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Mr. Baldry: The Minister does himself a disservice. The explanation that he gives the House conceals the fact that the one member of the UDM whom he has failed to see is the president of the UDM. The Minister can hardly be surprised if the UDM, as a major union in the east midlands, expresses concern.
Mr. Battle: Arthur Scargill says the same.
Mr. Baldry: Indeed, if the president or members of the National Union of Mineworkers wish to see him, the Minister would be wise to see them as well. Then it would not be necessary to have Wednesday morning
debates such as this. The Minister does himself a disservice if he is unwilling to see leading members of the coal mining communities.
Mr. William Cash (Stone): My hon. Friend may know that I have taken a slight interest in coal. I had many meetings with Ministers when the Conservative party was in government, to try to get them to listen to some of the arguments that we must now present in opposition. Does he agree that it is the Prime Minister who is in the frame on this? Of course I would not expect the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping) to point that out, given the sensitivity of his position as a parliamentary private secretary.
I entirely endorse what my hon. Friend said about that, but the Prime Minister has committed the country, much to the fury of the Trades Unions Congress, to achieve a 20 per cent. reduction in carbon dioxide. The Kyoto conference is coming up, but that commitment is being driven by a policy for which the Prime Minister is personally responsible. The other day he was arguing for--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Interventions must be much briefer than that.
Mr. Baldry:
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is also significant that in his maiden speech to the House, the Prime Minister made a plea against pit closures in his Sedgefield constituency. At that time, those pits were producing high-cost coal. If the Prime Minister thought at that stage that it was wrong to close the pits, we are entitled to know what the Government think today.
Mining communities are worried when they read that the Government's intended strategy over the debacle is to blame RJB Mining for failing to negotiate contracts with the generators, when
The House is entitled to hear today from the Government what they intend to do in relation to the coal industry. The hon. Member for Sherwood was constrained from saying this in terms, but it is clear that if secure coal contracts are not negotiated over the next few months, a considerable number of jobs will be lost in the coal industry.
I put to the Minister a point that was difficult for the hon. Member for Sherwood to make. Those in the coal mining communities--many of whom are represented by Labour Members--would like the Government to consider extending the current contracts for a further two years until Professor Littlechild's review of the electricity market is concluded. Those communities are understandably concerned that, although productivity in coal has improved enormously and the cost of coal has decreased considerably, the benefit has not been passed on to the consumer. Coal miners believe that their jobs are at risk and that Professor Littlechild's review might provide some useful information and conclusions. It would be sensible to
allow existing contracts to run while the review continues and to impose a moratorium on mine closures in the interim.
Such action may involve a cost. The hon. Member for Sherwood said that no one expects a Labour Government to subsidise a privatised industry. I suspect that many miners in his constituency and elsewhere are not interested in ideological niceties of that kind. [Interruption.] They are concerned about their jobs. They want to hear what the Government intend to do to help them--and we look forward to hearing the Minister's response today. The Labour Government will not provide much consolation if they simply say, "We are terribly sorry, but we are going to wash our hands of the matter. We don't think that we can intervene, so we shall simply blame the Conservative party, Budge or anyone else we can think of. We shall not take any action."
Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire):
The hon. Gentleman says that miners are not concerned about "ideological niceties", but they are concerned about fair treatment from the new owners of Britain's mining industry, RJB Mining. For example, the closure of Asfordby colliery was announced to the stock exchange before it was announced to the work force. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that RJB has treated its employees fairly? Many people believe that handing over the British mining industry to RJB is akin to asking Imelda Marcos to mind one's shoe shop: one should not be surprised if it is totally stripped before it is returned.
Mr. Baldry:
I hold no brief for RJB. I do not know the facts of the case--apart from the details that the hon. Gentleman has provided. It is beholden on any good employer to notify and brief his employees: that is good personnel-management relations. That is what we expect of any employer, including RJB. The pit to which the hon. Gentleman refers is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), who I suspect hopes to speak later in the debate.
My point is that the House and the mining communities want to know today whether there is a possibility of the Government's intervening to extend the current coal contracts and impose a moratorium on further pit closures. After all, that is what the then Labour Opposition said when there was a similar situation in 1992.
As to where the money might come from, the coal unions have pointed out that the mineworkers' pension scheme has generated an actuarial surplus of £1.5 billion and that the Government, as guarantor of the scheme, are entitled to £750 million of that surplus. With accrued interest, the Government could take £110 million of the surplus every year for the next 10 years. Therefore, enough money would be available without the Government's having to raise additional funds. What do the Government think of that suggestion by the mining unions? Do they believe that it has any merit and, if so, are they prepared to act on it?
Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley):
The charge levelled against the Minister by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) is wrong. I have been involved in the coal mining debate for many years--indeed, since I came to this place--and the Minister met coal miners in my constituency before 1 May to talk about the problems that we knew would result from events over the past decade.
The hon. Gentleman claims that people in coal mining communities want to know what is going on. I suspect that they want to know why the hon. Gentleman and most of his right hon. and hon. Friends set the scene for the present problems in the coal industry. They voted against us in the Division, with one or two honourable exceptions--the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) is in the Chamber today. I have had some unhealthy bedfellows in television studios in the past few days. Someone commented that the shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), was a strange bedfellow for me, and I nearly replied that I would be sleeping with one eye open. The hon. Member for Banbury is fundamentally wrong--especially in his attack on my hon. Friend the Minister.
I came to the House in 1983, fresh from Maltby colliery. Two weeks ago, that colliery announced 600 job losses from a work force of 850. Maltby colliery is not a Victorian coal mine: its technology is as good as that of, dare I say, formula one racing. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been invested in that mine, and I was there when the major round of investments began under a Labour Government in the 1970s. More than £200 million was invested at that time when the last Labour Government got caught not because they managed the economy badly, but because they had to import energy into this country--which was also the policy of the previous Administration. The price suddenly increased from $2 or $3 a barrel to $20 a barrel, which created enormous economic problems for the nation. It was not the fault of people in the Treasury: there was an attack on the British economy from outside, and the nation invested in the industry to ensure that that would never happen again.
Mr. Ashton:
With no North sea oil.
Mr. Barron:
My hon. Friend is correct. Hundreds of millions of pounds were invested in those collieries that are still open today. Many people cannot understand why we now face job losses in light of that massive investment. As far as the nation is concerned, the issue of ownership of the coal industry--now and then--is immaterial. Funding for the industry was an investment for the nation so that we would not return to the dark days of the 1970s. The economic attack on this country at that time hurt not just the miners but everyone--indeed, miners received decent wages and there was decent investment in the industry in the 1970s for the first time.
The Government have inherited the current problem, and my sympathies lie with them. For more than a decade, there was a strategy to get rid of coal mining in this
country. That may have been a consequence of the 1974 general election result--I was a working coal miner at that time. No matter where the seeds were sown, that policy was enacted for more than a decade in this country. It was the strategy of the previous Administration.
The decline in the coal markets over the past decade inevitably meant that we would end up with the mess that is on our hands at the moment. It is very difficult to see how we can get over it in the short term, but we must find a way. It would be crazy to throw away the investment that we as a nation put into coal mining. Fifty per cent. of European coal reserves are in this country. Are we going to cut off access to those reserves and thus deny Europe, in years to come, the ability to use them and our ability to sell to Europe? I hope not.
The Government are in a very difficult situation, as are my 600 miners and their families, who have a bad Christmas to look forward to. This comes on the back of the thousands of coal miners' jobs that have been lost in my constituency. We need to act in the medium and long term. I accept that we are looking at the electricity markets, where the seeds of the mining industry's downfall are, and where people have not been operating a market system at all, preferring one fuel against another as a base fuel into our power stations. We must look there, certainly in the short term, if we are to get over the likely loss of the coal market from March next year.
I agree that we said in opposition that we should not license new gas-fired power stations. It is right to say that the ones that have been licensed since 1 May will not come on stream for two or three years, but that sends negative attitudes to the marketplace about where we as a Government believe that coal will be in a few years' time. That must be recognised every time a speech or a decision is made. At the moment, coal is on the defensive--it has been for 10 years--and it has been put more on the defensive.
I should admit that I am vice-president of the Combined Heat and Power Association. I agree that we should have CHP gas, but the heat loads of the power stations with CHP are very low. Their intention is to get electricity that is generated by gas into the marketplace, because that is what suits the market. I do not think that we can sustain that. We should look more critically at new gas stations. I know that it causes legal problems and so on, but we should do what we said we would five years ago.
I do not say that just because of the coal lobby. My hon. Friend the Minister received a letter from the Utility Buyers Forum, dated 13 November, which criticises the use of gas for electricity generation. It says that it creates problems not only for our indigenous coal industry but for the people who have been buying gas for many years, who are finding it difficult to keep a supply of gas coming in. The letter says:
"other 'major producers' have been able to do so",
according to The Independent on Sunday. In fact, there are no other major producers. There are no other major UK mining companies, because RJB Mining has 90 per cent. of domestic coal production.
"They are also very concerned that the significant increase in the interruptions to the supply of gas, because of transmission constraints, is a direct outcome of gas being diverted to electricity generation to the detriment of existing gas users."
There is a body of opinion--it is not just the pro-coal lobby--that says that we are throwing away a very important fuel in terms of gas. I do not want to throw it away, as it is very important, but it is likely to last a maximum of 15 to 20 years on current use. On that basis, we should look more critically at the situation.
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