imports have to be paid for. We already have a dreadful trade deficit. Closing mines will condemn us to importing more and more fuel, so our exports will have to
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rise to avoid increases in the deficit. Will not the Government recognise that fact? The President is, after all, the President of the Board of Trade.In the past 10 years, the Government have become obsessed with their addiction to privatisation. Apart from privatisation, they have no energy policy. All over the world, countries with coal supplies have invested in clean coal technology. Even under Ronald Reagan, the United States had a $2 billion programme to develop clean coal technology. Governments and companies in Sweden and Germany have invested heavily in cleaner methods of burning coal. Such a policy provides a market for coal and experience and expertise for the American, German and Swedish companies that are designing and building such plant. As the world turns more and more to clean coal technology, those companies will get the orders for new plant. They will have the know-how. British companies will be at a disadvantage because Tory short-sightedness will have excluded them from yet another modern market.
That is not all. The European Community imports about 120 million tonnes of coal a year. A sensible British Government would have pushed our partners to help British Coal by making Europe reduce its dependence on outside supplies of coal. After all, Tories constantly prate on about the need to be concerned about Europe's trade balance with the rest of the world. Here is an opportunity to help, but the Government have thrown it away. They have done nothing to help. Instead, they have prattled on about subsidiarity and closed down the most efficient mines in Europe while other countries keep their less efficient mines open. Our European partners think that we are mad. It is not the British people but the British Government who are mad. We have heard speeches from hon. Members with experience of coalfields and former coalfields all over the country. There is one colliery left in Scotland, one left in Wales and one left in Northumberland. Under this Government, importing coals to Newcastle has become a reality--it is part of their energy policy. There are no collieries left in Lancashire--
Mr. Dobson : They are threatened in Derbyshire and Durham. The Government must abandon the pit closure programme. They could make a start by giving coal an equal opportunity to compete. If they stop rigging the market against British mined coal, our collieries can compete and prosper. They could make sure that no more orimulsion is imported. They could cut coal imports--there are no international obligations that prevent us from doing that. They could reduce their purchases of electricity from France and insist on exporting British electricity through that channel link. They could cut opencast mining. They could end the issue of new licences for new gas-fired power stations. They could get regulators to do their jobs properly and refuse to accept sweetheart deals in which companies buy expensive electricity from gas-fired power stations. They could stop the gas-fired stations and the nuclear power stations from hogging the base load, which their costs do not justify. They could start selling coal to our European partners.
If the Government did that, they would achieve many benefits for Britain. They would save all that taxpayers' money now being poured into making men redundant.
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They would help the balance of trade and reduce our growing dependence on imports. They would stop thousands of miners and other people being thrown on the dole. They would sustain the coalfield communities.The miners and their families are not looking for charity from the House or anybody else tonight. What they are looking for is a decent chance and a bit of common sense. The only way that the House can give them a chance and show a bit of common sense is by voting against the Government tonight.
9.35 pm
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. David Hunt) : We have on several occasions over the past year debated the coal industry. I believe that this is the first occasion on which the shadow employment spokesman has participated in these debates. I should like to say a few personal words to him as he now moves to a new position as shadow transport spokesman.
I have much appreciated his unfailing courtesy. We may have disagreed on policies and principles, but we have never doubted each other's commitment to bringing down the level of unemployment and increasing employment opportunities.
Mr. Dobson : Speak for yourself.
Mr. Hunt : Just one second. The only defect in my shadow spokesman is that he sometimes does not know a compliment when it hits him in the face.
Mr. Dobson rose--
Mr. Hunt : I am still paying tribute to him.
I agreed with what the hon. Gentleman said when he spoke of the depth of compassion that there is in the House for the coal industry. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) said that it came from all parts of the House. The debates that we have had about the coal industry have been characterised by the extent of commitment to coal on both sides of the House, and among all hon. Members.
I have spent some considerable time looking up the debates about coal that have taken place in previous years. One interesting era was the 1960s when there were extensive debates about markets and the collapse of the coal market. I ask hon. Members on both sides of the House to play close attention to those debates and to what happened. Coal had a substantial market in domestic fuel. Throughout the country most people burned coal in their grates to provide heating for hot water and central heating in their homes. During the 1960s, the bottom fell out of the market. Although coal used to provide a substantial proportion of the market in the 1960s, that market almost completely disappeared.
Today, coal provides only 7 per cent. of that domestic market, whereas in the 1960s it was four, five or six times as much. During the debates in the 1960s great anger was felt on both sides of the House about the way that coal mines were shutting--10, 20, 50, 100, 150, 200, and at a rate of 40, 50 or 60 a year. What on this occasion caused a serious problem to become much less of a challenge was the extension of the market for coal in electricity generation. As all hon. Members will know, many coal mines that shut because of the collapse in domestic markets
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