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Yvette Cooper (Pontefract and Castleford): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fallon: I will not because time is short.
The Government have adopted a series of emission targets and will do so again at Kyoto, all of which will make the position of the coal industry more difficult. The Minister's actions could be described as
First, the Minister can talk to the miners' leaders; he has not yet met them. In the debate on the Fossil Fuel Levy Bill, we were challenged to talk to the miners' leaders in Nottinghamshire. We have done that; the miners' leaders came to see us because they could not get to see the Minister. They told us that they had not agreed with the policy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), but that they had respected him because he had the guts to meet them and to explain his policy face to face. Why has the Minister not met the miners' leaders? Why has he not talked to Mr. Budge?
Mr. Budge is the single most important figure in the industry. I would have thought that, with 50,000 jobs at stake, the Minister would have given some time to
Mr. Budge. Of course, Mr. Budge has not given £1 million to the Labour party. If he had, he would not be bothered with this feather of a junior Minister. He would see the Prime Minister and the matter would be sorted out at No. 10. The Minister should meet the miners' leaders and Mr. Budge.
Secondly, the Minister should get to grips with what is happening in the coal industry. It is no use him saying, as he has said so often, that the industry is in private hands. The electricity companies were in private hands in 1992, but that did not prevent the Conservative Government from intervening. That did not prevent us from imposing a moratorium on pit closures or from leaning on the electricity companies to burn more coal. If the Minister does not believe that, he should talk to Yorkshire Electricity, which will tell him exactly what pressure was put on the company in 1992 by Ministers in the Department of Trade and Industry.
Yvette Cooper:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
It is nonsense to say that, because the industry is private, nothing can be done. Conservative Ministers intervened; this Minister can intervene.
Thirdly, given the state of the negotiations, the Minister was extremely unwise to accentuate the dash for gas. He said twice in my hearing yesterday that he had implemented all of the six-point plan for coal which Labour produced in 1992. That is not true. The six-point plan for coal was issued by the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) in December 1992. The first point was:
Fourthly, and perhaps most important of all given that the Minister has asked the regulator to review the pool arrangements and to review the true costs of baseload electricity--that review, which has not even started yet, will take most of next year--there is certainly a good case for extending the rest of the current contracts. I remind the Minister, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) reminded him, of what the right hon. Member for Livingston said:
If the Minister really cared about the coal industry, those are the four simple steps he would be taking now. If he does not take those steps, he and the President of the Board of Trade will stand condemned as the coal industry's silent butchers. They say nothing, they do nothing and they care nothing.
I looked back to see what the Minister had done for coal over the past few weeks; I may have done him an injustice. I found a press notice issued by him on 13 November which says:
It is now late in the day. There are four months left before the remaining coal contracts expire. There is still time for the Government to wake up to what is happening in the coalfields. There is still time for the Government to keep their promises to the coalfield communities and to the miners' unions. If, however, we do not get some action soon, today's debate will be the first in a series on closure after closure.
The Minister may want to spread out the closures "in an orderly way"; Conservative Members do not. We want to see a competitive coal industry--a coal industry with a future. We want to see an energy policy that relies on diversity. We are not prepared to see our coal industry closed down "in an orderly way" in the first half of this Parliament so that it is off the Minister's desk and so that another problem has been sorted before the next election.
The Minister for Science, Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle):
I welcome the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping). My biggest regret is the shortness of time. I know that many other hon. Members want to take part in the debate and I would have welcomed an airing of all the issues. It is vital to have a proper discussion on the matter in the House. I am accused of not saying anything; I would not mind a bit of time in which to say something in response because I believe that the Government are doing something. In the short time left to me in the debate, I shall try to get across again what the Government have been doing in the past few weeks.
I have listened closely to what has been said this morning. No one can now be unaware of the intensity of feeling about the future of the United Kingdom coal industry and about jobs in the deep mining industry. I share the concern about pending unemployment and job losses that has been spelt out by--
Mr. Bill O'Brien (Normanton):
May I add to what my hon. Friend the Minister has said on the concern about the loss of jobs in the mining industry? I live in the shadow of the Ferrybridge power station, with the Eggborough power station down the road. If the mines close, those power stations will also close. Jobs will be lost not just in the mining industry but in the electricity generating industry.
Mr. Battle:
My hon. Friend has made a good point. There will be an impact throughout the energy sector.
Today's sense of crisis is informed by the current negotiations between RJB Mining and the electricity generators on their coal contracts for after April 1998. We have all agreed in the debate that the negotiations are a matter for the companies. I am not party to them. I understand that an agreement has been reached with
Eastern Electricity and that an announcement was made this morning of an agreement with National Power. I do not know what stage conversations with PowerGen have reached because the company does not know and neither does PowerGen. It is up to the parties to those contracts to negotiate. No doubt, we shall be informed of the deal when they reach one.
"driving the nails in the coal industry's coffin".
Those are not my words or the words of the press. They are the words of the Minister's own press office in the spin doctors' memorandum that his officials have prepared. The memorandum uses the phrase:
"Since the Government could be portrayed as driving the nails in the coal industry's coffin".
The only thing that the Minister seems concerned about is public relations. All he is bothered about is the spin doctoring that will cover the closure of the collieries. Indeed, he is happy to see 5,000 jobs disappear before the end of the financial year provided that it is done in an orderly way. His own document says that it is
"important now that RJB makes the necessary adjustments to their capacity in an orderly way."
The Minister is presiding over the rundown of the collieries. I must tell the Minister that it is not a question of 5,000 jobs being at stake. The miners' leaders have made it clear to us that more than 50,000 jobs are at stake in the industry. It is high time that the Minister stopped blaming everyone else and stopped saying that there is nothing that he can do. I shall tell the Minister what to do.
"No more licences should be issued for gas-fired power stations."
That was Labour's promise in 1992 and the Government have broken it. They have licensed gas-fired power stations and they have made the situation more difficult for the coal industry.
"Letting the pits close now in a dispute over a one-year contract with the electricity companies would be short-termism on a criminal scale."
If that was true in 1992, it is true today.
"Lifeline for national mining museum".
The Minister announced that there would be talks and that £100,000 would be given to keep the national mining museum going. He is happy to get involved with the
national mining museum. He will be dealing with a genuinely national mining museum if he does not get cracking and start caring for coal. Perhaps he is happy to turn our entire coal industry into a branch of the heritage industry.
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