COAL INDUSTRY (Hansard, 27 October 1970)

§ Mr. Edward Milne (Blyth)

It is not without significance that the opening week of the Session of Parliament following the Summer Recess should be occupied with the problems of the coal industry. The importance of coal to the economy has been stressed from both sides of the House on many occasions in the past. Coal is the only fuel which does not detrimentally affect our balance of payments position.

At the moment, in the County of Northumberland, as in the other coalfields of Britain, we are suffering in some respects from past White Papers, and especially the White Paper of 1967—a White Paper which suggested that the coal consumption in Britain should be about 80 million tons by 1980 and would reach towards that figure in the mid-70s by the annual output and consumption of 120 million tons.

If those figures are realised, the reduction in manpower will be substantial in every coalfield in Britain, and in Northumberland and Durham alone, it has been estimated by the National Coal Board, the decline would bring down manpower to 6,500. We have requested this debate not only because of what has been happening to the coal communities of Northumberland but because this debate must be the starting point—in terms of the House, the Ministry and the nation—for the preparation of guide lines for our future fuel economy.

The Department of Employment and Productivity, in conjunction with the Coal Board, spent a considerable amount of money in drawing up a report on a closure of the Ryhope colliery in Durham. The report is on sale at a price of about £2 5s.—slightly less than the amount asked by miners by way of a wage increase in the recent negotiations.

In reporting on the effect of closures on the mining industry, the report refered to the fact that miners had been stranded by the tide of industrial change, technological advances and discoveries, and said that it confronted the nation with a social, economic and moral 185 problem. I do not want to deal with the moral problem tonight, because the solution of the moral responsibility of the nation to the miners depends entirely on the way in which we tackle the social and economic problems facing the communities that I have mentioned.

In 1947 there were 61 pits in the Northumberland coalfield, employing over 40,000 people. By 1960 there had been a decline, but it was nothing to what was to follow. In 1960 the number of pits in the Northumberland coalfield was 45, employing 34,260 people. The latest figures given in the 1969–70 report showed that the number of pits had declined to 16 and the number of people employed to 14,099. That figure has been reduced since then—and at a time when the industry had been demonstrating a productivity improvement which has virtually doubled the output per man-shift.

I need not remind the House of the outstanding contribution made by Northumberland to the coal mining industry and to our economy. The first Members of Parliament to come here from the trade union came from Northumberland, and the first miner to come here direct from the coal face was Charles Fenwick. He came here some time ago. Many of us remember with affection when Jim Bowman was Chairman of the Coal Board. Jim Bowman, as a Northumberland mining man, made an outstanding contribution to the coal industry and the betterment of the people who work in it.

In view of the economic and social consequences of the contraction of the industry, this is not just a plea for justice for those who work in the industry. If the economy is to reach the stage which most of us want it to reach, the mining contribution must be increased, because what happens to coal in areas where coal is produced concerns the rest of the economy.

I have not time to expand the point, but I wish to give one simple illustration. In the 10-year period which I have mentioned in relation to the figures for employment in the mining industry, the amount of coal shipped from the port of Blyth mainly to other parts of Britain, has declined from between six and seven million tons to an annual tonnage of about two million. Therefore, the effects of the contraction of the mining industry 186 are harshly felt in other sectors of the community.

The moral responsibility is great, because the mining people of Northumberland and their families have written an imperishable chapter in the social and industrial history of this island. Miners do not protest about pit closures for the sheer joy of working in pits. I am sure that that will be echoed by my constituents and all those who work in the industry. To pitmen, the pit is the centre of a tightly knit and deep-rooted community, but the problem of redundancy forms a special case. The nature of the miners' work and the closely knit interdependence of the community make the community in which the miners live unique.

The problem which will increasingly confront us is the higher proportion of older and disabled men in coal mining, which aggravates the difficulty of placing the redundant miners in new jobs. However, in the new industries which have been attracted to the North-East and to Northumberland, the adaptability and ability of the miner to fit into the pattern of industrial change which has taken place and which must accelerate has been outstanding. There is not a firm which has moved in to South-East Northumberland which has not only been glad of that but has paid tribute to it. The diversity of industries to which the mining communities have adapted and acclimatised themselves is possibly unparalleled in industrial change in Britain, at least in the present century. The areas of Britain which do not have coal in them are the fortunate areas. Because of this, mining problems must be borne not only by mining areas but by people outside them.

Another problem which is cropping up is that under the Redundancy Payments Scheme redundancy pay stops after 156 weeks. Many miners have now reached that stage or are about to reach it, with years of work before them but no possibility of employment because there has not been the acceleration of industry which we have a right to demand and for which the mining industry has a right to ask.

There is not time to deal with the anomalies within the scheme. There has been some harshness in its operation. Men of more than 60 have been left in pits while many under 60 have been 187 made redundant. This is because of the nature of the industry and the background of the set-up in Northumberland. That is why the Government have to consider retirement at 60 for miners in order to deal with the possible termination of redundancy payments under the Act.

I have dealt with the need for alternative industries. The Government must increase what has been an accelerating rate of the intake of new industries in the last six years. The intended programme for the years ahead, set in train by previous Ministers, must be not only maintained but increased. The social and economic cost of running down the coal industry can be met only by moving in new industries. While we plead for the cessation of closures until alternative employment has been provided, the Coal Board and the Government must not use the employment position to keep men in mining because alternative jobs are insufficient to meet demand.

There is another aspect of the social and economic consequences of closures. When closures occur, the land on which the pits have been sited is often passed back to the owners of the land leased to the original coal owners. Sometimes the land owners and the coal owners were one and the same. This has created difficulties over development and the allocation of land and the attraction of new industries, because the land is frozen by long-standing agreements. Apparently, it is all right to take jobs from miners, but nothing must be done to challenge the sacred rights of land owners. The Prime Minister has been talking a great deal about one nation and the equality of people within that nation, and we have every right to see that that aspect is examined.

The closure which sparked off the request for this debate was that at the Eccles Colliery at Barkworth in Northumberland. The secretary of the pit described it to me as 100 per cent. mechanised. Many of the men being declared redundant were directed to the neighbouring pit at Fenwick, at Holly-well, a conventional colliery with pick and shovel work. This pit was estimated to be losing a colossal sum and the Board admitted that a big question mark was hanging over its future. The future of the Eccles colliery is possibly insecure. It is true that at times of redundancy of this 188 description men are given a guarantee of nine-tenths of their previous earnings if they move to other pits, but frequently a transfer from one pit to another means that any advantage which mineworkers obtained in the wage negotiations which have been taking place with the N.C.B. is wiped out. Thus, while it is attractive to talk about a person getting nine-tenths of his previous salary, he suffers a considerable loss of income, spending power is lost to the community and this has an adverse effect on the whole economy.

We have tried to outline the problems confronting the fuel industry, and particularly the problems of Northumberland, along with the responsibilities which rest on the Government to intensify the work which was done for the industry and the economy in the last six years, not merely for the benefit of Northumberland's mining folk but in the interests of the economy as a whole. It is clear from the Report to which I have referred that the problems confronting the nation in this connection are social, economic and moral. They must be tackled with vigour, quickly, by the new Government.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley)

I am glad that the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) has raised this subject because I agree that the difficult changes which take place in our industrial life should be considered sympathetically by Parliament and the Government.

It so happens that I know the area to which he refers well, having lived there for 30 years and having fought his predecessor, Lord Robens, in his own constituency in the election campaign of 1955. I always cherish a special concern for and interest in what takes place there.

I agree that there are major social and economic factors which make life very difficult for the coal mining industry and those who work or have worked in it, particularly in an area like Northumberland—and for that matter Durham—where there has been a particularly heavy rundown in the mining force. I am sure that in so far as morals come into this, we accept that we must assume our responsibilities towards the victims of industrial change; but this seems to be a social and economic problem rather than a moral one.

189 The hon. Gentleman spoke first about the prospects of the coal industry as a whole, and said that coal was the only fuel which did not make a charge across the exchanges on our balance of payments. That is no longer the case, because natural gas has been discovered and this fuel does not make a charge on our import bill.

The difficulty with fuel policy has always been that of forecasting what will happen. My late father wrote a report on the future of the coal industry at the beginning of the 1950s in which he forecast that the whole of that decade would be a period of increasing coal shortage. He was, I am afraid, totally wrong. It was a period of increasing coal surplus. There were very few who predicted, a year or two ago, that there would be a shortage of coal, which will possibly be the case over the next year or two.

It is impossible to be firm about forecasting demand. Demand is a variant of the price, and if coal prices itself out of the market, it is likely to decline faster than if it does not. Nor can one possibly know what will be the prices of competing fuels such as gas or oil, which have been displacing coal recently. It would be impossible to forecast exactly what will happen to coal in the future. I believe that there is room for a viable, profitable and large coal industry, but I cannot guess at the size of its output in any given year, nor at the employment which it will provide. What is certain is that the more the coal industry can reduce its costs and produce efficiently, the greater will be the market available to it.

I would certainly join with the hon. Member in paying tribute to the way in which the rundown has been handled during this difficult decade just ended, when the number of jobs in coalmining has been just about halved. In the Northumberland coalfield there were about twice as many jobs five years ago. In 1970 there are only 13,500 jobs in the 16 pits now operating. The Northumberland share in the decline has been higher than the national average. During that five-year period the decline in the labour force has been 49 per cent. whereas the average for the country as a whole has been only 38 per cent.

190 Not all of these men have been made unemployed. A certain number has left for other pits and a large number has found other jobs, not in coal-mining. Although this massive change has been taking place it has been much more a question of change to other activities or other parts of the country or other pits, rather than a question of blanket unemployment. The Blyth constituency had 12 collieries five years ago, employing 8,300 workers. It now has only six collieries, employing 4,200 men. It sticks to the county average in exactly halving its employment.

The hon. Member mentioned the Eccles Colliery. I understand from the Coal Board that the Eccles Colliery is nearly at the end of its life as regards reserves. It was reprieved in September by the Board because it is beginning to want to get the last ton of coal that it can, due to the very tight supply situation prevailing. Although that closure has been postponed, when I tell the hon. Member that the reason for that closure is the exhaustion of its reserves, he will I think, agree with me that it is impossible to keep the colliery going for a long period and that therefore it must be regarded in the long term as not likely to offer employment. Having said that, it is also fair to say that what remains in his constituency—five pits—will remain and that the pits further afield, in the Ashington and Morpeth area, have probably a good future. The new smelter at Lynemouth will take one million tons of coal a year. That will provide employment for about 1,000 miners. I have talked about the difficulties of forecasting but, as far as one can forecast, the probability is that this will be a fairly stable and economic coalfield as far ahead as it is possible to look.

I think that the right policy is to accept that the coal industry must change. It may even contract again in the future, although I think that the worst is over. At the same time, we have a keen responsibility to look after those who are the victims of this change. That is why the Government have announced that they will introduce a Coal Bill containing provisions to extend the redundancy pensions scheme for miners. It is, of course, the older and the disabled men who find it much more difficult to obtain jobs and 191 to accept retraining and new habits of work, even if the jobs are provided.

If the hon. Member looks at the unemployment figures for the area, he will probably agree that in the very high totals which exist in the Northumbrian coalfield area, a large proportion of these men are probably on pension and are, therefore, not in such a bad way as they might be. This tends to make the figures seem less menacing than they would otherwise appear.

Unemployment in the area is high. In the hon. Member's constituency it is 9½ per cent. and in the special development area it is 8½ per cent. There are about 4,000 men in the area looking for jobs. However, I think that I can end on a reasonably optimistic note. Over the next four years, we expect there to be a further 6,000 jobs at the minimum—and there may be more about which we do not know—which will arise in the general area of the Northumberland coalfield. Of those 6,000 jobs, 4,200 will be for men.

Other things being equal—that is, in the absence of further colliery closures, large-scale reductions or things that cannot at present be foreseen—this should bring enough employment to the area roughly to match the present number of people who are available and looking for work. This should make the hon. Mem- 192 ber feel that the prospects are reasonably hopeful, even if they are not excessively encouraging.

The hon. Member asked about the use of land which has been employed for coal-mining. I would only say that the Government provide 85 per cent. grant for the clearance of this land and the Northumberland County Council has added to that the other 15 per cent. which it provides to make sure that the clearance of derelict land will receive 100 per cent. grant to cover its restoration for industrial or other uses. This is taking place, and many imaginative schemes are under way, which, I suggest, rather invalidates the hon. Member's argument that large areas of land are lying sterile and that the Government are not playing their part in putting this right.

I can, therefore, say to the hon. Member that with the co-operative and ready spirit of responding to change which has been the feature of the mining community in Northumberland in the past, and with the reasonably hopeful prospects which I have outlined as being how we see it for the future, perhaps his fears need not be as deeply felt as he has expressed. I only hope that this is true.