Commons Sitting of 16 January 1990

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  UNITED MEDICAL AND DENTAL SCHOOLS BILL [Lords]
  Considered; to be read the Third time.

  BROMLEY LONDON BOROUGH COUNCIL (CRYSTAL PALACE) BILL
  Motion made,
  That the proceedings of 7th December 1989 on consideration of the Bromley London Borough Council (Crystal Palace) Bill be null and void.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Hon. Members: Object.
  To be considered tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions
  EMPLOYMENT

    Tourism
    Mr. Amos: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he has received about the development of tourism in the north of England; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Nicholls): Ministers from my Department have, on a number of occasions, met representatives from the tourism industry in the north of England, and have received correspondence on a wide range of issues affecting tourism in the area.
    Mr. Amos: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply, but may I ask him two questions? First, will he use his best endeavours to bring about greater co-ordination and a clearer sense of direction for the many agencies in Northumberland that promote tourism? Secondly, will he urgently hold discussions with colleagues in the Department of Transport to bring about a more sensible and flexible policy on signposting? People cannot visit places of interest or use accommodation if they do not know that they exist. In a county as dispersed as Northumberland, it is important that people have that information.
    Mr. Nicholls: I shall certainly draw that point to the attention of my noble Friend the Minister with responsibility for tourism, who will share my hon. Friend's concern. I am aware of my hon. Friend's long-standing
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    interest in the issue. I come from an area that relies heavily on tourism, so I have considerable personal sympathy with him. I take his point on board.
    Mr. Beith: Why have Ministers denied section 4 grants for tourism in Northumberland? Does the Under-Secretary of State realise how difficult it is to promote tourism in such an attractive area in competition with much better funded promotion on the Scottish side of the border?
    Mr. Nicholls: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman asked that question; I should have thought that he would already be aware of the answer. If he looks at the figures, he will find that the contribution that section 4 grants made to the tourist industry in Northumbria was minuscule. Other forms of grant and assistance are available to tourism in the area. The industry is so successful that it does not need to be maintained on the back of public subsidy.
    Mr. Gregory: Does my hon. Friend agree that the growth in tourism would be faster in the north of England, particularly in York, if there were more flights from overseas direct to the north? If overseas flights went direct to Manchester and other northern airports, tourists could be channelled directly to York and other tourist areas in the north.
    Mr. Nicholls: I am sure that my hon. Friend makes a valuable point. Transport links are of much importance. The Government's attitude is that local authority airports have a real role to play by taking their share of traffic. I accept what was implicit in my hon. Friend's question—that road transport also has a significant part to play. In that context, my hon. Friend will have been heartened by the proposals in the transport White Paper. I accept his point.
    Mr. Radice: Does not the success of tourism in the northern region owe much to the efforts of the Northumbria tourist board and local councils? Would it not be far fairer if we received some of the support that other areas, such as Scotland and Wales, receive? We should then be on a level playing field. Should not the Government take action on that?
    Mr. Nicholls: No, or the Government would have done
    so. I accept that the hon. Gentleman and others hold that
    view. The position in Wales and Scotland is different—t he hon. Gentleman will find a fair amount of support for this among Labour Members—and cannot always be equated to that in England. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales believed that section 4 should be retained in accordance with how they saw tourism developing. The evidence is that section 4 made a small contribution to tourism in England. The prosperity of the tourist industry in the hon. Gentleman's area owes more to factors other than merely section 4.

    Job clubs
    Mr. Bowis: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the pilot project in job clubs designed for people with severe literacy and language problems.
    The Minster of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Tim Eggar): My right hon. Friend announced on 22 November last year a pilot programme of 15 job clubs that give extra help to people with severe literacy difficulties or with very limited command of English. All 15 pilots are now in operation. There will be a review of results achieved in late spring this year.
    Mr. Bowis: I am sure that my hon. Friend appreciates that a significant number of people with language and literacy difficulties cannot benefit from the job markets without this form of assistance. I welcome the work of the job clubs and of the series of pilot schemes. However, will my hon. Friend assure me that once the review has been carried out, the good practice in those schemes will be spread to other parts of the country, including south London?
    Mr. Eggar: My hon. Friend is right to praise the contribution that has been made by the job clubs. More than 200,000 people have found jobs as a result of taking part in the job club scheme. I assure my hon. Friend that if the pilot projects go well, we shall consider extending them to other parts of the country.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Minister assure the House that his Department will work closely with the Department of Education and Science in this matter? He will have seen in today's papers the reports of the campaign, which is headed by Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal, for improving literacy throughout the country. Millions of people are unable to play a full part in society because they cannot read or write adequately. We need a co-ordinated campaign across the Departments. Will the Minister ensure that it is a departmental priority this year?
    Mr. Eggar: I assure the hon. Gentleman that my Department is well aware of the problems of literacy. For that reason, we teamed up with the Department of Education and Science and with the BBC to launch a major new remote learning literacy scheme, and there are several other initiatives on that front. I shall be happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman about what we are doing in that area.
    Mrs. Currie: Does my hon. Friend agree that the adult illiteracy to which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) referred is a result of trendy and silly education policies, which have now been discredited? Does my hon. Friend recognise that in a constituency such as mine, which is approaching full employment, the small number of adult illiterates and young people leaving school whose literacy is not adequate have become unemployable, which is a tragedy for them and for the country? Does he agree that we should do everything that we can to reduce that problem?
    Mr. Eggar: Certainly, I agree with my hon. Friend on that point and that is why we have the job clubs' pilot project on literacy. If my hon. Friend has specific suggestions for her area, I hope that she will tell me about them.
    Mr. McLeish: No one would dispute the need for a modern employment service to be sensitive to issues such as literacy, numeracy and language. Is the Minister aware that that idea emerged from an internal strategy document from the Department of Employment, which also
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    suggested that benefit sanctions would be applied to job clubs, to employment training and to restart? Will the Minister reassure the House that there will be no attempt to use the measures contained in the Employment Act 1988 to designate those schemes as training, or to use the actively seeking work regulations of the Social Security Act 1989 to bring more pressure on people to adopt such programmes? Does he accept that in this day and age, when there are still almost 400,000 people who have been unemployed for more than two years, there is a need for positive consideration, rather than punishment and coercion?
    Mr. Eggar: The Government's schemes are designed to assist people to get back to work. That is why we have an extensive employment training provision, why we continue to seek to make it as flexible as possible and why we are giving increasing priority to literacy and numeracy skills. Together with the training and enterprise councils, we shall continue to seek ways to enhance people's capability to find jobs.
    Mr. Rathbone: Will the pilot project embrace those who are suffering from dyslexia? If the pilot project turns out correctly, will my hon. Friend ensure that it embraces such people?
    Mr. Eggar: I am sure that the pilot project will cover people who suffer from dyslexia and I am delighted that my hon. Friend has drawn attention to the problem. I had an Adjournment debate on the subject myself, back in 1981.

    Disabled People
    Ms. Ruddock: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how he intends to improve the working of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944.
    Mr. Corbett: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what additional measures he will introduce to enable disabled persons to participate fully in the work force.
    The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Howard): My Department already maintains a com?prehensive network of services to help people with disabilities find and retain jobs. Measures to encourage the employment of more people with disabilities and the operation of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944 are among the matters being considered in our current review of services for people with disabilities.
    Ms. Ruddock: Given the low level of enforcement of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act and the low morale in the disability advisory service, is it not time that the Secretary of State learnt from other countries such as West Germany, where the 6 per cent. quota is vigorously enforced, unlike the quota in this country?
    Mr. Howard: I do not accept the hon. Lady's allegations of low morale. She asked about West Germany. There are many differences between the approach taken there and the approach that we take in this country, and the basis on which comparisons are made is frequently misleading. All those matters will be taken into account in our review and I hope to publish a consultative document shortly.
    Mr. Corbett: In the review, will the Secretary of State consider extending the number of sheltered industrial units to enable the severely disabled, with reduced work output, to work alongside their able-bodied colleagues, but to get a subsidy via his Department from a sponsor organisation? Does he accept that that could improve the job prospects for about 370,000 registered disabled?
    Mr. Howard: The part played by sheltered industrial units is certainly among the matters being considered in the review, and I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman's suggestion is taken into account.
    Mr. Rowe: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that it is a pleasure to see him at the Dispatch Box in his new role? Will he ensure that employers throughout the United Kingdom, particularly in areas such as mine, which now has virtually full employment, are made aware of the very good record of job loyalty that the disabled bring to their employment? That is an asset to employers when the labour situation is tight.
    Mr. Howard: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words of welcome. I entirely agree with his observation. People with disabilities have a great deal to offer employers and it is important that employers should have full regard to their potential.
    Mr. Thurnham: May I give a warm welcome to my right hon. and learned Old Petrian Friend in his new responsibilities? Will he confirm that he will continue to increase the number of disabled persons being helped into jobs, and assist in the rapid introduction of the proposed new disability employment credit?
    Mr Howard: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words. The Government's record of encouraging and helping disabled people into jobs is excellent and we want to ensure that it continues and improves further.
    Mr Ashley: Is the Secretary of State aware that the good intentions expressed in his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) run counter to the statements in his Department's internal review, which said that work for disabled people had little status and less priority in the employment service? Is he aware that his own Department does not know how many employers have completed their employment policy questionnaire and that two thirds of Britain's disabled persons have no job? May we have a changed attitude from the right hon. and learned Gentleman in his new job, to which I also welcome him?
    Mr. Howard: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome. I shall look into the matter of the questionnaire, but the general matters that lie behind his question are at the heart of the review that is currently under way.

    Ballots
    Mr. Michael Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the code of practice for trade union ballots for industrial action.
    Mr. Nicholls: Following representations on the draft published at the end of 1988, a modified draft of the code of practice has now been laid before Parliament. The draft
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    code deals with a matter of great importance—the conduct of union ballots on industrial action. The next step is to move approval resolutions in each House.
    Mr. Brown: Does my hon. Friend agree that that is an encouraging reply? Does he accept that it is absolutely essential that any union that does not accept the need for a proper ballot, under the terms of the code of practice, should risk legal action being taken against it?
    Mr. Nicholls: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. Many of the contributions that were made to the code of practice were drawn from the best practice of certain trade unions. Any union that is prepared to conduct its ballots fairly and democratically will find the code of great assistance.
    Mr. John Evans: Will the Minister confirm that more than 90 per cent. of the ballots that have been held since the passage of the Trade Union Act 1984 have confirmed the unions' positions? Will he guarantee that the so-called code of practice is not just a back-door attempt to make ballots and official industrial disputes more difficult?
    Mr. Nicholls: No, as I said, many of the ideas contained in the balloting code have been drawn from the best practice of better unions. Nothing in the code should cause any concern to any union if it wants to conduct itself fairly and democratically.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange that the provision on workplace ballots that were passed by the House were attacked at every stage by Opposition Members and by trade unions but that, today, they appear to be in favour of what has worked well to bring industrial peace to this country?
    Mr. Nicholls: That is certainly what we are asked to believe. When the Labour party poses as the champion of individual liberties, I find it about as convincing as the idea of a piranha turning vegetarian.

    Training and Enterprise Councils
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the progress being made to establish training and enterprise councils.
    Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many proposals have been made to the national task force for the establishment of training and enterprise councils; and how many have been accepted for development funding.
    Mr. Howard: I am able to announce today that a further seven training and enterprise councils have been awarded development funding. That brings the total number of TECs to 51, just 10 months after the initiative was first launched.
    Mr. Jones: I join other hon. Members in welcoming the Secretary of State to his new position. Does he agree that a major concern about setting up councils in rural areas is that their members may lack the necessary breadth of expertise to make them a success? Few industrialists have direct experience of in-house training in rural areas. Does the Secretary of State agree that, in rural areas, it is necessary to fund bodies that bring together not only industrialists but careers teachers, technical colleges,

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    universities and training agencies to identify potential skill shortages in rural areas and to begin to tackle the job at that end?
    Mr. Howard: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his welcome. I agree that all the organisations to which he referred have a part to play in the TEC initiative. One of the great advantages of that initiative is that it is able to draw on local circumstances and adjust programmes to take full account of local needs.
    Mr. Paice: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the results that he has described demonstrate that we are way ahead of target and that we shall achieve TEC coverage of most of the United Kingdom much earlier than was originally anticipated? Does he agree also that the results clearly demonstrate the truth that has been known by business for a long time is being learnt by our schools and is about to be learnt in the National Health Service—that if one delegates responsibility to the people who can use it properly, one will get not only better interest and commitment but far better results?
    Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We expect the whole network to be in place by the end of this year, about two years ahead of schedule. The establishment of TECs is the most exciting training initiative that we have ever seen. I hope that the TECs will receive a warm welcome on both sides of the House.
    Mr. Cousins: Will the Minister advance the commencement of the Tyneside TEC by six weeks, to allow a Confederation of British Industry initiative in Cruddas park in Newcastle to continue? That initiative was run into the ground because not one local employer agreed to employ people on Government programmes in Cruddas park. Will the Secretary of State go to Newcastle, start the TEC six weeks early, and make sure that we can find one local employer who will participate in that initiative?
    Mr. Howard: I hope to visit Newcastle as soon as is convenient and I shall look into the point that the hon. Gentleman raised.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: I know that my right hon. and learned Friend is concerned about the quality of the membership of the TECs, but does he agree that we might be being a little too restrictive, because a senior director of a major national company, who may not be the chief executive of that company, can have more to offer a TEC than, say, the managing director of a much smaller commercial enterprise. Should we not be a little more flexible than we are at present?
    Mr. Howard: I understand the concern that lies behind my hon. Friend's question, but the success of the TECs owes a great deal to the fact that it is the chief executives, or their equivalents, of the companies concerned who are members of the TEC boards. That lends the TECs an extra impetus that they would not otherwise have and that is why we attach so much importance to the participation of chief executive officers of companies.
    Mr. Blair: I welcome the new Secretary of State, but does he agree that his first priority must be to deal with Britain's lamentable record on training and skills? In that connection, when his own Department's survey shows that one in five employers do not themselves train but poach trained staff from others and when half Britain's work
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    force in any one year will not receive any training at all, what powers will the new training and enterprise councils have to prevent the bad employers from exploiting the good?
    Mr. Howard: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his welcome, but I am sorry that he should have prefaced his question with routine party political criticism of the type in which he engaged. I hope that he will work with the Government to ensure that the TEC initiative succeeds, as it shows every sign of succeeding, and that it achieves great progress in dealing, among other things, with the problem that he identified.

    Tourism
    Mr. Bright: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the percentage increase in the number of visitors to the United Kingdom in 1989; and what was the figure for 1988.
    Mr. Nicholls: The latest estimate for 1989 is that, during the first 10 months of the year, there were 14·9 million visitors to the United Kingdom, 9 per cent. more than in the same period of 1988. In 1988 as a whole there were 15·8 million visitors to the United Kingdom, 1 per cent. more than in 1987.
    Mr. Bright: Obviously, the trend is encouraging, but apart from ensuring that people use airports such as Luton and Manchester and avoid the sometimes cattle-like conditions that they have to experience at Gatwick and Heathrow, will my hon. Friend encourage the industry and, indeed, the planning authorities to provide value-for-money accommodation around the countryside, such as we often see in America, which is one of the things that tourists are looking for, instead of the high-priced hotels that they are sometimes pushed into at the moment?
    Mr. Nicholls: I am sure that my hon. Friend is entirely right to draw our attention to the importance of an initially favourable impression when one lands at an airport. I know that my noble Friend the Minister responsible for tourism shares that view. My hon. Friend is aware of the attitude that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport takes in pursuing the liberalisation of air routes, to try to bring more people into the country. I entirely accept what my hon. Friend says. Without being complacent, there are good grounds for saying that the industry is taking those points on board, especially in relation to accommodation.
    Mr. Pike: Would not we get better tourism in the regions and thereby increase tourism to this country if we not only developed more direct access to our regional airports, but ensured that the regions can benefit fully from the Channel tunnel project? Does the Minister agree that we must not get second best for the regions, but first best, with public investment in the railway network to meet that need?
    Mr. Nicholls: The hon. Gentleman touches quite properly on the role that transport plays in this matter. He also referred to the Channel tunnel. It is expected that about 15 million people will use the Channel tunnel in the first year. I fully accept that that has consequences for the

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    regions and the road network. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the recent White Paper on road transport, he will find a great deal there to encourage him.
    Sir John Stokes: Does not my hon. Friend agree that while, clearly, we should welcome tourists to this country, tourism is ruining large areas of the world? Must we not take care to preserve our English countryside and heritage as much as possible as well as welcoming newcomers?
    Mr. Nicholls: My hon. Friend is entirely right to point out that inevitably there is a conflict between the proper exploitation of tourist areas and making sure that our heritage is not destroyed in the process. I should not go so far as to take my hon. Friend's apocalyptic view of the matter but he is right that the danger must be borne in mind.
    Mr. Skinner: Does the Minister agree that tourism can provide a valuable source of income for the balance of payments? Is he aware that during the past five or six years, the amount under "invisible" items in the balance of payments has fallen from £700 million a month to £100 million a month and that tourism has a part to play in that? Is it not a scandal that the Government have reached the point where they make the invisibles invisible?
    Mr. Nicholls: The only thing that is invisible is the hon. Gentleman's ability to understand the facts. It is an entirely false formula to subtract domestic tourism from outgoing tourism. The fact that tourism overseas is increasing at such a rate and that people can afford to go abroad for their holidays shows the economic prosperity of the country. I say that in the certain knowledge that were the hon. Gentleman's party to attain office, that prosperity would disappear completely.

    Youth Access
    Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the progress of the youth access initiative.
    Mr. Eggar: I am pleased with the progress of this initiative, which is at the pilot stage. It seeks to develop partnerships between business and education specifically to take young people who would normally not continue their education after the age of 16, through further education and into higher education.
    Mr. Hayes: Does my hon. Friend agree that with the demographic time bomb ticking away, it is vital that young people have early access to industry? Will he confirm that the Training Agency will provide an additional £200,000 to the initiative, which should be welcomed?
    Mr. Eggar: I readily confirm that to my hon. Friend. The pilot schemes are important. They will follow the line that we established with the technical and vocational education initiative, training and enterprise councils and higher education. All those schemes designed to bring together education, training and work experience.
    Ms. Armstrong: Does the Minister recognise that in the past 10 years the level of skills that our young people attained has been much lower than before? Does he recognise that we must pay attention to the quality of training opportunities for our young people and that we
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    have a long way to go before we come anywhere near meeting the potential of young people and the country's need for trained personnel for the future?
    Mr. Eggar: It is common ground that we need to improve the quality of our training and skills. It is important that employers and employees combine with the Government and the voluntary agencies to raise the level of skills throughout the country during the next decade. That is a major challenge to us all.
    Mr. Fatchett: How far does the Minister feel responsible for the fact that during the past 10 years the level of skills among young people here has deteriorated in comparison with the skills of West German and French youngsters? He does not need to take my word for that because that is the conclusion of the Confederation of British Industry report on education and training.
    Mr. Eggar: I readily take responsibility for the Government's excellent youth training scheme which later developed into youth training and for the formation of the training and enterprise councils. All those schemes will have a tremendous beneficial impact on our levels of skills and training in the 1990s.

    Construction Inspectors
    Ms. Mowlam: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans he has for increasing the number of Health and Safety Executive construction inspectors.
    Mr. Howard: The Health and Safety Executive has exceeded its objective of having 100 inspectors regularly engaged on the inspection of construction activities nationally by 1990. That number will be maintained. The House has no plans to increase the number in 1990, but the position will be kept under review.
    Ms. Mowlam: As we have had a 22 per cent. increase in the number of fatal and major accidents in the past eight years, does the Secretary of State consider that the target of 100 inspectors is adequate?
    Mr. Howard: One must look at the figures in perspective. There has been a substantial decrease in the number of fatal accidents in the construction industry. In the 10 years ending March 1988 there were 1,195 fatalities compared with 1,968 during the previous 10 years. The
    objective was set by the HSE and I have no reason to gainsay it.
    Mr. Ward: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the key to safety on construction sites is good training in site safety practices and good supervision by enlightened and progressive firms?
    Mr. Howard: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and he will know that we are awaiting the results of the consultation document that was issued by the Health and Safety Commission proposing new regulations on the management of health and safety on sites.
    Mr. Leighton: 1, too, add my welcome to the Secretary of State. I am sure that he will not want to underestimate the seriousness of the situation in the construction industry where about 150 people are killed and tens of thousands injured every year. That is on a rising trend, perhaps because of the number of sub-contractors, many of whom ignore safety regulations, and because there are only a

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    little more than 100 inspectors for nearly 700,000 employees. There are very few prosecutions because there are not enough inspectors to bring them and, when they are brought, the penalties are derisory. What is the right hon. and learned Gentleman doing to increase the number of inspectors and to see that the penalties are an effective deterrent?
    Mr. Howard: I am grateful to the Chairman of the Employment Select Committee for his kind words of welcome. There has been an increasing number of prosecutions and the hon. Gentleman will know that the HSE is increasingly seeking to persuade the courts that such matters should be dealt with in the Crown courts where the court's ability to make decisions and to levy punishments that are more in keeping with the offences is much more widely available.
    Mr. Simon Coombs: Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that there has been an increase of about 10 per cent. in the number of health and safety inspectors working on construction sites in the past two years? Do vacancies still exist in different parts of the country and, if so, what does that tell us about the level of pay that those inspectors enjoy?
    Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend's figure for the increase is correct and the number of inspectors on inspection of construction activities is now more than the complement that the HSE has set.
    Mr. Heifer: As there have been six deaths on this side of the Channel tunnel and only one death on the French side during its construction, will the Secretary of State pay special attention to the health and safety of those who are working on the tunnel? Will there be an increase in the number of health and safety inspectors on this side of the Channel?
    Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point which requires attention. He will be aware that the latest unfortunate incident is being investigated by the HSE and we should wait and see what emerges from that investigation.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: Is the Secretary of State aware that when the Under-Secretary of State was challenged about the Government's scandalous record in terms of death and injuries on construction sites, he said that people on building sites had the right to walk out if a site was unsafe, in effect asking them to take unofficial action? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell the House clearly whether the Employment Bill's provision on unofficial action will make it easier or more difficult for union officials to take such unofficial action on unsafe construction sites?
    Mr. Howard: As I recall my hon. Friend's words, his point was that employees have an important role in drawing breaches of the safety regulations to the attention of the HSE. That is an important contribution which employees can make, and I hope that they play their full part in drawing such breaches to the attention of the executive.

    Labour Statistics (Leicester)
    Mr. Janner: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will make a statement regarding the current level of unemployment in the city of Leicester.
    Mr. Eggar: In November 1989 there were 9,629 unemployed claimants in the local authority area of Leicester, a fall of 1,902 or 16·5 per cent. over the last 12 months.
    Mr. Janner: Is the Minister aware that over the past 12 months the hosiery and knitwear industries in Leicester have lost 4,000 jobs and that the Government's research programme cannot possibly save them because it will be too late to do so? Will the Government announce some help for the knitwear and hosiery industries in my constituency in view of the growing unemployment in those vital industries that have long been traditional and important to the city?
    Mr. Eggar: I shall certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to the points made by the hon. and learned Gentleman. I know that similar points were made during last Friday's debate.
    Mr Ashby: Does not my hon. Friend agree that although his reply is good news, that is despite the fact that the loony Left-wing Leicester council policies encourage unemployment in Leicester?
    Mr. Eggar: I quite understand my hon. Friend's concerns about Leicester council's policy. Clearly, anything that adds to the costs for employees and employers in Leicester is likely to lead to unnecessary job losses.
    Mr. Jim Marshall: Is the Minister aware that in many parts of the city of Leicester, unemployment is in excess of 25 per cent. and still increasing, and that it will increase further as local industry is facing increased pressure because of high interest rates? In the light of that, will he put pressure on his colleagues who are in charge of economic affairs to ensure that interest rates decline as quickly as possible?
    Mr. Eggar: I am slightly surprised by the hon. Gentleman. Why does he have to write down his own local area in Leicester? Unemployment has fallen sharply in Leicester, as it has elsewhere in the east midlands. Why does he not point out that, rather than the problems of the industries?

    Labour Statistics
    12. Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what has been the change in the unemployment rate in the United Kingdom in 1989 and in other major industrialised countries; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Howard: Between January and September 1989, the latest comparable date, the rate of unemployment has fallen faster in the United Kingdom than in any other major industrialised country. With permission I will publish a full comparison in the Official Report.
    Mr. Greenway: Is not that a matter for great congratulation for this Government? Is it not a fact that

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    the Delors social charter certainly would not have improved employment in this country? Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that even in boroughs such as Ealing, in which the Left-wing Labour council has both doubled the industrial rates and is thoroughly antibusiness, jobs have increased as a result of Government policies?
    Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, particularly in what he said about the social charter. However, the improvement in employment rates that he identified is not limited to Ealing. I hope that we shall see the principal Opposition spokesman on employment, the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) rise to his feet to welcome the 50 per cent. fall in unemployment that has occurred in his constituency in the past three years.
    Mr. Cryer: Is not any fall in unemployment a fall from the peak created by this Government? When does the Secretary of State expect unemployment to fall to the 1979 level? Does he think that there is any connection between the £20 billion balance of trade deficit achieved by the Government—another peak—and the 2 million jobs lost in manufacturing industries since 1979?
    Mr. Howard: I never cease to be amazed at the devotion shown by Opposition Members to jobs that existed in loss-making firms which offered no security either to the workers or the firms. The 2·75 million extra jobs that have been created in this country since 1983 are in firms that make profits and are secure for the long term.
    Mr. Holt: As the resurgence in economic activity in Cleveland is a major contributor to the better figures that my right hon. and learned Friend has in front of him, will he find five minutes to write to Cleveland county council to tell it to accept the figures and the truth instead of asking its research and intelligence department to try and concoct false ones because it does not like the good news from Teesside?
    Mr. Howard: I look forward to spending at least five minutes discussing that matter with my hon. Friend, so that we ensure that my letter correctly represents the facts.
    Mr. Salmond: How can there be any further progress in reducing unemployment when the United Kingdom's whole economy is restrained because of overheating in one part of it? Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman read the research published in the current issue of the "Fraser of Allander Quarterly Economic Commentary", which reveals that manufacturing industry outside the south-east will suffer most from the Government's policy of high interest rates? Will he make respresentations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to help give businesses in Scotland, the north and Wales a chance to achieve economic recovery?
    Mr. Howard: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's analysis. Industry and employment throughout the country have benefited from the framework created by Government policies.
    Following is the information:

    International comparison of unemployment rates (OECD Standarised Unemployment Rates)

    January

    September

    Change (per cent.)

    Italy

    11·1

    211·3

    0·2

    Norway

    14·8

    35·0

    0·2

    Netherlands

    9·4

    n/a

    n/a

    Japan

    2·3

    2·2

    -0·1

    France

    9·7

    9·5

    -0·2

    Canada

    7·5

    7·3

    -0·2

    Germany

    5·7

    5·5

    -0·2

    United States

    5·4

    5·2

    -0·2

    Sweden

    1·5

    1·3

    -0·2

    Portugal

    15·2

    34·9

    -0·3

    Finland

    3·7

    43·4

    -0·3

    Belgium

    9·3

    8·9

    -0·4

    Spain

    117·7

    317·0

    -0·7

    Australia

    6·8

    6·0

    -0·8

    United Kingdom

    7·1

    6·0

    -1·1

    OECD total

    6·4

    4 56·1

    -0·3

    Major seven

    5·8

    55·6

    -0·2

    EEC

    9·3

    58·9

    -0·4

    1 February.

    2 April.

    3 May.

    4 August.

    5 Estimated.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Dykes: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 16 January.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings today.
    Mr. Dykes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to maximise the advantages and opportunities for Britain in the developing European Community is for Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament to work more closely together in future, not grow further apart?
    The Prime Minister: I understand that the Procedure Committee has some proposals to make on that matter, and its report will be debated in this House in due course. It is most important to work together in such a way that Europe is open for trade and is not protectionist, and that it operates in such a way that the rights of this House—the sovereign and oldest House of Parliament in the European Community—are well and truly respected.
    Mr. Battle: Why are the Government continuing to allow the dumping of industrial toxic waste into the North sea, despite comments made during last night's Second Reading of the Environmental Protection Bill, international assurances, and the protests made by the rest of Europe? Will the Government continue blatantly to disregard international agreements and the environmental health of the North sea?
    The Prime Minister: I have checked the law and the reports, and they confirm that we agreed to phase out dumping of industrial waste into the North sea by the end

    155
    of 1989, except where there was no practicable land disposal option—which requires a great deal of planning permission and investment. But then we have to show to the satisfaction of the Oslo Commission that waste dumped at sea will not cause harm. That is being done, so we are not infringing any of our legal responsibilities.
    Mr. John Greenway: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 16 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Greenway: Farmers in my constituency believe that there is a contradiction in the attitude adopted by the European Commission, which wants to see greater progress made towards monetary union but is nevertheless prepared to reduce the gap between the real and notional value of the green pound by only one third. How can there be a single European market for agriculture when that crippling disadvantage for British farmers is so lightly dismissed by Brussels bureaucrats?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, farm price differences are due to the arrangements for green currency. We agreed to phase out the green currencies by the end of 1992, which will be of great benefit to our farmers, and we must hold our partners to that agreement. Meanwhile, the Commission's current proposals will reduce the gap by one third, which is a step in the right direction. Whether or not that goes far enough is a matter for negotiation in the coming months.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does the Prime Minister recall telling the House last year that, under the present Government, there is no incomes policy? Why did she change her mind?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is not correct. Under this Government, it is for the private sector to determine its pay levels and for the Government, as an employer, to determine their pay levels.
    Mr. Kinnock: I wish to jog the Prime Minister's memory by quoting from Hansard. She said:
    "Under this Government there is no incomes…policy." —[Official Report, 16 February 1989; Vol. 147, c. 482.]
    Perhaps she can explain why she has two incomes policies in the public sector—one for the top paid, above the rate of inflation, and one for the remainder, below the rate of inflation. Why does she not come clean and admit that, even though it would mean swallowing her own words?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman does not understand what an incomes policy is. If he did, he would know that there is no incomes policy under this Government. It is for the private sector to determine pay arrangements in relation to productivity and bearing in mind the need to keep prices competitive. It is for the Government, in the public sector, to determine the rate of pay for those who come directly under our employment. To do that, we have observed the recommendations of the pay review bodies for those people who do not go on strike. We have observed the many negotiating arrangements. The position is much more complex than the right hon. Gentleman understands.
    Sir Fergus Montgomery: If the NHS management bows to industrial action by the ambulance men and decide to
    156
    raise the offer, what message would that convey to the 84 per cent. of NHS workers who, last year, settled their pay claims through the usual negotiating machinery?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right. The pay claim that is being resolved now should have been settled last spring or early summer. That pay round was settled at 6·5 to 6·8 per cent. by some 84 per cent. of NHS employees including nurses, administrative and clerical grades, senior managers, ancillary staff, building trade operatives and medical laboratory scientific officers. They all settled at the right time for between 6·5 and 6·8 per cent. It would be unfair if, because the ambulance workers did not settle and have gone on strike and disrupted some of their work, they were to receive more than those who settled and did not strike.
    Mr. Bill Michie: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 16 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Michie: I am here. Will the Prime Minister admit to the shabby Government policy that restricts ambulance crews having a decent living wage, while around her she has highly-paid colleagues who make more moonlighting than they earn as Members of Parliament? Is it not time that she cleaned up this sleaze Parliament?
    The Prime Minister: I thank the hon. Gentleman for calling attention to his place. I am used to answering Sheffield questions from that area. I do not agree with him. As he is aware, the ambulance men have had a revised offer costing another £6 million this year, which varies between 9 and 16·3 per cent., according to where they work and their qualifications, and for a period of 18 months. That is a good offer. It is 16·3 per cent. for those with more qualifications because we want more ambulance men with more medical qualifications. I hope that they will return to the relevant Whitley council and accept the offer
    .
    Mr. Aitken: When my right hon. Friend speaks of the need to preserve the right of this sovereign Parliament, is she fully aware of the disadvantage under which we are working because of the flow of documents from Europe? Is she further aware that during the past 12 months the European Commission sent this House 765 legislative documents consisting of 10,000 pages? That is an impossible total for the House to carry over and above its existing domestic legislation. Surely we need to reform our procedures as soon as possible.
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that there is an enormous amount of extra work involved in properly scrutinising the many documents that come before us. I hope that the report of the Select Committee on Procedure will soon be debated in the House and I hope that when all the arrangements are in place for 1992 that stream of directives will be infinitely less. As I have said frequently in the House, we have to remember that no other Parliament in the European Community is as central to the life of a nation as this one, and that is not surprising, because we are the oldest sovereign Parliament in the Community.
    Mr. Andrew Welsh: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 16 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Welsh: Does the right hon. Lady agree with President Gorbachev when he says that the people of Lithuania have an absolute right to independence if they so choose? Does she know about today's opinion poll in Scotland, in which the Conservatives have gone down to 16 per cent.—a level at which they would be almost wiped out in the House—which adds to their annihilation at a European level? When the Scottish people say yes to self-government what will be the Prime Minister's reply?
    The Prime Minister: It is for Mr. Gorbachev to make his views clear, which he does very competently. Expenditure per head in Scotland is 23 per cent. above the United Kingdom average, so Scotland does very well out of the Government. When the time comes, it will be for Scotland to consider whether it wants to throw over those advantages for something less.
    Mr. Bendall: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 16 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Bendall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, under the block services grant, Redbridge will suffer? The national change is about 11 per cent., but in Redbridge we shall get 6·7 per cent., which is a shortfall of 4·3 per cent. Will my right hon. Friend comment on that?
    The Prime Minister: I am not sure that I recognise all of my hon. Friend's figures. Redbridge will do well from the proposed grant settlements, and it will receive 27 per cent. more income from the Government grant and business rates in the coming year than it received this year from those sources. Many hon. Members would be very pleased with such a settlement.
    Mr. Michael J. Martin: Six thousand people are unemployed in my constituency, and more than one third have been unemployed for more than a year. What will the right hon. Lady do about unemployment in Britain?
    The Prime Minister: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will take advantage of the new employment training arrangements which are very successful. He will be aware that it is vitally important that we train people for new jobs, and that we do not necessarily try to keep the old ones. That is why we have set up the new training and enterprise councils which I hope will give training and jobs
    158
    to more of his constituents. It would also help if they welcomed private enterprise and co-operated to keep costs down.
    Mr. Arbuthnot: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 16 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Arbuthnot: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the system for compensating people who are affected by road and rail developments leaves something to be desired? Does she agree that if we did as the French do—more than compensate people who are affected—we might find that we cut out some of the delays that we face when building the roads and railways that we so badly need, and in the long run we might save a great deal of money?
    The Prime Minister: I know that the viewpoint put by my hon. Friend is popular as a way to get things done more quickly. He will be aware that we compensate people with the full market value at the moment, and there are certain other disturbance costs granted to people who have to move. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is considering whether we need to give more compensation, but that would mean legislation in a new Bill. Perhaps, if we come to that conclusion, there will be time in the next Session.
    Q7. Mrs. Rosie Barnes: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 16 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mrs. Barnes: Does the Prime Minister agree that health visitors are a vital part of the community health service. particularly in their role of screening families to identify vulnerable young children? Will she join me in condemning the action of the Greenwich health authority, which has curtailed the service severely?
    The Prime Minister: I join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to the health visitors, and to the vital part that they play as they go around performing their duties. I uphold their service in every respect, but it is not for me to make a judgment that must properly be made by Greenwich council when it weighs expenditure on one service against expenditure on another. The hon. Lady must not provoke me to make a judgment that I should not make because I am not in possession of the full facts.

Leyland Bus Plant (Lancashire)
3.30 pm
Mr. Ian McCartney: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjourment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the proposed decision by the chairman of Volvo Truck and Bus to sack 400 workers in the Leyland bus plant in Lancashire, near my constituency."
I was shocked and disgusted when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the current chairman of the Conservative party, failed yesterday at the Dispatch Box to give any indication of the Government's resolve to prevent Volvo Truck and Bus from betraying the Leyland-Daf Buses work force, thus further weakening the industrial base of the economy of the north-west.
Two years ago, the Government promoted the sale of Leyland-Daf Buses to a new foreign owner, with a fanfare of optimism and promises of new investment, job opportunities and long-term security. Yet, without either a warning from the company or any note of caution or regret from the Government, bus production in Lancashire is being put at risk and the production of all bus chassis is to be ended. How can a company such as Leyland, with a worldwide reputation for quality, be so cynically undermined by a boardroom decision made outside the United Kingdom but affecting the entire British manufacturing base?
Under the present Government, British manufacturing industry is being bought wholesale by foreign companies, and is being closed down on the Government's whim. The Government, in the guise of the Minister for Roads and Traffic—the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins)
160
—the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, must take full responsibility for allowing the present situation to develop.
Labour Members in the north-west are demanding action from the Government to prevent the Volvo corporation from imposing its two-week deadline on the work force. They must come up with a scheme to prevent the closure of the plant. It is an outrage that the workers should be put under such strain at such an important time, and the guarantees given two years ago should be recognised and implemented by both the Government and the Volvo corporation. Suspending the redundancies is not enough; they must be withdrawn immediately, and a commitment must be given that the 400 jobs in Lancashire will be retained.
Finally, let me thank the editor and staff of the Lancashire Evening Post for joining in the campaign on behalf of the work force.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The application was made to me.
The hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the announcement that nearly 400 redundancies are to take place at Leyland Daf Buses."
As the House knows, under Standing Order No. 20 I must announce my decision without giving my reasons to the House. I listened with care to what the hon. Gentleman said. As he knows, I have to decide whether his application should take precedence over the business set down for today or tomorrow. I regret that the matter that he has raised does not meet the requirements of the Standing Order, and that I therefore cannot submit his application to the House.

Points of Order
3.35 pm
Mr. David Winnick: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask you to give guidance on the subject of the declaration of interests by hon. Members? In last night's television programme "World in Action", a number of Members, whom I have no intention of naming, were said to have commercial interests outside the House which they had not declared. I believe that that programme raised matters which concern the reputation of the House.
We have said—as you have said, Mr. Speaker—that this is an honourable House. It must be said that undoubtedly a number of people who watched that programme last night must be wondering how those with commercial interests, who in many respects are just lobbyists paid for by companies, can raise on the Floor of the House of Commons, at Question Time or on other occasions, matters in which they have a direct financial interest. That would not be allowed in a local authority. Indeed, the traditions—
Mr. Speaker: Order. What is the point of order for me?
Mr. Winnick: I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, whether the standards which undoubtedly exist in local government, and which I believe to be right, should not apply in the House of Commons.
It was said last night that it was not necesary to declare an interest at Question Time. If you come to the conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that the reputation of the House is being abused because Members are exploiting that loophole by not declaring their interests at Question Time, when in fact they have a direct financial or commercial interest, may I ask you to rule that they do so?
Mr. Gerald Howarth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Is it on the same point, because I can help the House by giving clear guidance?
Mr. Howarth: My point of order concerns the same matter, Mr. Speaker, and I think I can be of assistance. In view of the sanctimonious nonsense that is traditionally spoken by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), whom nobody would employ to do anything, may I express the hope that, in taking this matter into account, you will bear in mind that many Opposition Members are nakedly sponsored by trade unions and who spend their entire time using the House in furtherance of their trade union interests?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall not allow this to develop into a debate. Let me give clear guidance, because the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) asked for that.
I made it clear yesterday that these are matters in the first instance for the Select Committee on Members' Interests under Standing Order No. 128. That Committee considers any specific complaints made in relation to the registering or declaring of interests. The Committee also considers any proposals made by Members or others as to the form and contents of the Register of Members' Interests.
The Committee is currently examining the whole question of outside lobbyists and their relations with Members. I cannot comment from the Chair on
162
allegations of non-compliance with the rules for registration. Any information that Members or others have relevant to these issues should be sent to the Committee and not debated across the Floor of the House.
Mr. Bill Walker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On a matter of clarification relating to lobbyists, would you agree that that word would cover any body which is involved in lobbying Members of Parliament? If so, it must embrace trade unions and other bodies which actively lobby all of us. I hope that that will be borne in mind.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The system of being lobbied in the House is of long standing.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance? You will be aware that in a highly dynamic situation which was developing during the course of the day today, I tried to raise through the usual means the question of the dumping fly ash in the North sea off the north-east. I was advised by your office that one reason why the issue could not be raised was that, because three people had been arrested, the matter was considered to be sub judice.
This is a matter of some puzzlement to me. People are frequently arrested in relation to demonstrations about: matters of public concern and are not necessarily subsequently charged, or there may not be a case to answer. The point on which I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker, is whether we are to assume that when anybody is arrested in the course of some matter of public concern, we are prevented from raising it in the House. If so, that seems to be creating a precedent.
Mr. Speaker: I can give the hon. Gentleman guidance on that matter. He sought to raise the matter in an application under Standing Order No. 20 asking for a debate which would take precedence over the business set down for today or tomorrow. My office gave him the guidance that that would not be in order because the men concerned—I think they were all men—had been arrested, and clearly it would not be in order to have a debate on the subject. The hon. Gentleman can put down a question regarding the disposal of ash; that would be a completely different matter.
Mr. David Ashby: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance? The Register of Members' Interests shows that about 90 per cent. of Labour Members are sponsored by trade unions in their constituencies. The Register of Members' Interests states that many of them are under something called the Hastings agreement, which, as far as I can tell, seems to be that the unions pay for all those goods and services in their constituencies which other Members of Parliament have to pay for themselves out of their taxed income. I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of guidance: is it not right that hon. Members who receive vast benefits from various trade unions should declare the exact amount that they are receiving, because they are receiving it in kind?
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have already made the position absolutely clear to the House. It is a matter for the Select Committee on Members' Interests.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: But it is not true.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may take exception to what has been said, but it is not a matter of order for me. If any such abuse is alleged it should be taken to the Select Committee.
Mr. Simon Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I pursue just a little further the matter that my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) raised with you? The House is aware that, if a legal process is in action, you exercise the sub judice rule across all our business, whether it is a debate or an application under Standing Order No. 20. I think I am right in saying that that has never before happened on arrest.
As a matter of law, someone is innocent until proved guilty and certainly is not regarded as apprehended until he is charged. May I ask you to reflect on the matter generally? It affects not only the issue that my hon. Friend raised about dumping in the North sea, but all our business. Could you rule either today or tomorrow whether, between arrest and charge, a matter is not sub judice, as is the traditional understanding as a matter of law?
Mr. Speaker: I have made the matter absolutely clear. It is not a suitable subject for an application under Standing Order No. 20. If we had applications under Standing Order No. 20 every time anyone was arrested, we should never get any business done. The hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) made a specific request under Standing Order No. 20 to discuss those arrests. I passed the message to him that that would not be appropriate. If he would like to discuss the matter with me, I should be happy to do so.
Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I beg your indulgence to explain to the House that the Hastings agreement is an agreement between the trades unions and the local Labour party relating only to a percentage of the money paid for an election? None of us receives any personal remuneration whatsoever. Therefore, it is a total lie for hon. Gentlemen to suggest otherwise.
Hon. Members: Withdraw!
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the House would be well advised to wait until the Select Committee has carefully considered the matter, which I have already said is before it. Doubtless there will then be a debate in which all these matters will be in order. We should not deal with it this afternoon, on a day when we have very heavy business before us.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet.

Points of Order
  BILLS PRESENTED

    TOXIC AND HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS)
    Mr. Ian McCartney presented a Bill to protect the general public in the purchase and application of toxic and
    164
    hazardous substances within the home environment; to provide a code of conduct for use by consumers and contractors; to set up a register of proscribed substances; and for other purposes. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 26 January and to be printed. [Bill 52.]

    REGISTRATION OF COMMERCIAL LOBBYING INTERESTS
    Mr. Bob Cryer, supported by Mrs. Alice Mahon, Mr. Tony Banks, Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mr. Dennis Canavan, Mr. Terry Lewis, Mr. Pat Wall, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Max Madden, Mr. Dave Nellist, Mr. Eric S. Heffer and Mr. John Hughes, presented a Bill to provide a public register of organisations who carry out the lobbying of Parliament for commercial gain and the disclosure of expenditure by such organisations; and for connected purposes. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 26 January and to be printed. [Bill 53.]
    Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. [HON. MEMBERS: "Declare your interest."] I always have done. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. It is intolerable to have this pointing across the Chamber. The point of order is to me. I must hear it.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Have you seen early-day motion 290, which questions the right of members of the press lobby to publish information on the proceedings of the House? Have you read the motion, Mr. Speaker? While it refers to me, it then
    "calls upon the Select Committee on the Televising of the House to review the terms upon which the Chamber and committees are televised to seek to prevent further similar uses of the proceedings of the House."
    The motion is similar to asking the Services Committee to prevent newspapers from publishing the proceedings of Parliament, which in itself means that there are 43 hon. Members who think that they have the right to require The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and every national newspaper to refrain from publishing information which they believe should be in the public domain.
    The motion is an attempt to censor the House of Commons and to censor hon. Members because we are raising issues relating to the private interests of Members of Parliament, an issue of great public concern.
    Mr. Speaker: The early-day motion is on the Order Paper. The matter cannot be debated now. It was not drawn to my attention when it was put down.
    Ten-minute rule motion—
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a very heavy day ahead of us. I will take the point of order if it is on a completely different matter, but not on the question of Members' interests.
    Mr. Bennett: It is on the circulation of the Register. The programme to which the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) referred was very one-sided. It referred only to Conservative Members. Could you arrange, Mr. Speaker, for a copy of the Register of Members' Interests to be sent to Granada Television so that it may see, for

    165
    instance, that the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) has three adviserships? No mention was made of Labour Members who are advisers and consultants.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I saw the programme. It was in the light of it that I made my statement this afternoon.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a further point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Is it on the same matter?
    Mr. Skinner: Yes, it is.
    Mr. Speaker: I am not hearing it, in that case.
    Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Is it on a genuinely different matter?
    Mr. Skinner: It is as vital as some of those that you have had from the Tories.
    Mr. Speaker: I will only hear it if it is on a different matter.
    Mr. Skinner: Yes, it is a genuine point of order.
    Mr. Speaker: What I said was, is it on a different matter?
    Mr. Skinner: It is a genuine point of order. If those Tories can—
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Skinner: We have every right to—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must sit down. Ten-minute rule motion, Mr. Jeremy Corbyn.
    Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: I am not hearing it.
    Mr. Skinner: It is on a different matter.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is seeking to abuse the procedures of the House. I ask the hon. Gentleman to sit down.
    Mr. Skinner: It is on a different matter.
    Mr. Speaker: I ask the hon. Gentleman to sit down.
    Mr. Skinner: Those Tories—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. In that case, I now order the hon. Gentleman to sit down.

Elimination of Poverty in Retirement
3.48 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require local authorities and health authorities to monitor the condition of their retired population; to eliminate standing charges on gas, electricity and water; to exempt pensioners from licence charges and telephone rental; to extend pensioners' concessionary fare schemes; to make provision for the calculation of old-age pensions by reference to average earnings; and to appoint a Minister with responsibility for retired people.
This is the seventh occasion on which such a Bill has been introduced. I introduce it because the plight of elderly people is growing poverty, growing misery and a growing fear that they will not be able to make ends meet and that they will lead a lonely and miserable life. It is up to the House to address the problem urgently and to introduce a comprehensive measure, said as this Bill, which would eliminate the poverty that causes the problem.
The state old-age pension in Britain is the lowest of any European industrial country. The proportion is getting worse compared to the rest of Europe. That is compounded by cuts in social services provision by local authorities and by cuts in health provision. It is further compounded by the steadily increasing cost of gas, electricity, water and telephones, all of which have been privatised since the Government took office, and all of which are charging considerably more for what is often an inferior service.
The life expectancy of elderly people in this country is becoming lower that that of those in other industrial countries with which it is reasonable to make a comparison. I am glad that, so far, we have not had a cold winter, but should there be one, once again the horror of deaths from hypothermia will occur, not because there is insufficent capacity to heat old people's homes but because the cost of heating is far too high. The Bill includes a series of measures to eliminate much of the poverty from which elderly people suffer.
In 1980, the Government broke the link between the state old-age pension and the level of average earnings, which was a disgraceful and shameful act. That link should be restored, and the Bill aims to do so immediately. If it were restored in April 1990, the state old-age pension would be £13·10 a week higher for single people ands £20·70 a week higher for a pensioner couple. Pensioners have been robbed of that money since the earnings link was broken in 1980. That scandal must be put right.
The Government claim—indeed, their strategy is based on this idea—that an increasing number of people will subscribe to occupational or private pension schemes. That may suit the god of the market economy—indeed, it probably satisfies those many people who are making much money out of it—but the reality is that only half of all pensioners have any income from occupational or private pension schemes. That is a small figure, and only one third of women pensioners have any income from private pensions. The majority of old people rely on the state old-age pension and other state benefits for which they may be eligible, which is why the Bill is timely and important.
The proportion of the state old-age pension compared with the level of average earnings has steadily declined, and is now at its lowest level for over 20 years. From April

167
1990, as a percentage of male industrial earnings, the state old-age pension for a single person is merely 16 per cent., which is a disgraceful figure. Many people in work find that figure disgraceful, and the enormous and growing active pensioners movement is campaigning hard for an entirely different deal for the state old-age pension and pensioners in general. It campaigned before the first world war to get the state old-age pension introduced.
Elderly and retired people have always faced an uphill struggle, which is why I am introducing the Bill.
A Minister should be appointed with responsibility to co-ordinate policy for the retired population and for old-age pensioners. That Minister would report annually to Parliament on the condition, health, life expectancy and average income of old people, which would offer an annual opportunity to focus on their plight.
The Bill would require local authorities and local health authorities to produce an annual report on the services that they offer old people in their communities, what provisions they make and the conditions from which pensioners suffer, be they housing, lack of health facilities, domiciliary care, or any other concerns. Those who receive meals on wheels and other care are least able to protest about them. When cuts are made, they often suffer terribly, but in silence.
The Bill would abolish standing charges on gas, electricity and water for pensioner households. The unit cost of gas, electricity and water is considerably higher for low-consuming pensioner households than for other people. The Bill would also do what other hon. Members most notably my hon. Friend for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), have tried to do—to end the scandal of pensioners having to pay for a television licence—and it would stop them having to pay telephone rental charges. For them, a telephone is not a luxury, but a necessity so that they can maintain contact with friends and relatives.
The Bill would also protect the concessionary fare schemes in some parts of the country. They do not exist through the action of the Government—indeed, the local authorities that introduced the schemes were often penalised for doing so. The Bill would protect the existing schemes and would seek to introduce a national scheme to allow concessionary travel schemes for elderly people throughout the country. Old people deserve and should have that right of mobility.
The Bill also seeks to re-establish the link between the state old-age pension and average earnings. Each April, the state old-age pension would be increased in line with
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average earnings. The Bill would include provisions to give old people what the National Pensioners Convention demands—a state old-age pension equal to half the average industrial earnings for a pensioner couple and to one third for a single person. That would be a big increase and would do much to right many of the injustices and wrongs that pensioners face.
The treatment of pensioners is bad and wrong. Pensioners are suffering seriously from the changes in the social security system, and the cuts in local government expenditure and local health authority expenditure. Old people are in a difficult position. They may not be as ambulant as they were when younger, or able to protest as loudly as those in work or as younger members of the population. They are the least able to mount a major protest. Despite that, the National Pensioners Convention and all the local pensioners' organisations are daily demanding justice for old people. If a measure of the quality of a civilisation is how well it treats its old people, this civilisation is sadly and badly wanting and the misery of many elderly people is a scandal. I hope that the House will do what it can to redress that imbalance and to right that wrong by passing the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, Mr. Chris Smith, Mr. David Winnick, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Tony Benn, Mr. Bernie Grant, Mr. Frank Cook, Mrs. Maria Fyfe, Ms. Dawn Primarolo, Mr. Tony Banks and Mr. Bill Michie.

ELIMINATION OF POVERTY IN RETIREMENT
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn accordingly presented a Bill to require local authorities and health authorities to monitor the condition of their retired population; to eliminate standing charges on gas, electricity and water; to exempt pensioners from licence charges and telephone rental; to extend pensioners' concessionary fare schemes; to make provision for the calculation of old age pensions by reference to average earnings; and to appoint a Minister with responsibility for retired people: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 23 February and to be printed. [Bill 54.]
Mr. Harry Cohen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is there a mechanism whereby we can put on record the fact that, while my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) was introducing his important Bill, only four Conservative Members were present on the Back Benches? That is a blue snub for grey power.
Mr. Speaker: It seems that that point is on the record.

Orders of the Day

  Coal Industry Bill
  Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We are about to debate the Coal Industry Bill on Report and on Third Reading. Clause 4 deals with the increase in opencast excavation from 25,000 tonnes to 250,000 tonnes, which means that a lot of money is involved in opencast mining. Will you state, Mr. Speaker, that if any Tory Member is about to line his pockets because he has interests in opencast mining or in private mining, which is also to be increased, he should declare his interest? It is high time that such people were prevented from voting on these matters.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is stating the obvious. He knows perfectly well that any hon. Member who has an interest and who participates in a debate should declare that interest.

  Coal Industry Bill
    New Clause 1

      DEFINITION OF ACCUMULATED GROUP DEFICIT
      `For the purposes of this Act the "accumulated group deficit" shall include

      (1) sums owed by the Corporation to the Treasury or the Bank of England,

      (2) sums owed by the Corporation to banks and other financial institutions,

      (3) sufficient sums to cover all outstanding claims on the Corporation for compensation for coal mining subsidence damage,

      (4) such additional sums as the Corporation would have been liable for if the recommendations contained in the Report of the Subsidence Compensation Review Committee on the Report and Compensation System for Coal Mining Subsidence Damage had been enacted before 30th March 1990.'.—[Mr. Dobson.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      3.59 pm
      Mr. Frank Dobson: I beg to move. That the clause be read a Second time.
      When the Coal Industry Bill was published, many people were disappointed that it did not include proposals to improve the arrangements for compensating people for damage caused to their homes by mining subsidence. To be fair, it was not just Labour Members who were disappointed; even some of the Tory Members involved expressed their disappointment that the opportunity had been missed. We are all at a loss to know why such proposals were not included.
      No hon. Member was as disappointed, however, as the people who live in areas that are severely affected by mining subsidence, and probably the most disappointed of all were the people who live in the Nottingham coalfield, where the problem is particularly bad. People living in such areas suffer damage to their homes. Their children suffer damage to their schools, and other public buildings, too, are damaged. There is damage to water pipes, gas pipes, and sewers, and farmers' land is damaged by breaks in the drainage system.
      The Government say that they really cannot find any place in their legislative programme for provisions to
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      improve the compensation system. They have also said that they cannot offer an improvement in that system in this Bill—for some reason or another, it is not considered appropriate. The former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy, who has now moved on to the Department of the Environment, said that the Bill was a subsidy Bill, not a subsidence Bill, although he attributed that bon mot originally to one of his colleagues.
      It is strange to hear that this is only a subsidy Bill because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) pointed out, it provides for a tenfold increase in the size of private opencast workings, with all the environmental damage and dangers to health that they bring with them. It also provides for a fivefold increase in the number of miners who may be employed underground in private mines, which are at least four times as dangerous as the mines of British Coal.
      The Government managed to draft a Bill to cope with those non-subsidy issues, both of which will have adverse effects on the coalfield communities—on the miners going below ground and on the people living above ground and facing the damage that opencasting usually brings with it. One might have thought that the Government would make some effort to introduce an offsetting provision to help the coalfield communities. They should have sorted out the problem of compensation scheme once and for all, and the Bill could have given them the opportunity to do that.
      I can think of only one explanation for their different approach: presumably, those in favour of bigger opencast mines and those in favour of increasing the number of miners going down terribly dangerous private pits must have made private representations to the Government. They include Tory supporters such as Taylor Woodrow, Costain and Wimpey, which will undoubtedly make money out of the changes.
      They are the only people who can have advocated the changes. There have been no official reports proposing them. There has been no long series of official inquiries into the problems of opencasting. There is little evidence of any pressure from hon. Members to increase the size of opencast workings. If there has been any pressure, it has been to try to persuade the Government to reduce the slize of those workings.
      We have a strange difficulty, it seems, over subsidence. Great efforts have been made in the House to get the compensation scheme improved and made the law of the land. I shall describe the various stages in the development of proposals to improve the scheme since the Government came to office. In September 1981, the Commission on Energy and the Environment made certain proposals about improving the compensation scheme. Its report contained a chapter on subsidence and recommended improvements.
      It took the Government until May 1983, almost two years later, to publish a response to that report. They did not show much urgency at the time. They can say that, shortly before they published their response, they set up the Waddilove committee to report on the compensation system for coal mining subsidence damage. Fair do's to the committee—it got on with its job. A year later, in May 1984, it produced a thorough report with 65 specific recommendations.
      The Government received that report in 1984. No one could accuse them of being in a rush to judgment on it, because they did not produce their response until October 1987. That meant that they took almost three weeks to

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      consider each recommendation in the report. It took them another year before they produced a consultation document on what they themselves proposed to do to improve the compensation scheme. They produced it in April 1988.
      When will the Government introduce a proper statutory compensation scheme? Other hon. Members have also asked that question. I have been checking what has happened in the House since the Waddilove report was produced. There have been dozens of written questions, seven or eight oral questions, no fewer than four private Members' Bills, early-day motions, Select Committee inquiries, and debates about this topic. This difficult topic has also been mentioned in a large number of general debates.
      I have a computer printout listing all the times when mining subsidence has been raised since the Waddilove committee reported. It goes on and on. It contains page after page of hon. Members trying to represent their constituents to make sure that something is done. Unfortunately, the only people who are not doing anything are the Government. On several occasions, successive Ministers have said that a Bill to change the law will be introduced at the earliest opportunity.
      Mr. Richard Alexander: Many Conservative Members would like to see such a Bill. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a statutory compensation scheme would require several more clauses and would be quite complicated? The Government's objective is to get this Bill through Parliament at the earliest possible stage. Of course, a further Bill will have to come forward at another time.
      Mr. Dobson: Several comments are to be made in response to the hon. Gentleman's reasonable point. If they had wanted, during this Session, the Government could have introduced a separate Bill on subsidence. Instead, they have decided to introduce Bills that kick lumps off the National Health Service and other Bills on matters of apparent high priority for the Prime Minister. It is clear that subsidence is not a high priority for the Prime Minister. Even so, it would have been possible to introduce into the Bill provisions which would allow the establishment of a statutory compensation scheme.
      Although Opposition Members have criticised the Bill and, because of its threat to miners' lives, voted against it on Second Reading, we responsibly made sure that it got out of Committee quickly and that it will quickly be considered on Report, because it is necessary that the large sums that British Coal requires must be available by the end of March. Equally, even now, if the Secretary of State undertakes to introduce substantial changes to the Bill in the House of Lords to include subsidence, we will guarantee that we will not use that decision to obstruct the passage of this Bill or the passage of proper measures to improve subsidence compensation.
      Mr. Allen McKay: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to me, because my constituency has been devastated by mining subsidence, and over the years we have been pressing the Government for some new compensation and for a new look at things. We suspect that the Government are holding their fire purely and simply for the privatisation of
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      mines. However, would it not be sensible for the Government to bring in new legislation before that happens, if it is likely to happen, so that they can have something on the statute book to alleviate the fears of the many people who think that the Government are playing fast and loose and hard and fast until the mines are privatised?
      Mr. Dobson: I know that those fears are shared by a considerable number of people living in those areas that are severely affected by mining subsidence. My hon. Friend is right—logically, the Government should have introduced something on subsidence in the Bill, as my hon. Friend knows, because much of the rest of the Bill is intended as a paving stone for privatisation. People are concerned about what will happen and that the provisions for subsidence will be pushed further and further back and that we will then be told by the Government that it would be unfair to impose those awful burdens on a privatised coal industry. That may be what is happening. It is certainly what many people fear may be happening.
      For more than five years, the promise to do something about the compensation scheme has not been fulfilled. People living in the areas affected by subsidence are getting restless about the delays, and there is no reason why we should blame them. From time to time, Ministers have said that it is all right, because British Coal has already implemented over half the recommendations of the Waddilove committee. So it has—and all credit to British Coal—but British Coal cannot change the law. It cannot introduce a statutory compensation scheme. Only Governments can change the law. When Ministers say that British Coal has done its stuff, they are highlighting the fact that everybody else has done their stuff as well, and that only the Government have not responded and done their job properly. It is now up to the Government to settle this problem because it severely affects thousands of people.
      There are conflicting estimates of the number of people involved, but the lowest estimate that I could find—I suppose that it is understandable that it is the lowest, because it is British Coal's estimate in its last report—is that over 25,000 valid claims may lie against British Coal. However, there are many higher estimates, especially in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. As I have said, in fairness to British Coal and to the House and because I do not want to exaggerate, I have chosen the lowest estimate that I have been able to find. Others go well above double that figure.
      Mr. Joseph Ashton: I do not want to dispute what my hon. Friend has said, but is he aware that Mansfield district council and other councils in my area sent a questionnaire to every house locally and received 33,000 or more answers from tenants and owner-occupiers who said that their houses had been affected by subsidence? So my hon. Friend's estimate might be rather low.
      Mr. Dobson: My hon. Friend has taken literally the next line of what I intended saying. It is certainly true that there have been much higher estimates, including estimates covering the affected districts in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
      It is necessary to emphasise to people who are not familiar with the problems of subsidence just what effects it can have, in this case, just on people's homes, and

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      leaving out major public buildings and such things. The Commission on Energy and the Environment has classified subsidence damage, starting with the lowest classification of "very slight" or "negligible", which includes hair cracks in the plaster, isolated slight fractures in the building that are not visible outside.
      As most people will know, no house-proud family likes even hairline cracks in the internal plaster. Indeed, if most hon. Members were faced with hairline cracks in the internal plaster of their front rooms or whatever they like to call them, they would want something done about it. They would want it put right as quickly as possible, to the highest possible standard. However, that is not necessarily available here.
      4.15 pm
      Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend is right about this House. I think that he was talking about the houses of hon. Members. There was a classic example of the Government's attitude recently in the Houses of Parliament. Although the damage was not done by mining subsidence, it was significant that, when a little bit of plaster fell from the ceiling of the House of Lords, all hell broke loose. As a result, a string of architects longer than the so-called dole queue went running into the House of Lords to find a remedy. The ceiling was then propped up for 12 months or more. The estimate for the total cost of putting that matter right was over £250,000.
      That shows the double standard that operates in the country. If there is a hairline crack in the House of Lords or elsewhere in the Houses of Parliament, the Government will go to any lengths to put the matter right. When it comes to sorting out the problems of an elderly pensioner in my constituency or in the constituencies of my hon. Friends, the Government hold things up year after year. The same is true of Bolsover church. We have battled for several years to have the subsidence damage put right. The Government know how to operate double standards when it comes to subsidence.
      Mr. Dobson: I recall my hon. Friend raising the matter of damage to Bolsover church several times in the House. I wonder how swiftly the Government would respond if hairline cracks appeared in the new ornamental gates at the end of Downing street. I bet they would not have to negotiate with the Coal Board to put the gates right.
      The next category to which the Commission referred was slight damage. This was:
      "Several slight fractures showing inside the buildings. Doors and windows may stick slightly. Repairs to decoration probably necessary."
      Again, we would not put up with such damage in our own homes, at least not voluntarily.
      The next category is described as appreciable damage. It includes
      "Slight fractures showing on the outside of building (or one main fracture). Doors and windows sticking."—
      not "slightly" this time—
      "Service pipes may fracture".
      We then go on to severe damage. Service pipes are not simply fractured but disrupted. This class of damage also includes
      "Open fracture requiring rebonding and allowing weather into the structure. Window and door frames distorted, floors sloping noticeably, walls leaning or bulging noticeably. Some loss of bearing in beams. If compressive damage, overlapping of roof joints and lifting of brickwork".
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      That is not the end of it. We go on to very severe damage. The classification starts:
      "As above but worse, and requiring partial or complete rebuilding. Roof and floor beams lose bearing and walls lean badly and need shoring up. Windows broken with distortion. Severe slopes of floors. If compressive damage,"—instead of stretching—
      "severe buckling and bulging of the roofs and walls."
      Mr. Ashton: And then the dog refuses to go into the house.
      Mr. Dobson: Yes. This is a serious matter. Damage is done to the homes of people who, like most of us, take pride in their homes. Stress is caused as the damage happens and people wonder how it is happening, whether it will get worse, and how long it will go on. Then they suffer disturbance while the damage is put right, if they finally come to an agreement with the Coal Board.
      Some friends of mine who are reasonably well-off—they are both doctors who live on the edge of Nottingham—had to move out of their home for almost four months because such extensive work was required to put their home into reasonable nick and allow them to live in the manner to which they were, rightly, accustomed. Many other people are forced to leave their homes for similar periods. They are people who probably cannot afford it as well as my friends could and who cannot easily find alternative accommodation. The matter is serious for the people involved.
      It is stressful when one's house is cracking and buckling. It is stressful if one has to stay in it while work is being done. It is probably equally stressful to move into somewhere smaller while work is being done.
      Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse: Great distress is also caused to people whose properties may not have been blighted by subsidence but whose properties have been rendered valueless when neighbouring properties have been so affected. One day, a person may have a property worth £40,000 or £50,000 and the next day nothing.
      Mr. Dobson: My hon. Friend is right. Blight affects whole areas as well as individuals. Only a half-wit would buy an undamaged house in a row where others are damaged until it was known that the subsidence had stopped or that work would be done to make the houses safe.
      Such stress is harmful for the people concerned. That is all the more reason why we should work to remove any unnecessary stress which, in the current system, is the gratuitous problem of having to have a great barney with British Coal in order to get things put right. That is why not just those directly affected but people living in areas that are generally affected by mining subsidence join us in believing that the time for action has come. That is why we have tabled new clause 1.
      Subsidence is a problem in many coalfields, but it applies particularly in Nottinghamshire. I do not know what the Nottingham miners have done to upset the Government. The Bill provides for redundancy money which will help to put Nottingham miners out of jobs and it provides for bigger private opencast workings. About a fortnight ago, the House passed the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill to increase the coal-handling plant on Humberside so that cheap, slave-labour, foreign coal could compete with the Nottingham miners' product.

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      Moreover, in the past few days we have discovered that at least two gas-fired power stations are to be built at Killingholme on Humberside near the Nottinghamshire coalfield. They are about to receive the Secretary of State's consent.
      In view of all that, one would have thought that the Government would have done something to compensate the Nottingham miners for all that is happening to Nottinghamshire and to the other coalfields. Surely we should act now. The Opposition will co-operate in any way with a new Bill or the additional clauses to this Bill in order to implement the Waddilove proposals. They are good and sound proposals, which have been discussed long enough. People understand them and want them enacted. That is the reason for the new clause.
      Mr. Jim Lester: I want to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), particularly on subsidence. No one who has lived in Nottinghamshire all his life and who has been involved in the coal industry in many ways during that time—as I have—could be happy with the overall situation on subsidence. Many hon. Members will have dealt with difficult subsidence cases, and one reason why I gave evidence to the Waddilove committee was my concern for individuals who must take on a major industry such as British Coal with few resources to do so.
      A problem arose when agents working in Nottinghamshire took on many cases at a time when cash compensation was available. The coal board paid out a lot of money for subsidence which, in many cases, was not used for the job for which it was intended. That is one reason why I have suggested that if anyone receives cash compensation, which is now much harder to get, it should be entered on the deeds or in the Land Registry so that any subsequent purchaser knows that a claim has been made and cash has been paid and so that a surveyor can ensure that the money has been used in the way that it should have been. I feel that there should be repairs rather than cash compensation, except when there is a tilted floor or something of that sort with which it would be better to live, with compensation, instead of pulling the house down.
      This all adds up to the case for more urgent consideration of the subject. Clause 4 on opencasting strengthens my belief that one reason why we have relatively low-cost coal is the forebearance of those who suffer when it is extracted. This is true of deep mine pits, through subsidence, and opencast mines, through the long-term problems which are created for the community when companies rip the hell out of the local hillsides. In my constituency, brand new green belt land is affected.
      It is time for us to look seriously at the problem. We try to protect the villages of Kent because individuals might suffer in the public interest when a valuable link is placed at the end of the Channel tunnel. I have no objection to such protection, but for many years, those of us who represent mining areas have had the short end of the stick. Nobody has thought through the fact that many people will suffer.
      The people who work in the industry have tended to say, "If we work in it, we have to suffer by it." However, that attitude has long since gone. It is time to look at the recommendation of the Waddilove committee. The Country Landowners Association was part of the united
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      industry working party which consisted of the National Farmers' Union, the Building Societies Association, the Confederation of British Industry, the Law Society, the British Property Federation and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. It met my right hon. Friend's predecessor to put pressure for action on the Waddilove committee which reported in 1984. The Government did not say anything until 1987—by anyone's standards that was a hell of a long time to consider the issue.
      Those organisations pressed for various sensible actions in terms of legislative reforms, independent arbitration and standards of repair. When repairs are done, there are constant disagreements about their standard. The organisations pressed the committee about the contractors used. Sometimes, the Coal Board, through no fault of its own, might be slow in appointing a contractor. There is no reason why, with proper safeguards, the people affected should not appoint their own contractors to do the work under proper supervision. The onus of proof should be on the coal board to show that the damage is not caused by subsidence, rather than on the individual to prove that it was subsidence damage. A great deal could be done for administrative improvements in terms of claims, limitations of claims and notification of areas of work.
      I do not want my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to imagine that this is a party political matter. It is not. Those of us who represent, and have represented for some time, mining areas, feel that the time is right to look at compensation for those affected. My simple view is that there are many cases in which the public interest overrides the individual's interest. That is the case with roads and many other things. However, it is then right that the public interest should thoroughly compensate those private individuals who lose something—often quite dramatically—for the sake of the general interest. That applies not just to mining subsidence, but to other issues.
      If my right hon. Friend is not prepared to accept new clause 1, it would be helpful if he would give a clear indication of what he is prepared to do, through legislation, regulation or whatever, to bring about the Waddilove committee's sensible recommendations and respond to the promises made by his predecessor when he met the committee.
      Mr. Lofthouse: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) agrees that mining subsidence affects areas other than those that he specifically mentioned, in Nottinghamshire. I assure him and the House that the problem exists also in west and south Yorkshire. It certainly does in my area.
      Like the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester), I gave evidence to the Waddilove committee, both written and oral. Like him, I and many others believe that its recommendations would prompt a greater response than we have seen to date. The situation in Nottingham has only been made worse by delay.
      4.30 pm
      I recall going to Nottingham with members of the Select Committee to take evidence of the problems there, which had been highlighted by Ian MacGregor's evidence to the Select Committee in 1986, when he emphasised the colossal volume of funds contained in British Coal's estimates and which has been paid out in Nottingham. That set the alarm bells ringing.

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      There is no doubt that, through neglect, inefficiency and corruption on the part of certain British Coal officers—and people were found guilty of corruption and sent to prison—the policy in force at that time began to grind to a standstill and British Coal started tidying up its act. No one could grumble at that, because those responsible for corruption paid the right penalty. However, that was of little comfort to people in Nottinghamshire and in west and south Yorkshire who were treated differently from the way in which they had been hitherto.
      If the Secretary of State presents the new Bill of which mention was made earlier by the hon. Member for Broxtowe, I hope that he will take into account the fact that the average individual in a mining community desperately needs independent professional advice before reaching any settlement with British Coal. In the past, many people accepted settlements that were far from adequate because of their lack of professional knowledge. I hope that any such Bill would provide for the cost of such professional advice to be met by British Coal.
      I do not take away from anything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, but one needs to live in a mining community to appreciate the problems that it faces. The Flowers commission report of 1981 acknowledged that there is little peace to be had in mining communities. People living in them dare not go to sleep at night because of the cracks and creaking that they hear. In my own area, housing estates have been demolished, and houses in the immediate vicinity have lost a tremendous amount of their value overnight. In many cases, the recompense offered has been far from adequate.
      Right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House are always remarking that the Government take notice of any Select Committee report, but I have yet to be convinced that that is so. The report of the 1987 Select Committee recommended that the Government should respond speedily to Waddilove's recommendations. It commented:
      "Any system of compensation which is developed from the Waddilove Report should be so framed as to apply equally to BC and any present or future competitors".
      I hope that any future Bill will offer protection in the event that—God forbid—British Coal is ever privatised. The Select Committee also said:
      "We regret the delay and we hope that the promised publication of the White Paper on Waddilove will be earlier rather than later in the current Session."
      That was in 1986-87, but there has still been little response. I hope that the Secretary of State, although he has not long been in his present job, will rapidly provide a Bill to protect people who have suffered from the terrible conditions in the mining communities for too long.
      Dr. Mike Woodcock: The major part of the Bill is concerned with grants to British Coal. While they are necessary to enable the restructuring of British Coal, I remind the House that that level of Government support was not available to the 7,000 constituents of mine, or to many thousands of other hon. Members' constituents, who were made redundant when their industries had to face the fundamental challenges of the market place.
      The Government have been generous to British Coal but, as many hon. Members have said, it is disappointing that, while the Bill gives further massive grants and
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      subsidies to British Coal, it does nothing to relieve the plight of the victims of coal-mining subsidence. A great deal of injustice is felt.
      Many hon. Members—including my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart), who unfortunately cannot take part in the debte—have campaigned long and hard for reform. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) said, a united industry working party has been formed, with representatives of the Confederation of British Industry, the Country Landowners' Association, the Law Society, the British Property Federation, the Building Societies Association, insurance companies, the National Farmers Union and other groups, all of which are concerned to ensure that the Government take action on coal-mining subsidence.
      I took representatives of those bodies to see the former Minister, and they sought to persuade him to take action. They are bitterly disappointed that, to date, no action has been taken. The Minister was extremely polite and listened sympathetically, but regrettably he did not act. The case is overwhelming. With the present rules, vast amounts of subsidence damage are neither compensated for nor repaired. British Coal regularly denies liability for damage that it knows it has caused, by relying on the infamous statute of limitations. In effect, it is saying, "We know that your property has been damaged and that we have caused the damage. We know that Parliament has passed laws requiring us to repair the damage or to compensate you, but we think that we can use the statute of limitations to get out of our responsibilities. We are going to do that and leave you to repair the damage that we have caused."
      Why does British Coal refuse independent adjudication on the extent of damage, on whether damage has been caused by subsidence, on delay, on consequential losses and on whether repair or compensation is appropriate? Why is British Coal continually allowed to act as offender, judge and jury? The reason is simple: because the Government—in spite of the recommendations of the Waddilove committee—continue to allow it to do just that.
      The Government are proposing further massive handouts to British Coal, so it is only fair that those handouts are linked to a fairer deal for the victims of British coal-mining, as was recommended by the Waddilove committee in 1983. The Government must acknowledge that they have had six years to act, hut they are still saying that the time is not right. I cannot accept that, while the Government can find the time and money to deal with the restructuring of British Coal, they cannot find the much smaller amount that is necessary to deal with this continuing problem. I fervently hope that the Secretary of State will tell the House that action will be taken quickly.
      Mr. Ashton: If there had been an earthquake in Britain similar to the one in San Francisco last year, or if the San Andreas fault disaster had happened in Nottinghamshire, and overnight 33,000 houses had suffered enormous damage and become unsafe and schools, hospitals and factories had been affected, there would have been uproar. There would have been an outcry and television stations would have set up fund-raising collections. The Government would have rushed in immediately with aid, and it would have been classed as a national disaster.

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      However, because subsidence has occurred gradually over the years, and has been assimilated at local level, the problem has been swept under the carpet.
      What happened after the gale in the south of England in October 1987? In one night, millions of trees were felled, damaging cars and houses. The insurance companies paid out, and the Government rushed in emergency aid. A tremendous amount of help was given to people in the home counties at that time because many prominent Tory voters and Conservative Members lived there. We should compare that reaction to the reaction to subsidence in coal-mining areas, where nothing has been done.
      Barlow Clowes is another example. Again, the affluent middle class were affected—people who know how to lobby Members of Parliament, write letters, form pressure groups and employ solicitors. They acted as a group and they got compensation.
      The farmers got compensation when eggs were affected by salmonella. That was classed as a national disaster and the cash was found immediately, and action was taken to keep them sweet.
      The pre-1973 war widows were another anomaly, but hon. Members got to their feet. There was a tremendous backlash and the money was found.
      If there is an overnight disaster, it seems that the cash can be found. In every Budget there is a 2 per cent. contingency fund. If expenditure in the Budget is £160 billion or £170 billion, 2 per cent. of that is allowed for the contingency fund, and if there is any sort of emergency, the Chancellor says that it is covered by the contingency fund. However, that 2 per cent. is never used for things such as subsidence. Action is continually postponed.
      I have no doubt that the cash will be found for the Channel tunnel. When British Rail is told that it has to put the track to Dover underground, to go under the vale of Kent, because otherwise it will upset lots of Tory voters, the money will be found.
      Coal-mining areas suffer from the blight of subsidence, and the Government have not even a register. The Department of Energy does not know how many houses are affected by the problem, or how much it will cost to restore them. It has no information.
      The problem has been left to the local district councils. The council in Mansfield set up a seminar, and people came from Ashfield, Bolsover, north-east Derbyshire and Newark, which are all areas where people have suffered chronically from subsidence. At the seminar they decided that, as nobody else would help them they had better help themselves and find out the information. Professor P. L. Clarke, a highly qualified professor from Nottingham university, was paid to send out a simple questionnaire to every household, as the electoral register forms are sent out.
      As hon. Members know, a phenomenal amount of bumph comes through our doors and it is difficult to get people to fill in forms. It probably leads to a lower response to questionnaires than one would expect, yet 33,000 households in those half dozen district council areas said that they had suffered from the effects of subsidence caused by British Coal.
      The Government have encouraged people to become owner-occupiers, and I do not deplore that. Sometimes, it seems that they are going the long way round, because of
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      the high interest rates, but surely it is Government policy to encourage people to buy houses. What happens then? They allow a massive accident blight to spread across a neighbourhood and they offer no promises about compensation.
      Thousands of people have followed Government advice and bought their council houses, and then they have suffered from subsidence. They put in a claim to British Coal, but it says that it is sorry, but will not pay compensation because it paid it to the council 10 or 15 years ago. The council says that it received the compensation and sold the affected house at a cheaper price.
      People followed the Prime Minister's advice and bought their houses, and now they are lumbered with perhaps a £10,000 mortgage on a house that they cannot sell because it is worthless, and no good to anybody. Some people may say that they should not have followed Government advice. What protection do the Government offer those unfortunate people, who were encouraged to buy council houses and found that they had bought a pup? The response from the Department of Energy has been nil—it has promised to consider the matter.
      One could argue that subsidence is an act of God. For example, Worksop and Warsop, in my constituency, both have coal mines underneath them. Worksop is hardly touched by subsidence because it is built on sand, but Warsop, which is seven miles away, is built on rock and there is a great deal of subsidence there. It is mere chance. People do not have a choice about where they live.
      4.45 pm
      Another problem is trying to attract new industry to the area. Pits are closing, and they have land that would be ideal for industrial development. Often, the land is at the foot of a slag heap, which has been grassed over and the surrounding environment may not be very nice, but many industries are environmentally unattractive, and they could go to such places. However, if one mentions subsidence, they run a mile. Who would invest £2 million in a new factory when, if one walks down the street, one sees cracks in the sides of houses, leaning chimneys and doors that do not shut, and one sees that people are continually protesting and demanding action, but getting nothing done?
      The areas affected by subsidence often have high unemployment of between 9 and 15 per cent.—in my constituency, unemployment is 17 per cent. There are good men, who are willing to work shifts and to do physically unattractive hard work. They would be happy to do almost any job. They are used to noise, dirt and heavy lorries. But industry will not come in to the area because no one will build a factory on a site if the building will have cracks in the walls within six months, and the machinery inside will not work.
      Many parts of my constituency have suffered for more than a century. One could make a D. H. Lawrence film in Warsop—"Sons and Lovers", perhaps—because the terraced houses are still there. Most of my constituency is beautiful, but in Warsop vale, less than 10 yards away from the bedrooms where people sleep, coal trains chunter past every 20 minutes. People work shifts. There is always the noise of the klaxon horns from the pits, heavy lorries, hooters and safety warnings. Those people have suffered from noise all their lives.

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      What happens when the pits close? People think, "Thank God. We might get a bit of peace." But the pavements are broken, the water that comes down off the slag heaps does not run away properly in the gutters and the street lighting is bad. The environment is lousy. There are playing fields with dips and holes among the kids' swings. The price of houses there is so low that it is a miracle that people buy and sell them. They like living in the area because they grew up there and they are happy.
      Subsidence is a massive problem that nobody seems to want to sort out.
      Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central): Relatively modern housing can be affected by subsidence. The semi-detached house in which I live tilts so much that the drainpipe at one corner is useless, as the water runs in the opposition direction. A new drainpipe will now have to be built at the other end.
      Mr. Ashton: My hon. Friend is right. I have been asked to visit houses where newly installed central heating does not work because the pump will not drive the hot water round; the owners, meanwhile, are still saddled with the debt that they incurred in installing the system.
      Can anyone imagine the anger and frustration experienced by women who find that after they have decorated the house, the wall cracks, the wallpaper will not stick or the fitted carpet suddenly becomes an inch too short because a gap has appeared in the wall? It can be dangerous: people sit looking at their walls and asking themselves whether the damn things are going to fall in on them. Often they cannot get the council to condemn their house and rehouse them, because almost all the houses have been sold off and the council has very few left to let. It has to keep one or two, but it knows that, once it rehouses one victim of subsidence, 500 more will want to be rehoused.
      Meanwhile, the insurance companies are engaging in one of the biggest rip-offs that we have seen for some years. When people follow the Government's advice and apply for a mortgage so that they can become owner-occupiers, the Halifax and the other building societies say, "Yes, we will lend you £10,000, but you must pay insurance." So they pay the insurance— and then a crack appears and the garden wall falls down.
      Getting insurance companies to pay out for subsidence is a terrible job, and I think that it is time that some of those people went to see the insurance ombudsman, as I have advised them to do. Alternatively, they could all band together, as the Barlow Clowes victims did, and announce that they are going to bang the insurance companies and building societies into court. The building societies compel them to pay insurance year in, year out, but as soon as there is a problem, the insurance companies do not want to know—or else point to the small print that says that occupiers must pay 10 times the cost of the annual insurance on the house. In other words, if the annual insurance is £300, they must put up the first £3,000.
      People in such circumstances obtain no help from the building societies, which back the insurance companies, so they ask their Members of Parliament to take up their case. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) has a magnificent record in this regard, and I heartily congratulate him on his ceaseless campaign. He and his local council have managed to persuade the television
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      companies to broadcast programmes about the problem, and in the two years for which my hon. Friend has been in the House it has received more attention than ever before.
      One of the difficulties, however, is the need for secrecy. It is in the interests of tenants to keep such problems quiet in case they decide to sell their house. They come to our surgeries and say, "I am sorry, Mr. Ashton"—or Mr. Meale, as the case may be—"but you must not tell anyone about the problem. You will not put it in the newspaper, will you? If it gets around that XYZ road has a problem, no one living in that road will ever sell a house again." So they fill the walls with Polyfilla or apply Anaglypta. Such conspiracies of silence will do nothing to solve the problem. When we mention it, people say that they have heard nothing about it before, because newspapers and television do not shout about it as they have done about Barlow Clowes, foot-and-mouth disease or the Channel tunnel.
      The problem affects about 30,000 houses within a 10 or 15-mile radius of my constituency. A succession of Ministers have said that they sympathise and intend to act—that they will produce another report. British Coal has shed tears and offered tea and sympathy. Nothing is ever done, however. The insurance companies take no action, no cash is ever found and the Government simply hope that the problem can be swept under the carpet and will eventually go away. But we do not intend to let it go away: we shall continue to raise it whenever the opportunity arises until we see some action.
      Mr. Alan Meale: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) for his kind comments about our activities in the north Nottinghamshire area, but I must add that it has been a joint effort, involving not only him and me but my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes), for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes)—as well as the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart), as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Woodcock).
      The House should accept the new clause. The problem of subsidence is nothing short of a national scandal. Home owners, not only in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire but in other coalfield areas such as Yorkshire, Scotland, the north-east and Wales, face tremendous difficulties. I pay tribute to the Channel 4 "Dispatches" documentary, entitled "In the Coalhole", screened just before Christmas, which discussed those difficulties in detail.
      I also commend the local press, especially in Nottinghamshire—the Evening Post (Nottingham) the CHAD in Mansfield, the Nottingham Recorder and the Nottingham Observer—which have not ceased to publicise the issue. Over the past two or three years, the BBC and Yorkshire and Central Television have also featured it several times. Only now, largely because of the Channel 4 programme, is it being seen for what it is—a national scandal.
      I met the Minister privately yesterday, along with another hon. Member, to discuss the matter, but it is difficult for hon. Members on either side of the House to realise the extent of the suffering involved. Not only people's homes but the security of their lives is being put at risk. Only those who represent coal-mining areas know exactly what is involved.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) said that the survey carried out by local

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      authorities in north Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire produced 33,000 responses. In fact, there were 54,000, 33,500 of which referred to damaged properties. Some of our constituents have experienced severe health problems owing to stress, and many have had to consult their doctors. In my constituency, a school, a hospital and many other public buildings have had to close.
      As "Dispatches" pointed out, Trent Water has estimated that it is owed approximately £25 million for the repair of damage to properties in Nottinghamshire, although it has not been keen to publicise the fact, or to take part in a seminar: As its members explained when they visited London to meet the Minister, they were preparing for privatisation, and—as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw observed—who would buy shares in a public industry that faced a £25 million repair bill? Moreover, Trent Water cannot get the money back from British Coal.
      The survey to which I referred has been discussed many times with Ministers and has been debated in the House. It referred to 33,000 damaged homes, roads and service supplies such as water, gas and electricity. It made it clear that in all the areas surveyed there was major concern and that havoc was being caused to the coalfield communities.
      5 pm
      The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston spoke of the way in which British Coal was being allowed to act as offender, judge and jury. British Coal is in fact getting away with blue murder against the people in the coalfield communities. It hides behind the six-year rule, which many in the legal profession say is of extremely doubtful merit but which is upheld because of lack of action by the Government. British Coal acts as judge and jury by acting as banker, as it were—openly blackmailing people who are suffering from subsidence problems, people who cannot go to courts or go through the Lands Tribunal.
      "Blackmail" may seem a strong word to use, but evidence has been produced by hon. Members on both sides of the House describing how letters have been sent by British Coal to home owners saying, in effect, "Unless you accept this minimal sum, we shall put your case to the bottom of the pile and take it through the legal processes, and that will take years. If you risk going through the Lands Tribunal or some other means, you will risk losing everything, including your home and savings."
      Alternatively, British Coal had demonstrated its determination to cut to the lowest sum possible the amount expended to fulfil its responsibilities in respect of coal-mining subsidence damage. By using the blackmail?ing technique of "take it or leave it" with home owners and others, British Coal states that only certain types of repair will be undertaken. Having said that, it employs the cheapest possible builders, who repair the properties not properly but cosmetically. They Polyfilla over the cracks and cover with the cheapest possible paint or other rendering.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said he knew of people who had been out of their homes for three or four months while repairs were done. I have constituents who were out of their homes for more than two years. Twelve months is normal for people to have to leave their homes in my constituency while subsidence work is done.
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      Then there is the plight of those who do not leave their homes while the work is done but who have to stay because of a lack of properties in which to house them, such is the scale of the subsidence problem in my area. As I say, British Coal employs the cheapest builders who, when faced with, say, major cracks across a living room wall, do not take down the wall and rebuild it—replastering and rendering as necessary—but cut out a portion where the crack exists, cover the furniture with cloths and make the families remain in their homes while the repairs are carried out. That takes not a day or two but weeks and sometimes months.
      Hon. Members have spoken in previous debates about how cheaply British Coal gets the work done. There have been cases of people who have produced the wallpaper that was on a wall before it was repaired and have been told by British Coal that it was not prepared to pay, say £3 per roll—the current price of the wallpaper—but only the original price of 99p per roll. What a disgraceful state f affairs.
      Builders in my area have gone so far as to tell British Coal that, because of the prices it is willing to pay, they are not interested in taking on the work. Some builders have told me honestly that, but for the slack winter period when they have little work on hand, they would not even bother to do British Coal work because the contracts that British Coal awards are not worth having.
      The amendment refers to financing the repairs of coal-mining subsidence damage. There seems to be a difference of opinion about how such work should be financed. On a previous occasion, I asked the present Minister of Housing and Planning, when he was at the Department of Energy, how much money was available for subsidence work. As we know, money is collected on every tonne of coal produced for work of this kind. Indeed, the Government continue to claim that that charge has led to coal mine closures, so expensive is the cost of subsidence repairs.
      Mr. Illsley: I can give my hon. Friend an example of a colliery that closed because of subsidence problems. I refer to Redbrook colliery in Barnsley. When the NCB costed the amount that it would have to pay in subsidence claims compared with the profit that would be gained by mining the coal in that pit, it decided to close the colliery.
      Mr. Meale: I thank my hon. Friend for giving that example. Some time ago, Mansfield colliery in my constituency was closed. I had been told for at least a year prior to its closure that it would be shut, not because of subsidence but because although it was a pit with reserves, the NCB had decided not to expand production and dig into those reserves.
      When the closure announcement finally came, in a press release, British Coal and another organisation used the opportunity to accuse me of closing the pit because I had been busy fighting for the rights of coal subsidence claimants. I faced a stupid and untrue situation. I checked the files in my office and discovered that of 32 cases for whom I had made applications to British Coal's estates department—for repairs and proper compensation for the properties concerned in the area of the pit that was closed—not one had been settled by British Coal. In other words, in many cases the Government are using the excuse of coal-mining subsidence costs as a major reason for closing pits.

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      When at the Department of Energy, the present Minister for Housing and Planning said that, in the accounts, £260 million had been set aside for the repair of damage caused by coal-mining subsidence. I have since asked questions, in the House and elsewhere, to discover whether that money is in a separate account and, if so, why it cannot be used for subsidence repair work. I have been told by British Coal, in letters to me and through the media, that no such fund exists because such money has been set against the industry's losses and deficits each year and has been written off.
      I suggest that the House is being misled. Considering that an amount is attached to every tonne of coal that is produced, and that that money is put into a fund for the payment of subsidence damage repair costs, it cannot be written off to pay for the industry's debts. After all, those sums must, or should, have been put into a bank account to be drawn on at a future date for subsidence repairs. Indeed, if British Coal has not been doing that, it has not been carrying out its responsibilities. There should have been at least £260 million in the fund at the time when the Minister made his statement, and by now, having gathered interest, the total should be considerably higher.
      Let me say a few words about the future as the present Government see it. One must give them credit for their honesty as they have never shied away from their immediate plans and their absolute determination to privatise the coal industry. I am disappointed with the Bill and with the fact that so far the Government have not accepted our amendments. Unless they sort out the problem of coal-mining subsidence damage, all the residents, public services and business in coalfield communities throughout Britain will be left in severe difficulty. If those people do not have much of a chance of getting damages paid now, how on earth will they get them when a private employer takes over the responsibility for those coal mines?
      It will be extremely difficult to sell those industries, not simply because people will be unwilling to invest in them—if the Government are that determined, they will pass laws exempting them—but because the problem of coal-mining subsidence damage needs to be sorted out. I warn the Minister, as I warned his predecessor, that if any attempt is made to privatise the industry without having sorted out this business, according to that survey, there are 13,500 people with damaged homes in my constituency—that is just in the private sector; there are hundreds more in the public sector—who will band together and take the case to Europe. The Minister knows that, if we go to Europe for a ruling about people's rights to repair their homes which have been damaged by a public industry, without a shadow of a doubt the ruling will be in our favour.
      Mr. Peter Hardy: Does my hon. Friend agree that, if such a case went to Europe before the flotation of the electricity industry, the Commission might take a rather dim view of that progress being made?
      Mr. Meale: I agree with my hon. Friend. Obviously, the Minister has taken note of his point.
      I spoke to the Minister yesterday and asked him for an assurance that he will come to the Nottinghamshire coalfield area and see for himself the level of damage. I am pleased that he was willing to do that and assure me that he would not do what his predecessors had done and come
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      to Nottinghamshire only to talk to British Coal. Given that the report states that there are 33,500 damaged homes, I do not want the Minister simply to spend time talking to the people who have caused the problems and who are denying their responsibility for repairing people's homes. I want him to spend time in the Nottinghamshire coalfield area meeting the people who have to live with it day in and day out and run their businesses there.
      Mr. Lofthouse: Is my hon. Friend aware that, certainly in my constituency, some council tenants' applications to buy their homes under the right to buy have been outstanding for three years because the council has been unable to reach an agreement on subsidence damage? Some people have become so desperate to purchase their property that they have signed an agreement to buy it at its present value, hoping that they will get reasonable compensation from British Coal, but so far they have been unable to achieve that.
      Mr. Meale: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point, and again the Minister is making notes. I hope that he will be able to respond to it when he replies to the debate.
      I am pleased that the Minister has agreed to come to Nottinghamshire and to meet people running businesses, home owners, property owners and people providing public services. I wonder whether he can do that before the Select Committee on Energy, to which I pay tribute, returns to Nottinghamshire this spring. The work it carried out in the early 1980s has not been fulfilled by British Coal or by the Government.
      I remind the House about the lack of action that the Government have taken to sort out coal-mining subsidence damage. The Waddilove inquiry was commis?sioned in 1983, completed in 1984 and published in 1987 after severe pressure from Members of Parliament. The Government responded in 1988; now we are heading into 1990, and the Government are missing yet another opportunity to alleviate the problems.
      Action is needed. We need a legal centre for claimants who cannot afford to use the legal system which hinders their attempts to get justice. We need a low-cost independent arbitration system to get over problems caused because British Coal is judge and jury, and we need mandatory protection for claimants. Most of all, we need guarantees that the Government will produce a solution to help our people get back to a normal life.
      5.15 pm
      Ms. Joan Walley: I wish to pay tribute to all the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) has done to draw attention to the huge problem of mining subsidence, which is not just a matter for Nottinghamshire, although we have heard an awful lot about Nottinghamshire today. It also occurs in north Staffordshire and in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent, North. In his usual pertinent way, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield made it clear that mining subsidence damage will be a real problem for the Government in the run up to privatisation. I do not argue that the industry should be privatised. I warn the Government that every coal mining community through?out the country will band together to draw attention to coal mining subsidence.
      One of the first things I did as a newly elected Member of Parliament was to go to the Secretary of State for the

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      Environment, who is now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and take up Stoke-on-Trent city council's case for inner-city status for Stoke-on-Trent because the extent of subsidence and the way in which it undermines the city meant that any new building would cost half as much again as it would cost anywhere else in the country. Without extra support from the Government and from the Department of the Environment, there was no way in which we could get the new buildings, new jobs and new opportunities for the city of Stoke-on-Trent. I hope that the Minister and the Secretary of State will take on board the clear need to liaise closely with their colleagues at the Department of the Environment because it is an environmental matter as well as one for the Department of Energy.
      Subsidence is a scandal in Stoke-on-Trent and it has been a national scandal for more than 20 years. In her maiden speech, my predecessor before one, Harriet Slater, spoke about the need for the Government to do something about subsidence and to sort out the problems faced by the local city council and Staffordshire county council. Those problems have not been resolved and I certainly join my hon. Friends in telling the Government that something will have to be done.
      My hon. Friends have described the extreme hardship faced by individuals who are living in homes which have been damaged by subsidence. Many people in Stoke-on-Trent, North have made claims but many more were not even aware that they had the right to do so. The way in which British Coal has done everything possible to prevent people from making claims for subsidence on their properties is absolutely out of order. It is not the easiest thing in the world for someone who is not aware of his legal rights to take on British Coal and demand proper compensation for the cracks and for the fact that his house is no longer saleable.
      One of the really difficult things that I have had to deal with is what to say to people when, time and time again, British Coal tells them that they will have to make do with £100 which the contractors will spend on repairs to their homes. There is no way that an independent assessment can be made of the damage. Something must be done about subsidence. One point that must be taken up is British Coal's refusal to pay attention to the serious hardship and stress that people are suffering.
      Another environmental problem is methane gas from old refuse tips. Yesterday we had an indication that the Secretary of State is prepared to consider retrospectively the need to make good damage from such tips. If the Government can deal retrospectively with that, they can do something about all the claims for subsidence damage.
      The Government have told us that they are concerned about the environment and that they will make the whole country clean so that there will not be a huge environmental problem. Is that a cautionary approach? Of course not. Why is no assessment being made of the scale of the problem in individual properties? Why is the cost of subsidence not considered as part of the entire cost of coal mining? Only recently the Government have recognised that something must be done about the decommissioning of nuclear power stations. The principle is the same. Any coal-mining operation that produces subsidence must take
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      account of that subsidence and put right the damage or must prevent it in the first place. The cost should be part of the overall cost of coal mining.
      It is for those reasons that I ask the Minister to accept new clause 1. It is not just the 33,500 people in Mansfield whose homes have suffered from subsidence but all the other affected people in all coal-mining areas who want something done. Organisations such as the Coalfield Communities Campaign will make certain that there will be full compensation for people who need it, especially before privatisation. My hon. Friends and I are committed to working towards that.
      Mr. Gerald Howarth: I welcome the opportunity to participate in a debate on one of my favourite constituency subjects, the coal industry. Although I could not be here for the whole debate, I think that I would have been familiar with many of the speeches. There is common ground on both sides of the House. The hon. Member for Mansfield, (Mr. Meale), my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart) and I, among others, participated in the Channel 4 programme which has been mentioned. I thought that it was a fair programme which looked objectively at the plight of people affected by coal-mining subsidence. I dare say that British Coal may take a contrary view, but it was given an opportunity to make its position plain, and I am not sure that it used the programme to its best advantage.
      The hon. Member for Mansfield said that one injustice is that British Coal is perceived as judge and jury in its own cause. That is a major criticism. It shows insensitivity towards people for whom coal-mining subsidence can be a long drawn out and bitter experience.
      One individual, David Linford, not my constituent but a constituent of my late colleague in Mid-Staffordshire, runs an important building company in my constituency. He had to wait 13 years for recognition by British Coal that subsidence had caused problems with his brand new house, which he had built after getting advice from British Coal about where faults were. Such insensitivity does no credit to those responsible for managing the affairs of British Coal.
      To break the bipartisan camaraderie on the issue, I declare again a view that I have put many times: that this is the inevitable result of nationalisation. I accept that Labour Members will take a contrary view, but I invite them at least to consider the thought that if the industry were in the private sector, it could not afford to ride roughshod over the will of people in whose community it operates.
      Ms. Walley: If we were to have a privatised coal industry, what compensation would be given to the hundreds of thousands of people who have suffered subsidence damage to their properties?
      Mr. Howarth: The hon. Lady anticipates a matter for a future Parliament. I have always declared my position, that I am in favour of the privatisation of coal because I believe it would greatly benefit the people who work in the industry, its customers, and those, like many of my constituents, who work and live in coalfield areas. I believe that a privatised industry would be forced to be much more concerned about how it treated the community. If it were not, the community would deny it the right to work the coal.

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      British Coal will have to be much more sympathetic because gone are the days when it could with impunity rape the countryside of its mineral content. It will need the support of the community in which it works. Coal will continue to be an important fuel. The nation expects of British Coal that it will discharge its duty responsibly.
      In the past, the industry could rely on the fact that, as people whose homes were affected by subsidence were the very people who were employed in the industry, they were unlikely to protest too much because they might be in danger of losing their jobs. Today, with a much more slimline industry, the position is different. Many who are affected by mining subsidence are not employed in the industry, but are its victims. They do not feel beholden in the same way as I suspect in years gone by those employed in the industry did. British Coal no longer dominates the community. I say with as much force as I can muster that I hope the people responsible for running British Coal will take a much more sympathetic and careful view of the problems of subsidence that have been expressed by hon. Members on all sides.
      I have noted the new clause in the name of the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) and his hon. Friends as far as it relates to coal-mining subsidence. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer), who over the past two years or more served as Under-Secretary of State for Energy with great distinction, was cognisant of the difficulties mentioned by hon. Members. I know that he took the problem seriously, which is why some of the recommendations of the Waddilove committee that do not need statutory permission have been implemented. However, some of its recommendations will need statutory approval, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry)—whom I congratulate on his elevation to the post of Under-Secretary of State for Energy, in which I wish him a long and successful career—will take on board the cross-party view that it would be more sensible to introduce comprehensive proposals later rather than to tack them on to the Bill.
      5.30 pm
      Mr. Harry Barnes: My hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) spoke eloquently of specific cases in their constituencies. However, people directly affected by coal-mining subsidence can more eloquently describe the problems that they face.
      A constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield appeared on the Channel 4 series "Dispatches" in a programme entitled "In the Coalhole". About five minutes of that programme were devoted to her speaking forcefully about mining subsidence during a visit to one of my hon. Friend's advice centres. The producer told me that she spoke for about 25 or 30 minutes about the difficulties that she faced.
      Hon. Members' constituents have experienced vast problems with subsidence for ages and have records, notes and photographs of their experiences. I wish that there were a system to resolve their problems, to help them get their homes repaired and to help them to overcome the traumas that they have experienced.
      I have a problem of subsidence resulting from past coal mining in my constituency at Hartington road in Staveley. At one time, I was rather reluctant to discuss the problem,
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      but people in the area began to publicise it themselves. There is likely to be similar problems in the future, because of mining development at Markham pit, which is presently taking place in south Staveley in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). In time, the problem will move to north Staveley, which is in my constituency.
      Inkersall green special school in south Staveley has been seriously affected by subsidence. It was known that there was to be mining development underneath it, so precautions were taken. A large ditch was built around the school so that it would fall slightly and settle, minimising the problem of mining subsidence. When mining halfway under the school, they hit a fault—I do not know whose fault it was that that was not foreseen—and could not continue. That broke the back of the school. It is a beautiful school and some of its facilities have been paid for by the local community, but anyone walking inside it feels seasick.
      The problem is what to do about it, what will happen to special education in the area, given local government's problems with resources, and whether it will receive full help from British Coal for repairs. Hon. Members have spoken of the difficulties of dealing with British Coal and its agents, of their constituents receiving inadequate help and of them often having to accept a raw deal.
      Earlier, the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) said that the clause should not be given a Second Reading because a later Bill will deal with the problem of subsidence. I shall argue that it should be given a Second Reading now, unless I can be convinced otherwise by the Minister.
      The Bill is almost a paving measure for the privatisation of the coal industry. Some of the cash arrangements in the Bill may be acceptable to Labour Members, but their purpose is to prepare the industry for privatisation. In those circumstances, people are worried about whether funds will be made available to cover outstanding claims. New clause 1(3) is essential to ensure that adequate funds will be available. If the industry is privatised—that will not happen, because after the next election there will be a different Government—the problem of ensuring that funds are available and used will remain. The other sign that this is a paving Bill are the provisions that deal with small mine development.
      A further reason for giving the clause a Second Reading is that more pits will close if the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill is enacted. Unless the other place passes an amendment stopping coal imports through the Humber ports—if that happened, the promoters of the Bill would withdraw it—the coal industry will be further damaged. British Coal will be forced to concentrate on a few super-pits and to develop opencast coal mining on a large scale. In those circumstances, if adequate funding is not made available to cover subsidence at coal mines that have closed, people will be in a bad position.
      A further reason given for not giving the clause a Second Reading is the promise of a Bill to deal with coal mining subsidence. I wrote to the Minister on 5 December, made one or two suggestions about the Bill and mentioned the need for coal-mining subsidence legislation. I received a reply, and I have since received a second version, which is circulating among other hon. Members. The letter states that,
      "at the earliest practical opportunity",

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      there will be some appropriate legislation, but we need to test what is meant by that.
      As has already been said, there have been six years in which measures could have been brought before the House. This is the umpteenth debate on coal-mining subsidence. Many previous debates were initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale). When he was lucky in the ballot for motions that he could bring before the House, he ensured that we could discuss this matter. Many of the points about what is required in legislation have been hammered out in the House and in meetings with the Department of Energy.
      The Minister's letter says:
      "With regard to your concern about coal mining subsidence, you will, I am sure, recognise the inherent complexity of the subject".
      The subject is complex and there are conflicting interests involved, but that cannot be a reason for delaying such a measure. The complexities have been discussed at considerable length. The problems are well understood by Opposition Members and should be well understood by the Department of Energy. The measure must be brought forward.
      The letter continues:
      "and consequently, that subsidence requires its own Bill in its own timetable. I believe it would be wrong to rush a subsidence measure through the House tacked on the short, primarily financial, Coal Industry Bill, which requires early enactment. The government is therefore committed to introducing a Bill dealing comprehensively with subsidence issues at the earliest practical opportunity."
      The letter later deals with my points about the need for independent arbitration, the need for British Coal to have a primary duty to correct the problems, its legal responsibility and various other items. That shows that there is a great deal of sympathy within the Department of Energy with certain points that the Opposition have put forward.
      However, the letter implies that if we wait, everything will be okay. Many of us are sick of waiting. We have seen the problems of our constituents. Does
      "at the earliest practical opportunity"
      mean this Session, despite the fact that such a measure was not contained in the Queen's Speech; or does it mean that we are expected to sit back and to wait for such a measure to be contained in another Queen's Speech, if the Department of Energy bids for sufficient resources and funds to enable it to carry out such legislation?
      Opposition Members believe that it is not good enough for the Government to intend to introduce legislation in the next Session. That would not deal with our constituents' problems and the future difficulties that many of them face. I hope that the Minister will explain why he thinks that new clause 1 is inappropriate and, if so, what other measures would be appropriate. When will such measures be introduced? They are now very urgent.
      Mr. Illsley: I want to speak briefly on points that are similar to those made by my hon. Friends. It is nice to hear Conservative Members welcoming public money being given to the coal industry. Usually, when we ask for further funds to be given to the coal industry, we meet a barrage of hostility from Conservative Members.
      It is important that subsidence is dealt with in the Coal Industry Bill. New clause 1 deals with British Coal's historical debts. It is important that those debts are sorted
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      out before the end of the financial year. As many of the subsidence claims are historical debts for British Coal, money should be voted now to help the industry to meet its liabilities. Some hon. Members have heard from the chairman of British Coal the amount of money that British Coal requires for concessionary coal liabilities and claims for industrial deafness.
      Subsidence damage claims should be included in the Bill. The money required for subsidence claims has an effect on British Coal's investment decisions about collieries. Such considerations have had tremendous importance in the past. I have spent hours in meetings with British Coal—or the National Coal Board, as it was—which was trying to decide which coal seam or coal face could be mined in view of the amount that the board might face in subsidence claims if that coal were taken.
      Sometimes, decisions were taken to close seams or collieries because British Coal could not afford the amount of subsidence liability that it would have faced had it continued to maintain that face or seam. Subsidence has an important effect. Collieries and jobs may be cut because the board has insufficient money to finance the subsidence claims that have accumulated over the past few years. The Government must help with that liability. They must consider new clause 1 and ensure that British Coal has sufficient money to cover its liabilities on subsidence.
      5.45 pm
      Subsidence claims are endemic to mining areas. My hon. Friends have talked about their constituents with subsidence claims. A number of my constituents—including myself—have such problems. My present and previous houses suffered from subsidence so I am well aware of the delays in dealing with claims. One street in my constituency—Melvinia crescent—had to be demolished. The owners are waiting for their properties to be rebuilt by British Coal. However, I want to put on record my appreciation of British Coal's Allerton Bywater estates department, which has been helpful in my dealings with subsidence damage claims.
      However, claims put a considerable strain on my constituents who are faced with the decision of whether to remain in a property that has been damaged by subsidence and which may have been tilted, cracked or broken. Buying a home is usually a person's major financial investment. It is heartrending to have to decide whether a home should be demolished, repaired or rebuilt, especially if the property is of high value or if someone has personal reasons for wanting to remain in it.
      Subsidence also affects local authority housing. Sometimes, local authorities which are cash-squeezed by the Minister for Housing and Planning—the former Under-Secretary of State for Energy—cannot afford to spend money on housing repairs, although that money is owed to them by British Coal. Sometimes, tenants have to remain in properties that have been damaged by subsidence because local authorities cannot provide the money quickly enough for repairs to be carried out as they are still waiting for British Coal to make payments for subsidence damage claims.
      There is also damage to local authority roads and to road building programmes. Roads in my constituency have been substantially damaged by coal-mining subsidence. The local authority is having difficulty in keeping the roads repaired to a suitable standard. It has

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      recently been criticised because of that damage, yet because of the cash limit that has been imposed by the Government, it cannot meet those expenses.
      It is important that we deal with the problem of subsidence now in the Bill, which deals with coal industry finance, rather than wait for another Bill to deal with subsidence on its own. The Bill deals with historical finance, and subsidence imposes a historical financial burden on British Coal. As British Coal's finances will not he restructured again for a considerable time, we should deal with the matter now. I hope that the Government will support the new clause.
      Mr. Frank Haynes: It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and a pleasure also to see the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer), who used to be the Under-Secretary of State for Energy, and responsible for the coal mining industry, but who has now been moved over to the Department of the Environment by that lady at No. 10. I understand that he is now the Minister for Housing and Planning, and that must be why he is here today: he has an interest in housing—in the housing in which our constituents live, which has been damaged by mining subsidence. The hon. Gentleman knows all about it. He has had his ear clobbered many a time when responding to questions and debates on mining subsidence but he has not done a great deal to sort the problem out. Now he has left it completely. He has gone to another Department and left it to somebody else.
      So who do we have now? We have as Secretary of State the right hon. Member for Colchester, South and Maldon (Mr. Wakeham). The right hon. Gentleman does not know a great deal about mining—he has never worked in a pit—and he does not know much about mining subsidence either. He knows about nuclear dumping, though I remember the campaign that he ran in his constituency where they wanted to take boreholes there with a view to dumping nuclear waste. That plan did not come off. The right hon. Gentleman won his campaign and we are asking him to win ours now that he is Secretary of State for Energy.
      Mr. Dobson: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Secretary of State broke with Tory party tradition and established a nuclear-free zone in his constituency?
      Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. I am sure that the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) will oblige me and return to the new clause.
      Mr. Haynes: I am not daft, Madam Speaker, and I know that when you are in the Chair I have to watch my Ps and Qs, so I shall not stray from the new clause, which I fully support.
      Before my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) interrupted me, I was about to say that we have a new Under-Secretary of State for Energy responsible for coal. I welcome him, and I hope that he will do something about our problem. I see that he represents Banbury. There are not many pits in Banbury, and not much opencast either. Both the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary have listened to our every word this afternoon. They are getting an education about coal mining and mining subsidence, and they now realise, I am sure, what a serious problem it is.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras did a marvellous job in opening the debate but I
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      ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker, how many pits are there down in Holborn and St. Pancras? My hon. Friend has done his homework and put a first-class case, as have a number of my hon. Friends. A good case has also been put by some Conservative Members and I hope that they will join us in the Lobby, because the new clause is necessary. We have waited for so long. We have clobbered Ministers. In days gone by, I even clobbered the Prime Minister about mining subsidence in my constituency and in other places in Nottinghamshire.
      A little while ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) mentioned the House of Lords. When a piece of plaster fell from the ceiling, they closed the place down to repair it. It cost a fortune. The Government found the money, as my hon. Friend rightly said. I remember an Environment Minister coming to the House to tell us that Big Ben was 9 in out of true. It is, indeed, 9 in out of true and the reason for that is that we have not always had a car park. All those years ago—25 or 26—they scooped a whacking great hole out beneath the building and put in five floors so that hon. Members could park their cars. [Hon. Members: "Opencast mining."] Opencast mining, yes. The end result was that Big Ben started to be affected and to move out of true. I never go round that way because one never knows. We have been given assurance that it is okay now, but I never give it a chance. That is a perfect illustration of what happens. It is easy to understand the kind of problems that we have in mining areas back in our constituencies.
      Mr. Ashton: Is my hon. Friend aware that, only about 10 years ago, the Terrace was raised because of the level of the River Thames? One could put one's hand in the river at high tide. Hundreds of millions of pounds were spent on a Thames barrage to protect this place and the lower areas of London.
      Mr. Haynes: There you are, Madam Deputy Speaker: my hon. Friend is leading me in the right direction by referring to money being found to do that kind of work when money is not being found to do the work that we need done in our constituencies.
      Mr. Hardy: Does my hon. Friend think that, as global warming occurs and the sea level rises, and all the fiat low-lying coastal constituencies represented by Conservative Members are threatened, those hon. Members will be clamouring for lots of public money to defend themselves from inundation by the sea?
      Mr. Haynes: Yes, but that will come later, and we have a problem right now. I thought that my hon. Friend was going to take me down lovers' lane, but I am steering clear of that one. I have done enough damage with that one, and I shall not go further.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) and I get people coming to our morning surgeries of a Saturday. The result is that I visit homes on Sunday morning when I should be in church. Like any hon. Member who does his job correctly, I must look after my constituents, so I do not go to church very often. Last Sunday I went to visit a Mr. Taylor of Hill crescent in Sutton in Ashfield. The work on his house has been completed and it is shocking. You cannot close a door, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the door frames have

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      whacking great cracks in them. When Mr. Taylor took me outside, I saw that there were whacking great cracks in the bay windows too.
      I know what is wrong. We have seen British Coal officials go to prison for fiddling over subsidence repairs. Many of the contractors that have been brought in to do the repairs are cowboys, who keep the costs down and make a nice profit, and British Coal does not provide the money necessary to enable them to do the job properly.
      Another constituent of mine lives just round the corner from where I used to live. When he came to see me, he brought photographs to show me exactly what was happening to his property, which was supposed to have been completed. I wrote to the director of the Nottinghamshire area, who replied, "We have spent enough money on that property: we are not spending any more." That property is not fit to live in. Honestly, it is shocking; it is disgusting the way they have been treating people back home in our constituencies.
      We really need the new clause. All right, a Bill has been promised to deal with the subsidence problem at a later stage, but I do not accept that promise, because we have waited and waited and waited. We have had a bellyful; we want some action from the Government now.
      The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. John Wakeham)rose—
      Mr. Haynes: I have not finished yet. The Secretary of State need not get so excited.
      There are properties—
      Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark (Birmingham, Selly Oak): Speak up.
      Mr. Haynes: I hope that you will watch the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark), Madam Deputy Speaker.
      Madam Deputy Speaker: My attention is entirely riveted on the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes).
      6 pm
      Mr. Haynes: The hon. Gentleman's attention is riveted on me. He is always bawling and shouting instead of listening to what is being said, so I am saying it again.
      It often works out that hon. Members become agents on behalf of their constituents, yet there are agents who are supposed to be working for them. They are not doing their job. For a start, they are taking on too much work. They keep small staffs and they cannot handle the situation properly. The result is that constituents suffer in their homes.
      Tilt is the main problem with a number of properties. The board does not want to know if there is tilt. One can walk into some properties, and it is like being in a rowing boat in the middle of the Atlantic. How can the Secretary of State and Ministers in the Department of Energy put up with that? They should go and look for themselves. I would welcome the Secretary of State visiting the beautiful county of Nottinghamshire and looking at some mining subsidence problems. He could spend the day there and open his eyes to the suffering that is going on in hon. Members' constituencies.
      People can be transferred from their own homes to other homes while serious repairs are being done. People
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      have been out of their homes for as long as two years before they could get back into their properties. The reason is that the contractor, who has been employed by British Coal, is never on the job. The result is delay after delay. People come to hon. Members' surgeries and, once again, hon. Members act as agents and make representations. The agent is supposed to look after and represent people with problems with British Coal. Oh, no—because he is an easy touch, the hon. Member has the problem dropped in his lap.
      I have a filing cabinet full of letters about mining subsidence problems. The Minister might not believe that, but it is true. I am sick to death of it. I am fed up. It is a nightmare. I have had problems with social security or housing, but the subsidence problem has been with me all along, and I have had enough. Hon. Members are looking for help for the people whom we represent. They have been getting a raw deal for far too long.
      The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Dr. Woodcock) knows about subsidence. He has had properties in my constituency. He has suffered just the same as others have. He could not get repairs done, simply because the board would not find the money to do them. The board says, "Well, regulations have been laid down by the Government." Opposition Members want the Government to get off their backsides and do something about the problem.
      I hope that the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South, the Under-Secretary of State for Energy will keep his eye on the problem. He has a responsibility in this housing matter. In the main, we are talking about domestic properties. Of course, there are serious problems with factories, schools and so on, but, in the main, we are talking about people's homes. I recently told the Prime Minister herself that her Government encourage people to own their own homes, yet many homes are being destroyed by mining subsidence.
      We have a real problem. I ask the Secretary of State please to grab hold of the new clause. It should be in the Bill so that we can deal with the problem now and not wait until later. The problem is big enough and serious enough, and we want some action. I ask the Secretary of State to vote for the new clause and let us have it in the Bill.
      Mr. Skinner: I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) raised those points. Some of my other hon. Friends have also dealt with the matter at length. The Secretary of State will know that I have referred to the problem of subsidence in Bolsover church. For several years, negotiations did not proceed at any level between British Coal and Bolsover church, partly because of some negligence on the part of British Coal and the fact that there was no vicar for a period. I had to take over—[Laughter.] It's the way I tell them. I had to take over as an intermediary. Several years ago, I was approached about whether I could get negotiations started. I told British Coal that I would be prepared to challenge it to a debate in Bolsover church so that the whole community could take part in it. That cracked it. British Coal then decided to start negotiating.
      I raised the matter with the Church Commissioners and I was promised an investigation. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) will see a reference to that on the valuable list that he produced. In the past few days, I received a further letter from the newly installed vicar, John Easton, of

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      Bolsover parish church. I am sad to report that, despite all the efforts that have been made, there is a deadlock. I ask the Secretary of State for Energy to take note of the point that I am making. There is no doubt that some of his advisers will know that this matter must be resolved.
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield said, it is mainly housing that is affected by subsidence. We know that a terrible backlog has accrued in the past few years. When promises are made in the House on behalf of the Church Commissioners, the matter should be resolved. It was raised a considerable time ago. The vicar and the church wardens have jointly written, stating:
      "We have waited expectantly over the last six months for the fulfilment of the offer from British Coal but to no avail. We now agree with our architect and our solicitor who reluctantly conclude that British Coal are deliberately delaying payment with new quibbles about the wording of the document of acceptance."
      That is how British Coal plays the game. That will register a chord with thousands of people in our constituencies—the idea of quibbling about exact words. They went on to state:
      "We thank you for your interest and help in the past and hope that you will now be able to help in determining why payment has not been made."
      This stage of the Bill's proceedings is an admirable opportunity for me to place that matter on the record.
      There is a history to the backlog, and it is as well that the relatively new Secretary of State for Energy knows that. We also have a new Minister. He should be apprised of the reasons. Subsidence cases have not been raised in the same numbers since I have been an hon. Member. In the main, the backlog occurred during 1983, when suddenly it was found that some agents operating and acting on behalf of tenants and property owners were lining their pockets with large commission payments out of subsidence claims. Certain people became more involved in the matter. It received a lot of media attention. There was tremendous publicity about a few cases and about some people who were at arm's length from the problem—people who were making money on the side. Literally scores of thousands of residents with subsidence problems suffered.
      British Coal asked "What will we do? We will tighten up." Rather than agents and people who obtained the commission, people such as those at Bolsover parish church and thousands of others about whom hon. Members know have suffered. That is why the rule was changed to what is commonly known as the "six-year rule" and it was made more difficult for the honest-to-goodness residents to get that compensation.
      I hope that the Government's two representatives—Ministers who are relatively new to this—are fully apprised of why the change took place and why my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) has suddenly taken an interest and devotion in this matter that is far greater than that taken by his predecessor. There is a good reason for that—and point number one is that my hon. Friend succeeded his predecessor. However, my hon. Friend became interested because of the problem. Among others, my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield and for Derbyshire, North (Mr. Barnes) have raised this matter because of the tremendous backlog in dealing with these cases and because of the Select Committee report that drew a lot of attention to the problem. I am not knocking that—I am simply saying that once attention has been drawn to the problem, it should be remedied in the proper way.
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      Let us not cause something to happen that means that the local residents will suffer. I can understand the agents losing their villas in Spain—not that they have, as a matter of fact—but it is unfair to lump the problem on to those people who are suffering.
      If there is plenty of money in the country to put pearly gates outside No. 10, there must be a bob or two left for people such as our constituents. We could give a litany of the ways in which the Government could spend money. We could also say the same about British Coal. If it can use some of its money for two-inch-deep carpets all around Hobart house and provide the wherewithal for all the luxuries and God knows what else there, it has a duty to assist in this difficulty.
      The Secretary of State for Energy has a chance to make a name for himself in the last two years left to this Government. Of course, it might be less than that, because Ministers are now shunted around very quickly. The previous Minister for Coal, the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer) is sitting behind the Secretary of State. The hon. Gentleman was halfway through the Bill—he did not expect it—but he suddenly got a telephone call from inside the pearly gates, saying, "You are wanted. We have run out of real Right wingers. You're about the only one left." That was not the greatest compliment of all time to be paid by Bernard Ingham, but the Minister was shifted.
      That is why I am advising the Secretary of State and his new Minister for Coal that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield put the situation in the right context when he said, "Grab hold of it." There are many problems and they are not associated with Opposition Members only. Many Tory Members have these complaints. My hon. Friend was absolutely right to say that we get more complaints about subsidence now than about almost any other subject.
      Let us deal with this matter in a general way and take on board the points that were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras and other hon. Friends. The Government should make sure that there is no more waffling, because there has been some on this issue. When my hon. Friend opened the debate, he gave an account of the way in which the Government have pushed the issue to one side. There is no doubt that the Government have done that with the Waddilove committee and all the rest of it. They have been buying time, but we have now reached the point when the buying of time should end.
      Let us get on with the job. If the new clause cannot be accepted, that is one thing, because we are simply saying that the Government should accept that kind of clause if they intend to do something about resolving the problem for the thousands of people who are suffering and losing money and who, in many cases, have not been given any money at all for their genuine claims of subsidence against British Coal.
      Mr. Wakeham: May I say at the outset that I welcome the opportunity to discuss subsidence? It is an aspect of the coal industry about which there is widespread interest and concern among hon. Members of all parties. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) and his hon Friends have done the House a great service in raising the issue for debate on this new clause. One cannot come to this issue without one thing being crystal clear—that the present state of affairs is not satisfactory.

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      Rather than being a substantive point, perhaps my first point should be regarded as an audible aside. Opposition Members have made several attempts to draw a connection between the problems of subsidence and coal privatisation. The Government have a clear commitment to bring forward legislation on the problems of subsidence quite independent of the privatisation, about which I shall speak later. The Government have also clearly stated their proposals for coal privatisation, which will be dealt with in the next Parliament.
      However, as I have spent a considerable amount of time on the subject, perhaps I may draw an analogy from the electricity privatisation. To put the matter at its lowest, there seems no possibility of privatising British Coal without first clearing up the questions of the liabilities and problems of subsidence. I am not saying that there is a connection between the two, but as an aside to what some hon. Members have been saying, I should add that I do not think that some Opposition Members took the logic of the points that they themselves were making.
      6.15 pm
      The new clause, in fact, goes rather wider than subsidence, because it seeks to extend deficiency grant to cover not only British Coal's subsidence liabilities, but also all its loans as well. Perhaps it could be convenient for the House, therefore, if I were to deal with all the other matters first and then devote the remaining part of my speech to dealing with points on subsidence.
      In these other matters, the new clause would go well beyond what the Government have in mind and what is necessary. The basic purpose of the capital reconstruction is to recognise that the corporation's asset base has been severely eroded by the events of recent years, and to restore the corporation to a position where I can properly continue to advance loans to meet its day to day cash requirements. It has never been our proposal that we should write off all British Coal's debts, but we do believe that it is necessary to bring them into closer alignment with the true value of its colliery assets. Our Bill will achieve that. The Opposition's new clause would not only wipe out all the corporation's debts, but would also endow the corporation with many billions of pounds of spare cash. That would, quite rightly, be unacceptable to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury as well as being contrary to European Community rules on state aids.
      Quite understandably the Government have been asked how much the deficiency in British Coal's accounts is likely to be by the end of the financial year. I said on Second Reading that it was likely to exceed £5 billion, and that there was a wide margin of uncertainty at present about certain elements, particularly the valuation of the corporation's assets.
      This margin of uncertainty could be as much as £2 billion and it may be several months before we are able to arrive at a more precise figure. This is because the revaluation of each colliery will be based on a detailed review of its future cash flow and, of course, there will need to be detailed discussion of the strategic assumptions underlying the cash projections, and particularly the assumptions for prices, output and productivity.
      Questions have also been asked about the valuation of land and coal reserves in the accounts. Land and buildings
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      are included at cost, but the annual accounts also give information on its value at current prices. At March 1989, British Coal's estimate of the current market value was £584 million, compared with a book cost of £207 million.
      I can assure Opposition Members that British Coal is in no financial position to hoard land. In fact, it has stepped up its sales of surplus property to nearly £100 million in the course of this financial year and will have to continue to sell its land if it is to generate cash for reinvestment in the industry.
      Mr. Hardy: In addition to valuing the land and property owned by British Coal, will the Minister put a notional figure on the value of the coal reserves in the United Kingdom?
      Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman has anticipated my next paragraph. Unworked coal reserves are not included in the balance sheet, but they represent an immense and vital national asset. If they were sold, they would, of course, have to be valued, but I am certainly not envisaging that unworked reserves, as distinct from the coal mining industry, would ever be privatised. Nevertheless, I understand the feeling expressed in Committee, that, as steward of our coal reserves, British Coal might provide a fuller and more regular analysis of the volume of reserves in each coalfield. It is important information and I shall certainly draw the matter to the attention of Sir Robert Haslam.
      Mr. Alexander Eadie: This is an important point. I am sure that some of my hon. Friends will be confused about assets and reserves. The Secretary of State must be aware that pits have closed, not because there was no coal in them, but because it was considered that the economic climate had changed. Pits were deemed unprofitable even though the coal was still there. That coal may even be worked some day, when there is a more realistic appreciation of the value of coal resources. Our worry is that the closure of some pits was a piece of vandalism and that coal was sterilised for all time.
      Mr. Wakeham: I shall leave aside part of what the hon. Gentleman said and come to the central point. I agree that it is not possible to value coal reserves. It is not our intention to do so. We do not envisage privatising that part of the coal industry. We do not believe that it is proper to value coal reserves. The hon. Gentleman will agree that a fuller and more regular analysis of the volume of reserves in each coalfield is more important than artificial and meaningless assessments of their value.
      I shall make a request to Sir Robert Haslam to make more information about the volume of reserves available. Many people involved in the coal industry would like to have such information. I agree that it would not be fruitful to attempt to value coal reserves.
      Clause 1 provides that I may pay deficiency grant up to the level of the deficiency shown in British Coal's accounts. I cannot guarantee that I shall fully extinguish the deficiency to the last penny. For one thing, part of the grant represents state aid requiring the approval of the European Coal and Steel Community. The level of grant will have to be sufficient to clear up British Coal's balance sheet to the point where I can properly continue to lend to the Corporation. In other words, there must be a genuine

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      prospect that it can service and repay its remaining debt. This means that a very substantial amount of deficiency grant will be required.
      I now turn to the subsidence aspects of the new clause. First, I assure the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) that the deficiency already allows sums to cover its estimated liability for compensation for subsidence damage. The adequacy of these sums will automatically be reviewed by British Coal's auditors at the end of each year. The sums do not allow for the effect of further legislation on subsidence. It is not possible to make a proper assessment of any increase in the liability on this account until details of the Government's legislation are finalised. I do not expect that the extra liability will be significant.
      In response to the point raised by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), whatever British Coal's financial difficulties or liabilities in the past—I hope that such difficulties will not continue—there is no question that any properly settled claim would not be met by British Coal. It could not reasonably plead poverty in settling its debts. That would be unacceptable. I hope that that will help the hon. Member for Mansfield to deal with the human problems in his constituency and in others. I shall deal with the negotiation and settlement of claims later in my speech.
      Mr. Meale: I admire the Secretary of State for his honesty and openness, and I am grateful for his reply.
      Mr. Wakeham: Fine. I appreciate friendly comments, wherever they come from. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) occasionally makes such comments, but they often have a sting in the tail.
      Many claims are already being met by British Coal. I am pleased to tell the House that the trends are encouraging. The number of new claims continues to fall. In 1988–89, British Coal received 9,600 new claims, some 2,300 less than the previous year. British Coal settled about 10,000 claims, at a cost of nearly £50 million. A further 4,600 claims were rejected, with the result that the total number of cases outstanding fell by about 5,000 compared with the previous year, to a little over 26,000. That compares with backlogs of 37,000 in 1986–87 and 52,000 in 1983–84.
      It may be helpful to the House to run through what has happened since the Waddilove committee on subsidence reported in 1984, and the Government's White Paper response was issued in 1987. As the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras said, the Waddilove report on repair and compensation for coal mining damage made 65 recommendations, not all of which required legislation to be implemented. It is worth recalling that the report did not call for a radical overhaul of the existing system. It concluded that the thrust of the existing legislation was broadly right but needed strengthening in a number of areas. I draw the attention of hon. Members to paragraph 169 of the report.
      Between the publication of the Waddilove report and the Government's White Paper response, British Coal introduced several improvements to its management procedures. The result was that, by the time that our White Paper was published, over half of Waddilove's recommendations had been implemented, wholly or in part. In response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member
      202
      for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Dr. Woodcock), the Official Report listed those improvements in January last year.
      For example, British Coal now acts in accordance with Waddilove's recommendation that priority should be given to the repair of damage and that payments in lieu should be made only in exceptional circumstances. It also repairs all property to a good standard, even though the Coals Mining (Subsidence) Act 1957 requires British Coal only to make the property "reasonably fitted" for use.
      British Coal does not strictly apply the time limit in the 1957 Act, which requires a claim to be made within two months of the damage becoming apparent and will generally accept claims up to six years after the damage occurred. Several hon. Members spoke about the time limit. I recognise that that causes problems. That is why we propose a change in new legislation to make the position abundantly clear.
      I am advised that claims will be allowed up to six years from when the claimant first had reasonable grounds to believe that damage had occurred. That is six years, not from when the mining took place, or from when the damage occurred, but from when the damage appeared. I hope that my comments will be of help to people who are in any doubt about that.
      Mr. Dobson: Does the Secretary of State accept that there are still problems? When a person claims that his house has been damaged, it is possible for the Coal Board to say, "The houses on either side were damaged four years ago, so you are out of time." As the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Dr. Woodcock) said, the Coal Board can say in effect, "You have suffered from the damage for so long that we will not pay you any compensation."
      6.30 pm
      Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that the position is not entirely satisfactory, but I said what I did in order that the legal position should be as clear as I am advised that it is. But we recognise that legislation is necessary to make that crystal clear.
      Some hon. Members have suggested that more should be done in advance of legislation. We agree, and I am actively looking to move things forward. That is why we are preparing a new version of my Department's advisory leaflet, often refered to as the Green Book. That will describe new procedures agreed between the Department and British Coal for dealing with subsidence claims. Those procedures will, as far as possible, incorporate the best aspects of both the existing Acts and anticipate our proposals for legislation. I am well aware of the anxiety that claimants may suffer simply from not knowing how to proceed. I hope that that will go some small way to reduce uncertainty in the minds of claimants until such time as our new legislation is implemented.
      Secondly, the House may recall from the White Paper that we said that we would conduct an attitude survey to assess public satisfaction with British Coal's notification procedures. If the existing arrangements are found to be unsatisfactory, British Coal will be required to notify individual households. The fieldwork for that survey is now complete and I expect a report shortly.
      Thirdly, because of the prospect of early legislation we have brought forward the review of disputes procedures which Waddilove recommended should take place in 1990.

      203
      That, in part, answers some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse). That review is now under way and will look at a range of options. We shall shortly be consulting more widely and I hope that the outcome will be a simpler, quicker and cheaper way for claimants to resolve disputes with British Coal.
      The options that we are looking at include a better defined and more widely available form of independent adjudication; lower-tier to the Lands Tribunal, roughly equivalent to a small claims court; an ombudsman; a legal advice centre, and a disputes procedure based on the rules of the Institute of Arbitrators. At this stage it is not possible to anticipate the outcome of this review or when and how its findings will be implemented, but it may be possible for a new system to be agreed and established without legislation.
      I shall consider carefully all the points that have been made by my hon. Friends the Members for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) and for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Howarth), and the hon. Members for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and for Mansfield, along with the other helpful suggestions that have been made.
      The Government remain committed to introducing a Bill on subsidence at the earliest possible opportunity, but subsidence is a complex area. There are two Acts which currently apply. We are not only introducing positive improvements, we are also consolidating two Acts into one Bill. Some of the provisions of these Acts, while desirable, are not always as clear as they should be.
      Many hon. Members will be only too aware of the uncertainties surrounding the interpretation of the six-year rule, on which we have already had exchanges. I accept that fully. Unravelling those Acts and replacing them with a lucid and comprehensive new Bill will involve a lot of "lawyer's law" which will require careful drafting and careful scrutiny by the House and in Committee. Moreover, a great deal of work and further consultation is going on and we want the legislation to reflect its outcome.
      For those reasons, it would be neither practical nor desirable to tack subsidence provisions on to the present short, primarily financial, Bill which is urgently required by the end of the financial year. I was responsible for the business of the House for long enough to know that I cannot predict when the legislation will be introduced. That is a matter for decision elsewhere. But I am sure that the Government, in reaching their decision on the timing of a Bill, will wish to take full account of the views expressed today, and I hope that on that basis the Opposition will withdraw the new clause.
      Mr. Dobson: We do not want to withdraw the new clause, because this is an urgent matter. It is getting on for six years since the Waddilove committee reported. Its recommendations are sufficiently clear, and they should be implemented now.
      If the Secretary of State is not prepared to amend the Bill at this point or to see it amended in the other place, let me remind him of his previous incarnation as Leader of the House. In the previous Session of Parliament, we saw through the House the lowest number of Bills in an ordinary Session since the second world war, and in the Session before that we saw through the lowest number of Bills ever seen through the first Session of a Parliament
      204
      since the second world war. We are promised that there will be even fewer Bills in this Session, so there must be room in the Government's legislative programme for this important measure. If the right hon. Gentleman wants his hon. Friends to drop the National Health Service and Community Care Bill, or the Education (Student Loans) Bill, we shall facilitate that.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The House divided: Ayes 175, Noes 246.

      Division No. 36]

      [6.35 pm

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

      Allen, Graham

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Anderson, Donald

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Gordon, Mildred

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Gould, Bryan

      Ashton, Joe

      Graham, Thomas

      Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Barron, Kevin

      Grocott, Bruce

      Battle, John

      Hardy, Peter

      Beckett, Margaret

      Haynes, Frank

      Beith, A. J.

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Benn, Rt Hon Tony

      Henderson, Doug

      Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

      Hinchliffe, David

      Blunkett, David

      Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

      Boyes, Roland

      Hood, Jimmy

      Bradley, Keith

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Howells, Geraint

      Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

      Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

      Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

      Hoyle, Doug

      Buchan, Norman

      Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

      Buckley, George J.

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Callaghan, Jim

      Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

      Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

      Illsley, Eric

      Campbell-Savours, D. N.

      Ingram, Adam

      Canavan, Dennis

      Janner, Greville

      Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

      Clay, Bob

      Kennedy, Charles

      Clelland, David

      Lambie, David

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Lamond, James

      Coleman, Donald

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Leighton, Ron

      Corbett, Robin

      Lewis, Terry

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Litherland, Robert

      Cousins, Jim

      Livsey, Richard

      Cox, Tom

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Cryer, Bob

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Cummings, John

      Loyden, Eddie

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      McAllion, John

      Dalyell, Tam

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Darling, Alistair

      McCartney, Ian

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      McFall, John

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

      Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'I)

      McKelvey, William

      Dixon, Don

      McLeish, Henry

      Dobson, Frank

      Maclennan, Robert

      Doran, Frank

      McNamara, Kevin

      Douglas, Dick

      McWilliam, John

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

      Madden, Max

      Eadie, Alexander

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Marek, Dr John

      Fatchett, Derek

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

      Fearn, Ronald

      Martlew, Eric

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Maxton, John

      Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

      Meale, Alan

      Fisher, Mark

      Michael, Alun

      Flannery, Martin

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Flynn, Paul

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

      Foster, Derek

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Foulkes, George

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Fyfe, Maria

      Mowlam, Marjorie

      Galloway, George

      Mullin, Chris

      205

      Murphy, Paul

      Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E)

      Nellist, Dave

      Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Spearing, Nigel

      O'Brien, William

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Pendry, Tom

      Stott, Roger

      Pike, Peter L.

      Strang, Gavin

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Radice, Giles

      Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

      Redmond, Martin

      Turner, Dennis

      Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

      Vaz, Keith

      Richardson, Jo

      Walley, Joan

      Robertson, George

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Rogers, Allan

      Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

      Rooker, Jeff

      Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan

      Rowlands, Ted

      Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

      Ruddock, Joan

      Winnick, David

      Salmond, Alex

      Short, Clare

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Skinner, Dennis

      Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie and

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Mr. Ken Eastham.

      Smith, C. (Isl'ton & F'bury)

      NOES

      Alexander, Richard

      Gran, James

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Critchley, Julian

      Allason, Rupert

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

      Amess, David

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Amos, Alan

      Day, Stephen

      Arbuthnot, James

      Devlin, Tim

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Ashby, David

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Atkinson, David

      Dover, Den

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

      Dunn, Bob

      Baldry, Tony

      Durant, Tony

      Batiste, Spencer

      Eggar, Tim

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

      Bellingham, Henry

      Evennett, David

      Bendall, Vivian

      Fallon, Michael

      Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Favell, Tony

      Benyon, W.

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Fishburn, John Dudley

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Fookes, Dame Janet

      Boswell, Tim

      Forman, Nigel

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Forth, Eric

      Bowis, John

      Fox, Sir Marcus

      Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

      Franks, Cecil

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Freeman, Roger

      Brazier, Julian

      French, Douglas

      Bright, Graham

      Fry, Peter

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & CI't's)

      Gale, Roger

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

      Gill, Christopher

      Buck, Sir Antony

      Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

      Budgen, Nicholas

      Goodhart, Sir Philip

      Burns, Simon

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Burt, Alistair

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Butler, Chris

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Butterfill, John

      Gow, Ian

      Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Grist, Ian

      Carrington, Matthew

      Ground, Patrick

      Carttiss, Michael

      Hague, William

      Chope, Christopher

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Churchill, Mr

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

      Hannam, John

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr)

      Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

      Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Harris, David,

      Colvin, Michael

      Hayes, Jerry

      Conway, Derek

      Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

      Hayward, Robert

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Cormack, Patrick

      Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

      Couchman, James

      Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

      206

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Hind, Kenneth

      Raffan, Keith

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Redwood, John

      Holt, Richard

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Hordern, Sir Peter

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Howard, Rt Hon Michael

      Riddick, Graham

      Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Hunt, David (Wirral W)

      Rossi, Sir Hugh

      Hunter, Andrew

      Rost, Peter

      Irvine, Michael

      Rowe, Andrew

      Jack, Michael

      Ryder, Richard

      Janman, Tim

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Jessel, Toby

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

      Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Shelton, Sir William

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Kilfedder, James

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

      Shersby, Michael

      King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

      Sims, Roger

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Knapman; Roger

      Speller, Tony

      Knight, Greg (Derby North)

      Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

      Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Knowles, Michael

      Squire, Robin

      Knox, David

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Lang, Ian

      Steen, Anthony

      Latham, Michael

      Stern, Michael

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Stradling Thomas, Sir John

      Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

      Sumberg, David

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Summerson, Hugo

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Lightbown, David

      Taylor, John M (Solihull)

      Lilley, Peter

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Lord, Michael

      Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

      Macfarlane, Sir Neil

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

      Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

      Maclean, David

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Thornton, Malcolm

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

      Thurnham, Peter

      Malins, Humfrey

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Mans, Keith

      Tracey, Richard

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Trippier, David

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Viggers, Peter

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Walden, George

      Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

      Walker, Bill (T'side North)

      Mellor, David

      Waller, Gary

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Ward, John

      Miller, Sir Hal

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Mills, lain

      Warren, Kenneth

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Watts, John

      Mitchell, Sir David

      Wells, Bowen

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Wheeler, Sir John

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Whitney, Ray

      Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Moss, Malcolm

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Nelson, Anthony

      Wilshire, David

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Norris, Steve

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

      Wood, Timothy

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Woodcock, Dr. Mike

      Paice, James

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Patnick, Irvine

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Mr. Sydney Chapman and

      Portillo, Michael

      Mr. Tom Sackville.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    Clause 4

      LICENSING OF COAL WORKING, SEARCHING AND BORING
      Mr. Dobson: I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 27, at end insert—
      '(c) in paragraph (c) after the word "tonnes" there shall be inserted "except that no operation shall proceed where the land was included in Acts of Enclosure which were enacted prior to 1840 and is currently devoted to agriculture, forestry or recreational purposes.".'.
      Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 5, in page 2, line 27, at end insert—
      '(c) in paragraph (c) after "tonnes", there shall be inserted "and when undertakings have been made by the operators for the restoration of the land affected by the working of coal or by operations incidental to such working.".'.
      No. 1, in page 2, line 27, at end insert—
      '(1A) After subsection (2) of that section there shall be inserted—
      "(2AA) Applicants for a licence under subsection 2(c) above shall undertake to deposit a bond, with the relevant local authority, sufficient to cover the costs of the restoration of land affected by operations under that licence as estimated by that local authority.".'.
      Mr. Dobson: This group of amendments is intended to ensure that the activities of private opencast operators are brought up to the standards of the opencast operations of British Coal. That does not mean that we think that British Coal's opencast operations are necessarily as good as they should be.
      Amendment No. 4 is a shrewd amendment, which was originally tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy). It relates to the enclosure Acts, many of which specified that when common land was enclosed hedgerows should be established and then maintained in perpetuity. My hon. Friend will explain at greater length that, although that legislation is still in force, regrettably—even under the present law-and-order Government—it is not enforced. Amendment No. 4 seeks to offer protection wherever there is a threat of opencasting.
      I am reminded of a piece of doggerel that was popular at about the time of the Enclosure Acts, which my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) will recall, as may other right hon. and hon. Members:
      "The fault is great in man or woman
      Who steals a goose from off a common.
      But what can plead the man's excuse
      Who steals the common from the goose?"
      Common land is now enclosed only because hedges were erected around it—and if they are required to be removed, eventually they should be replaced.
      We argue that private operators of opencast sites should not be allowed to expand the scale of their operations from 25,000 tonnes to 250,000 tonnes, but if the Government persist in increasing the maximum take tenfold, there should be a substantial improvement also in the protection given to local communities, to match the operators' degree of exploitation.
      There is no doubt that further protection is needed. Over the years, many reports have illustrated the problems created by licensed opencast sites. One of the most thorough—albeit that it is now somewhat old, having been
      208
      published in 1984—was that produced by the minerals and reclamation group of the County Planning Officers Society. It describes problems that confronted its members and local communities in no fewer than six counties. The report runs to 17 pages, and its contents should be noted.
      One of the problems that the report reveals is that operators do not observe conditions of operation, nor do they fulfil their obligations to restore an opencast site when their work is finished. Amendments Nos. 1 and 5 require operators to enter into an agreement to meet certain conditions. Also, after an operator has sought and obtained planning consent, the planning authority will secure a bond to cover the cost of the required restoration work. If the operator does not honour its obligations, the county council will have the funds to undertake the necessary work in default, at the operator's expense. That is only right and proper.
      The planning officers' report lists numerous examples of conditions not being fulfilled. In one case, a condition restricting the height of the overburden mound was disregarded. The mound was too high and caused a nuisance to local people. A condition restricting the noise emanating from the site was also disregarded, causing trouble to local people.
      The report cites an example of the shady behaviour of which operators are capable. At another site, an operator
      "was unable to comply with agreed working scheme because of the cost of replacing overburden in worked out area."
      The planning authority was virtually blackmailed into granting additional planning consent for another area of opencasting, so that the operator could finance the restoration work required at the first site. That approach is typical.
      The report describes flooding in a village adjacent to an opencast site in another county because of inadequate drainage. At the same site,
      "non-compliance with approved time period and phased working scheme caused greater disruption in the area than necessary, and lasted longer than necessary."
      On a different site in the same county, a condition to protect the stability of the highway and road safety by providing a 40 ft safeguarding strip alongside the highway boundary was disregarded. Instead, extraction took place right up to the highway boundary, which undermined the highway itself.
      At another site, consent was given for only 18 months' working. The report observes:
      "Slow rate of working because contractors kept 'diverting' machinery to sites which they considered more urgent"—
      and which presumably paid better. On that 52-acre site, the operator won about 40,000 tonnes of coal over seven years—but the neighbouring community had to pay a big price for that.
      As to the original amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for the Member for Wentworth, the report gives another example of an operator being provided with a detailed working plan and conditions relating to the safeguarding of hedges—but removing the hedges and then applying for retrospective planning consent to do so. Meanwhile, severe damage was caused to the landscape.
      My final example relates to a site that was inadequately restored because the operator went bust. If the operator had been required to lodge a bond with the county council, money would have been available to complete the restoration. As it was, the council was left to decide

      209
      whether to use the money of its ratepayers—soon, poll tax payers—to compensate for the fiddles perpetrated by the private operator.
      I notified the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) of my intention to mention a site in his constituency, which he may recognise from the photographs that I have. I refer to the Rope walk north site worked by United Mining Ltd. which won 18,265 tonnes between June and August 1987. The photograph was taken in December 1989 and shows that the promised restoration work had still not been undertaken. It may be that it was completed over Christmas and in the new year, but that seems unlikely. That is another example of things going wrong in the east midlands because an operator failed to comply with its original undertaking or with the planning authority's conditions.
      Other examples are to be found in the report, "Opencast—casting a shadow", published in 1989 by the Durham Area Miners Support Group. The chapter on private opencasting is entitled, "Licence to make a killing?". That is certainly what some operators have been doing. In Northumberland, R and A Young was working both the Jacks Law extension and Wandylaw moor sites under two licences so that that company could keep within the tonnage limit.
      7 pm
      Mr. Gerry Steinberg (City of Durham): The company that my hon. Friend mentioned is considering submitting an application for a further site in my constituency. The life of that site will probably he 30 years. The initial application for a site at Gassop near Bowburn in Durham is for opencasting for three years and drift mining for 26 years. The opencast mine will probably be expected to last even longer than that. It is appalling to have such an application in an area of landscape beauty and scientific interest. How will the amendment prevent companies such as R and A Young from exploiting the countryside in my constituency and making life miserable for many people? If its application were to be accepted, life around Bowburn would he unbearable for 30 years.
      Mr. Dobson: I understand perfectly what my hon. Friend is saying. As was explained in Committee, opencast sites are a great menace, not only on environmental grounds but because they are a threat to health with the dust that blows from them. There is little evidence that private contractors are willing to comply with any conditions that anyone may seek to place upon them. If my hon. Friend's constituency is of such outstanding natural beauty, but without the capital letters at the beginning of each word, it is probably best if the county council turns down the application. If the company then wants to appeal to the Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member who has moved from being the coal Minister to being the appropriate Minister at the Department of the Environment will give close attention to that application. We must recognise that the position is grotesquely unsatisfactory.
      Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale): I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that the Government have weakened the planning powers of local authorities to refuse permission on environmental grounds. Local authorities are now told to take the financial aspects into consideration—that means the commercial interests of those making the
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      application for opencasting. That is weakening the powers of local authorities and creating havoc for the local communities.
      Mr. Dobson: That is certainly the case. Ministers say that they are green; indeed, they are practically coming into the House wearing green suits. However, they have not withdrawn any of the ludicrous circulars that were issued when the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) was the Secretary of State for the Environment. He basically said, "If any rich Tories in business want to make a planning application, it will be granted." That is a rough summary of the circulars that he issued.
      Mr. Kevin Barron: Not for building sites.
      Mr. Dobson: As my hon. Friend points out, there was a caveat that that should not apply to an application for building development within the view of the former Secretary of State's house. There were obviously certain special considerations from time to time.
      Mr. David Ashby (Leicestershire, North-West): Snide.
      Mr. Dobson: Yes, they are snide remarks. However, it
      is humbug—the only description I can use in the House
      —for a Secretary of State to go around the country saying,
      "You must give up your view and put up with noise and
      filth for the sake of other people having homes or for the
      sake of the country's industrial development—but that
      does not apply to a planning application near my house."
      On the problems of small operators in opencasting, the
      report from the Durham Area Miners Support Group
      says:
      "As private operators tend to apply for smaller pockets of coal which can be worked relatively quickly, they claim that their operations are only temporary."
      However, once operators have started on a site and
      obtained permission to work on it, they return and make further applications for work in adjoining or adjacent areas. That has proved a useful way of sidestepping the 25,000 tonnes licensing limit. In future, they will make multiple applications for 250,000 tonnes. They will do it in
      the same way, but on a much larger scale.
      One operator in the north-east applied for four changes to the conditions, including to be
      "allowed to run the washery on the site on a 24-hour basis"—
      which was noisy. It also asked to be
      "allowed to destroy a belt of trees which in their original application they had argued would be left as it added interest to the landscape while the site was recovering."
      It took the trees some time to recover as they were chopped down. There is little sign that they are restored to their former health. Sites have been left unrestored for years.
      I shall cite an example to justify our proposal for introducing a requirement for applicants to place a bond with the county council. At present, they can be required by British Coal to place a bond with British Coal, but that does not necessarily do the trick because British Coal's relationship with those people is not just to do with the environment. In Durham, the county council asked British Coal to invoke a bond. British Coal duly informed the
      council:
      "No decision as to the possible use of the bond can be taken until the corporation has resolved other financial matters"
      not with the orginal applicant, but
      "with the receiver."

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      It was interested in taking the bond money to make up for other moneys that it did not get from the receiver when the company had gone bust. The problem was that that bond was not used simply to protect the environment. Our proposal means that the bond would be used only to protect the environment. It would have to be placed with the county council and, if the operators failed to comply with the conditions on the site or failed to restore the site, they would lose their bond money.
      As anyone who has anything to do with opencast operators knows—and it can apply to British Coal sites as well—things that go wrong and breaches of the operating restrictions that are imposed when an application is granted are difficult to deal with. If they work all night for two or three days and ruin the night's sleep of a neighbouring village, there is not much that the county council can do about it. It can say three days later, "Don't do it again," but it cannot put things right. If operators louse up a watercourse and flood a field or village, that cannot easily be put right. We need the restrictions.
      Other aspects of the performance of private operators are equally bothersome. Some of the sites move from the opencast executive of British Coal to the private operators or back again, depending on the size of the workings. That swapping about is not intended to improve the environment or to protect the interests of neighbouring communities.
      Another aspect that needs to be considered, which is bringing the operators, the county councils and the system into dispute, in County Durham in particular, is what might be called the transfer of staff—that is the best interpretation of it—between the regulatory authorities and the organisations that they are supposed to be regulating. In recent times, a planning officer and a land and property officer from Durham county council went to work for one of the mining companies. Then a person who did land agency work for that council went to work for the same mining company, and shortly afterwards they were joined by the ex-chief executive of a district council in County Durham. I shall say no more about that, but corruption charges are outstanding at the moment.
      I do not suggest that any of the interchanges of staff are necessarily corrupt. I certainly am not saying that about a person who worked in land management for Durham county council and who moved to another company, or a person who was the planning officer with the Gateshead metropolitan borough, who went to yet another of the operators. However, as one legal officer from Durham county council recently pointed out, due to the number of staff who have left the county council to go and work for the private opencast companies, the private operators now know the Durham county structure plan better than the planning department staff. That brings the system into disrepute, and it should be avoided.
      If the Government purblindly and stupidly insist on going ahead with a tenfold increase in the maximum size of opencast private workings, there should be parallel strengthening of the planning laws to protect local people, who are sick to death of the sites that they already have. The amendments are intended to achieve that.
      The Minister may say that the amendments are technically at fault, or that the Government cannot accept them tonight. However, if the Government are serious
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      about trying to protect the environment of people in coalfield communities, they should either accept the amendments or put similar amendments into the Bill in the House of Lords, and we should happily give them a fair wind when they come back to the House.
      Mr. Lester: I thank the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) for telling me that he was going to mention parts of my constituency in his speech.
      I have considerable sympathy with his basic premise that if we intend to extract more coal by the opencast method, we must ensure that extraction is controlled by the most stringent planning conditions and environmental controls that can be conceived.
      The Select Committee on Energy has described opencast mining as:
      "One of the most environmentally destructive processes that is going on in the United Kingdom."
      Certainly, in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire—the counties mentioned during discussion of the last amendment—the Committee regarded opencast mining as a most serious environmental problem.
      In the previous debate, we talked about the cost of coal. It was said that one reason why it is not costed correctly is the lack of protest from those most critically affected by subsidence. Of course, subsidence arises after the coal has been extracted and not much can be done about it. The Secretary of State gave figures—the backlog of 37,000 unprocessed claims has been reduced to 25,000—which show the scale of the problem.
      When we talk about opencast mining and the assets that we hope to extract, we are talking about the future. I can assure the Minister that opencast mining will not get through on the side, because there is understandably great opposition from local groups already.
      I pay tribute to the groups that operate in my constituency to oppose the principle of opencast mining. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mr. Rost) in his place, and I know that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim) will support my point of view.
      Nowadays, it is not enough to say to people who live in mining or ex-mining communities that one should not be surprised if people want to extract coal when one comes to live in a coal mining area. No one who goes to live in a village knows how much coal lies underneath it.
      Mr. Hood: I accept the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Does he agree that many people who move into former mining communities do so on the understanding that there will be no more harrassment from mining works? When they move in they are confronted with proposals for opencast mining. One cannot say that it is their fault because they knew that they were moving into a mining community.
      7.15 pm
      Mr. Lester: People make exhaustive surveys before they buy property, but I have never seen a survey which says that there are workable coal reserves underneath a house, and that one must anticipate that someone will want to extract that coal.
      We are moving into green field sites. That is certainly the experience of my constituents. In the past, opencast mining has been sold on the basis that it uses derelict sites, and will improve them. I pay tribute to the Coal Board because it has certainly improved parts of

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      Nottinghamshire. The Flowers report suggested that 15 per cent. of opencast coal mining was on derelict land but the other figure given by local authorities—25 per cent.—is probably more accurate.
      With the increasing pressure from the Department of Energy to extract cheaper coal—opencast is usually cheaper—the question of the environmental effects of moving into green field sites is serious.
      Mr. Peter Rost: My hon. Friend referred to the report by the Select Committee on Energy. One of its recommendations, which I strongly support, is that the licensing process should go back to the Department of Energy, as was the case with oil and gas licensing. That would provide a first vetting system whereby the Department could say which areas are environmentally suitable and which are not, before planning applications are entered. That would provide more safeguards than the present system, in which the Coal Board retains the patronage for issuing licences, subject only to planning approval.
      Mr. Lester: My hon. Friend makes a valid point.
      One of the great things that has happened in Nottinghamshire, for which I give enormous credit to the present Secretary of State for Wales, is Operation Eyesore. People who work in local government may remember it. Under the scheme, the Government gave 100 per cent. grants to deal with problems caused by mining—to get rid of tips, to level areas and to introduce new controls to change the face of the countryside. That certainly happened in Nottinghamshire. The ugly, tall tips, the black-topped mountains and all the consequences of coal extraction without proper environmental controls are memories now.
      I was chairman of the county finance committee at the time that Operation Eyesore was introduced, and we contributed a pound for every pound that the Government gave and doubled the funds. We cleared Nottinghamshire of the eyesores inherited from the coal industry. I still drive through Nottinghamshire and point out sites that used to be such eyesores. Now, one would not think that those areas had ever been affected by mining. I regret that we now seem to be taking the retrograde step of promoting opencast mining, which has serious environmental effects, and despite modern methods, we will recreate those problems.
      As the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) said, in his constituency they are talking about opencast mining for 20 or 30 years. The potential opencast sites in my constituency, such as Shilo north, which is the subject of a planning inquiry, Beauvale, which is mentioned in the books of D. H. Lawrence, and Robinettes, are green field sites. As the name suggests, Beauvale is a beautiful place, and those areas are among the most attractive parts of my constituency. If the proposals for opencast mining go through, my constituency will be affected for between 25 and 30 years.
      Mr. Steinberg: Applications are now coming in for development of the exceptionally beautiful landscape around a small village in my constituency that has been a coal extraction site for many years. Millions have already been spent on the reclamation of old industrial sites in villages within a two-mile radius; now there is the possibility of a 20 or even 30-year extraction programme in this green field site. All that money has gone down the
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      drain, and now the descendants of the families who first experienced the problems of coal extraction—which has continued for hundreds of years—must put up with identical problems caused by opencast mining. It is crazy.
      Mr. Lester: That reinforces my case. If we are seriously considering opencast mining as an active policy, we must view it more globally, as did the Select Committee on Energy. Under the new mineral-extraction procedures, need no longer has to be proved, but we must consider the cost and the likely impact on the environment.
      I believe that expensive inquiries such as the one that has already taken place in a site in my constituency are not "costed into" the eventual cost of coal extraction. Heavy legal fees may be involved, as the representation of all the objectors may last for two or three months. However, no one has considered the cost of overall compensation paid to a community for the noise, dust, lorries and general nuisance that the process will involve, and for the fact that the very face of the community will be changed. Under present legislation, that cannot possibly be taken into account.
      It is, of course, possible to agree on the development of cricket fields or sports pavilions on certain sites, and we have helped such developments to come about. No one has anticipated the proposed work in these green field sites, however, and the principle of maintaining maximum control and the highest possible standards is therefore essential. I assure my hon. Friend the Minister that neither the House of Commons nor our constituents will simply acquiesce in the various schemes. We need an overall strategy on opencasting; we should not rely on a hotch-potch of policies in the hope that we shall win where we can. My hon. Friend should think through such a strategy, along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. A newspaper article headed "Opencast hot seat" describes a confrontation with my right hon. Friend, who freely admits that the most difficult decision that he must make—in a quasi-judicial capacity—concerns mineral extraction, not just coal extraction.
      The principle behind the amendments should be considered, in the interests of the environment as well as those of the coal and electricity industries. We need a range of much tighter controls on both private and public contractors, to ensure that the only sites to be worked are those that can he worked with the least damage to the environment and local communities. We should perhaps consider a system of preparatory licensing, rather than embarking on expensive planning inquiries that will take for ever and, having spent all that money, end up without enough safeguards. I ask my hon. Friend not to dismiss the amendments lightly, as they deal with a matter that concerns hon. Members on both sides of the House.
      Mr. Malcolm Bruce: I endorse the remarks of the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester), who spoke with the aid of direct constituency knowledge. I am sure that the Minister will take his words to heart, and will recognise that the issue must be confronted. The bald statement in this short Bill that opencast mining licences will raise the production limit from 25,000 to 250,000 tonnes will ring alarm bells in many communities where the horrors of opencasting are already known. A possible tenfold increase will affect a much larger area and many more communities, and the Government must give us an idea of other criteria that may be applied.

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      The hon. Member for Broxtowe rightly referred to the pressure for an expansion of opencasting. He said that the coal would be cheaper, but that will depend on how we "cost" the environment, and unfortunately we have no mechanism with which to do that at present. The Secretary of State has said that he is looking into some of the suggestions made by academics and economists who have proposed the use of taxation or some other financial mechanism to put a price on environmental pressures, but at present not even the cost of a public inquiry—which imposes a considerable burden on the community—is counted in the cost of acquiring the coal, and certainly the disruption and damage suffered by communities is not taken into account. The Departments of Energy and of the Environment should put their heads together and try to establish improved environmental criteria and codes of practice.
      The amendments—although useful, valuable and worth taking seriously—all relate to the restoration of sites after workings are completed. It should be written into the Bill, that advance funding will be provided, so that if a company goes bankrupt, the community is not left to bear the cost, but we must also ensure that environmental costs are taken into account while the workings are in place, through a code of practice guaranteeing minimum exposure.
      An operator may wish to open up an extensive area because that is the cheapest and easiest way of getting at the coal, but more limited workings that could later be reinstated and moved on to another phase would reduce environmental damage. We should also seek transport and access measures that would not put all the pressure on one area for 20 or 30 years. The environmental impact of workings must be minimised, even if cost is involved.
      It is slightly disturbing that we should be asked to legislate for such an extension of coal-mining practice in the absence of new criteria and codes of practice, and the Minister will do the House and the public a service if he can inform us that the Government have any new ideas. Without such reassurances, the news of a tenfold increase in licence allocation will give no comfort to many coalfield communities.
      7.30 pm
      Mr. Ashby: I welcome the Under-Secretary and the Secretary of State to the Department of Energy because I detect the presence of a completely new spirit in that Department. That new attitude represents, I believe, a breath of fresh air. The problems that have faced that Department over the years have been such that I hope that the window is always kept open and that we shall continue to have fresh air blowing in, because significant changes must be made in the extraction of coal in Britain.
      I do not agree with those who say that we should support the coal industry no matter what. Rather, we must look at the total costing, including that to the environment, before we embark on a given project. I should be happier to import coal from, say, South Africa and Australia, where it is cheaper, in the sure knowledge that later our own coal will have risen in value to the extent that we can extract it at a price that will be profitable and
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      that will take into account the environmental impact of extraction, because, as I say, we must look at the totality of the cost.
      I represent a constituency that has been devastated by opencast mining. Indeed, I consider it to be one of the worst areas for opencasting.
      Mr. Hardy: Does the hon. Gentleman live there?
      Mr. Ashby: Yes. Not only do I have a home in the constituency but I have just purchased a new house there, and there are plans for an enormous opencast site right next door to that house, although I purchased it in the knowledge that the application would take place. I assure Opposition Members that I have witnessed the effects of opencast mining on my area and the people who live there.
      The Bill is intended to grant licences for large amounts of extraction. Will the Minister say—he may care to answer in writing—how many sites there have been in Britain over the years when extraction of 25,000 tonnes has been exceeded? In other words, does he know how often the licensed amount has been greatly exceeded? I assure him that there are many such examples, and if he does not believe me he should come to my constituency and see for himself.
      There has been sharp practice by British Coal over the years. We note that, for opencasting, British Coal deposits long-term plans. A private operator makes an application for a certain tonnage, and then goes over that amount. The opencast division of British Coal takes over the site and says that the operator is acting as its agent or under contract to it. In that way, British Coal gets more from a given area, and a lot of sharp practice of that type is going on.
      Over the years, British Coal, in most coal-mining areas, has been Big Brother. One need only examine the legislation on the subject to see the effect that that has had. For many years, large numbers of Opposition Members were members of, or were sponsored by, the NUM—whether or not under the Hastings agreement—and they used to kow-tow to British Coal. Whatever British Coal said, they agreed to.
      For a long time we lived with that attitude of subservience to British Coal—[Interruption.] That was the case. I witnessed it. Indeed, in many areas in which people were employed largely by British Coal they had a feeling of subservience to British Coal. As a result, things took place which in other areas would never have been allowed to occur. People were afraid to object or to take on British Coal. They agreed to things to which nobody else would have agreed. British Coal got away with murder in some areas, and it is still getting away with murder.
      In environmental terms, there is the possibility of the deposit of a bond. That is a good idea, but we must not lose sight of the fact that local authorities receive rating revenue in relation to the number of tonnes of extraction from sites. It has always been difficult to discover how much they get. It took me two years of questioning and research to find out the percentage, but I have never been able to discover how much a local authority receives for any one site.
      Local authorities will never divulge that information; that money goes into the general rating fund and never returns to the affected areas. The community is entitled to restoration and some compensation, and to a large extent the money for that is there and has come from the

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      extraction process. That money should be used—because it is available—by local authorities and county councils in the areas that have been devastated and destroyed by opencast mining. The money should be used not only to repair roads and so on but to make the environnmental improvements that are needed.
      Mr. Skinner: Many years ago, the Tory-controlled Derbyshire county council had a policy which was, by and large, to allow any opencast application by the opencast executive of British Coal to go through. In 1981, we had a change of administration locally. The Labour group got control and it decided to adopt the policy that, when hon. Members who represented the areas concerned objected, such opencast applications would be opposed, and to a degree that policy has been successful. British Coal has on occasion conducted separate inquiries and won the day, with the support of the Tory Government and the Secretary of State for the Environment.
      Meanwhile, the Labour-controlled Derbyshire county council has had a proud record in opposing opencast mining applications, and that flies in the face of what the hon. Member has said. I assure him that that council has been supported in its policy by those working in the mines and by local councillors, and many opencast applications have been opposed by me, supported by many of my hon. Friends.
      In other words, in my part of the world, the people who have supported British Coal have been the Tory-controlled Derbyshire county council, Tory councils in general and Tory Secretaries of State who have allowed mammoth opencastings to proceed. That is why I am currently opposing the application at the Pinnock site, the application at Slayley, the one at Stanfree that has reared its ugly head, and the application at Rainge near Morton and Clay Cross. I and many of my hon. Friends are opposing all of them, because those applications are designed to line the pockets of the friends of the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West.
      Mr. Ashby: To some extent, I am pleased to hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I urge him to cross the border into Leicestershire and speak to those who run the Labour-controlled Leicestershire county council, who always lie down and do exactly what British Coal asks them, and who grant one planning permission after another. I attack the Labour party in Leicestershire, the members of which have acted disgracefully towards the people of north-west Leicestershire. I blame them for much of what has happened in my constituency.
      I did not want to put this matter on a party political basis, but the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) should know that the story of planning applications in Leicestershire is totally different from the story in Derbyshire.
      We also have the problem of old consents which do not allow for the full and proper restoration of sites. There should be a review of sites with old consents, and modern conditions should be placed on them. There is a site—one of the many areas of devastation in my constituency—which started off as a small clay extraction. It began with a pottery firm, and only a small amount of clay was required. After 10 or 12 years, that pottery firm was taken over by a larger pottery firm, and in due course that was taken over not by another pottery firm but by a company which was interested in extracting coal.
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      That firm is using the existing consent to make an application for the extraction of 25,000 tonnes. It has bought all the land, going way back. We all know that that is not a 25,000-tonne application but one for 250,000 or 300,000 tonnes. The consents in respect of the original site are old and do not provide for proper restoration. I am getting no satisfaction from the company or from the county council in terms of the proper restoration of the site.
      What we really require is not the separation of the licensing and the planning, but a coming together of the two. We in Leicestershire want an insistence on long-term planning for extraction. We all understand that there is coal under the ground which at some time will have to be extracted by opencast mines, because we need the energy, but it is not difficult to accept that a certain hill or park has reserves that we plan to take out in 30, 40 or 50 years' time, and to put in a planning application now. Then we could specify that trees should be planted for afforestation of the area.
      There is no need for us to devastate the countryside. We should plant trees around a site and then extract the coal from the centre. Nobody would know the extraction was taking place, as the forest would deaden the sound and the dust and would improve the environment.
      Mr. Hardy: But the trees would die.
      Mr. Ashby: Not if they are properly planted. In that way, we would achieve the necessary extraction in the long term, while ensuring that it was environmentally acceptable.
      In north-west Leicestershire, we are hoping for a new midlands forest which will stretch from the Charnwood forest across Derbyshire to Staffordshire. That is a delightful concept, which has my total support. What is really needed is a policy from the Department of Energy and from British Coal that includes the concept of a forest, bearing in mind the requirements of the Department of Energy and the environmental effects. We should apply the concept that the dirty, noisy, nasty extraction can be carried out in a way that is acceptable environmentally and to everyone. If we do that, we shall be successful.
      It is no good for an area to have an opencast mine such as Coalfield north in the Ravenstone area—a large opencast mine which operates for 10 or 12 years and causes great upheaval. When there are explosions, the houses shake and that causes damage, although British Coal always says that it is not responsible, despite the fact that the damage always occurs after an explosion. British Coal continually denies responsibility. One could put up with one opencast mine, but having suffered 12 years of one site as soon as that site is finished there will be another one right next door to it and then there will be another, until they encircle the entire area. We can never get away from it.
      If we are to allow opencast mines of such a size, extracting 250,000 tonnes, there has to be only one licence per area at any given time. When that licence has been exhausted, the area must have a chance to rest and the people who live there must be given the opportunity to live a normal life away from opencasting. There should be a gap at least 20 years before there is another series of opencasting in the area.

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      7.45 pm
      The friends of the hon. Member for Bolsover on Leicestershire county council take the view that the coal is there, and that the sooner it is extracted the better. That means 50 or 60 years of absolute hell for the people who live in north-west Leicestershire, and presumably it will be heaven for our grandchildren. But no doubt there will be something else to be extracted when the coal is finished and the hon. Gentleman's friends, if they exist then—I doubt that they will exist, given the current political climate—will insist—
      Mr. Barron: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Ashby: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, as he is about to walk straight into it.
      Mr. Barron: The Labour party does not control North-West Leicestershire district council, but the hon. Gentleman is making all those accusations. Surely he should be levelling his accusations at the Department of the Environment, which changed the regulations for opencast coal, giving people the right to mine coal before there is any development on the land. The Government whom the hon. Gentleman supports have done all the damage.
      Mr. Ashby: The hon. Gentleman has got it absolutely wrong. The Labour party, together with its Liberal allies, absolutely controls Leicestershire county council. The Labour party also controls North-West Leicestershire district council. The Conservatives do not control either council, so the hon. Gentleman's friends are responsible all the way along.
      Mr. Dobson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Ashby: In a moment.
      It is really a question of long-term planning and taking into account the history of an area—how much opencasting there has been in the past and how much devastation has occurred—and deciding what should be done in future. It is important to have long-term plans and to consider the past and the future. In that way, people can just about live alongside opencast mining. It is absolutely essential that long-term planning should take into account past planning, that there should be only one opencast mine at a time and that there should be environmental preparation for a given opencast site before such a site is allowed.
      Mr. Ted Rowlands: Having listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Ashby), I trust that he will be with us in the Lobby tonight. He could go at least that modest distance, as our amendments are modest compared with many of the problems.
      In one month last summer, British Coal, supported by the Government, closed two pits in my constituency—two of the six pits that have been closed in the past 18 months in a 25-mile radius. In the same 18 months, British Coal and private opencast operators have proposed to dig up both sides of my valley and the neighbouring valley. The communities put up with many of the problems of deep-mine pits in our valleys, because we believed in those jobs. Having closed those pits and sealed off millions of tonnes of reserves by capping the shafts of Merthyr Vale
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      colliery within a month of the closure, the very communities that supported the industry and sacrificed their environment are not willing to sacrifice it any longer.
      The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester)—99 per cent. of whose speech I support—spoke about the green field sites. I should tell him that the existing coal mining valley communities also want to join the environmental protection society as much as those who are threatened.
      There is coal in every one of my hillsides. There is no doubt about that. They do not need much drilling, although drilling is already taking place. There is coal in all our hillsides—tonnes of it—but the communities have had enough.
      We accept the need to diversify our economy. One of the clearest contradictions of the clause which we seek to amend is the economic contradiction of the lessons that we are being taught by the Government. The Prime Minister, in a rare visit to a Welsh mining community recently, told the people to cheer up, to consider the change in the environment and the need to diversify economically, to create light industry and to develop the service and tourist industries. Before she came, and even before the present Secretary of State for Wales came, we had been doing just that. We had recognised that we had to change the basis of the economy and get away from the dirty, extractive industries to a high-tech industrial service sector. We are in the process of doing that, supported by the Secretary of State for Wales in his valleys initiative.
      I will give one classic example in my constituency to illustrate the contradiction in the clause. We are building a new business park in Pentrebach in the middle of the Merthyr valley. It will be a beautiful development with modern factories. At the centre of the business park are the business headquarters of the Welsh Development Agency. The site looks good. It will be a prime valley industrial site for light industry and other commercial development.
      Within the last week or two, there has been an application by a private opencast contractor to claim 40,000 tonnes. That is the interesting figure; he is already jumping the gun set by the 25,000 tonnes. He has obviously read the Bill or understood months ago that this provision was on its way.
      Where is the development proposed? It is immediately in the vicinity of the new business park. There are coal tips which we can clear. There is tremendous support for land reclamation such as we have done since 1, as a junior Minister in the Welsh office in 1969, helped to set up the original derelict land unit. We have done an amazing job. We have cleared tips and altered the landscape by developing grassland. Now there are proposals to dig up the virgin countryside and copses of trees which create a good backdrop to the new business park at Pentrebach.
      If my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) does not mind me saying so, I think that he was too kind to British Coal in his opening remarks. The amendments do not go far enough in regard to the existing operations of British Coal in south Wales. It was British Coal opencast executive that dug one of the largest holes in Europe in my constituency. The Trecatti site is 600 ft deep. It took 20 years at Dowlais Top to do it. The people of Dowlais Top suffered blasting, noise and dust for 20 years. Then it all came to an end. There was a genuine sigh of relief. With the skills that we have to grow grass on our hillsides, even on reclaimed waste land, within six months we had magnificent green grass, with sheep grazing on it.

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      What happened? Within months of the appearance of the new environment, British Coal wanted to develop the area next to it. That means ravaging part of the restored and reclaimed site. When pits are being closed, bringing the loss of jobs that we wanted to maintain, one can imagine the reaction when British Coal at the same time wants to destroy the environment. When people in the area have put up with an environmental handicap for 20 years, hon. Members can imagine their anger and frustration.
      There has been reference to existing planning consents. I can give another illustration, which reinforces the point about the impact that ill-thought-out schemes can have on the immediate environment. The residents came to see me about it only last Saturday. For years, the people of Rhymney had to put up with an existing consent for opencasting. One consequence was a change in the watercourses on the hillside. One night, suddenly all the houses were flooded. That had never happened before. When the opencast site was complete, the hillside was redrained.
      A few weeks ago, drilling rigs from British Coal turned up and started drilling within 60 yards of the houses. British Coal is prospecting for more coal on the very hillside where it caused problems which led to the flooding of the houses. The drilling did not require planning permission or any consultation with the community. British Coal is still drilling. I want a message to go out loud and clear from the House: we cannot stop British Coal drilling but it will not get planning consent from any district or county council to reopen the hillsides of our community.
      I support the amendments. My community, which for 200 years sacrificed the environment for economic development, has been told to learn different tricks, different economic arts and a different basis for the development of its economy. We wish to change faster, because the job gains are not matching the job losses, but we are not willing to suffer again the ravaging of our hillsides and the raping of our mountains. The Secretary of State for Wales has a fine environment in his constituency of Worcester, and has been supporting developments such as I have described in my constituency and in his valleys initiative. When county councils and district councils refuse to give planning permission for opencast development, whether to British Coal or private contractors, we shall expect the Secretary of State for Wales to stand up for our environment.
      I support the amendments, but we need to go further. We should send out a message loud and clear from the House that environmental protection applies not only to marvellous countryside but also to communities that have sacrificed their environment in the past but are no longer willing to do so.
      Mr. Rost: I want to add my support to the concern expressed on both sides of the House about opencast mining. While I am in sympathy with the amendments tabled by the Labour Members, I think that they are asking the impossible. They are really demanding that British Coal, a commercial producer which is anxious to produce as much coal as possible, should also act as regulator. That is impractical. It is like expecting the nationalised water boards to regulate and prosecute themselves.
      That is the very reason why I have argued that the whole licensing system must go back to the Department in
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      the same way that oil and gas licensing is in the hands of the Department. Before an oil company is granted a licence to explore or develop for oil or gas, onshore of offshore, the Department vets whether it is a suitable area and imposes conditions which have to be complied with if the operator is allowed to go ahead. Until such time as the coal reserves are vested again in the Department of Energy on behalf of the State and are then licensed under a vetting system, there cannot be any sensible national planning policy.
      It is quite unreasonable to expect British Coal to do other than grant whatever licences it thinks it can get away with, and it is unreasonable to expect independent planning inquiries to protect the interests of a local community or wider environmental issues.
      I argue that the amendments should go much further. The Department should be responsible for the licensing process, so that there can be a pre-vetting system and a national strategy for opencast mining. Applicants for licences would know that they are being granted licences for opencast mining only when the Department, with its independent monitoring team, can assure itself that it is a satisfactory and suitable area for opencast mining. They would be subject to the criteria of planning approval and of the licence, such as restoring the site properly and environmental protection, which would lead to a far more orderly system of opencast development that is far more acceptable to the communities most affected by it.
      8 pm
      Mr. Hardy: At various times in their political careers, all Conservative Members have demanded that we uphold the law. I was particularly interested by the speech made by the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby), in which he referred to the law and the limit of 25,000 tonnes. About 18 months ago, I discovered that clause 32 of the coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 imposed the limit of 25,000 tonnes and raised the matter in a parliamentary question. Some people in British coal and some private contractors were not very pleased with me at the time, which may be one of the reasons why the Government have decided to bend over backwards to facilitate those who previously were helping themselves. The speech made by the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West suggested that he will approve of my speech, because I also will ask the House to uphold the law.
      Amendment No. 4 may seem rather odd, but it is extremely relevant. I shall give a few historic details so that the House can appreciate the context in which I present it.
      The enclosure of our common land proceeded until 1840, and 4,000 Acts of Enclosure were passed, almost all of which were for the lowlands of England. I obviously have not read all of them, many of which are kept on long rolls in the other place. After 1840, enclosure procedures were covered by a general Act, but before then there were 4,000 of them. Some referred to relatively small areas of common land, but others covered substantial areas.
      My attention was first drawn to those Acts in 1980, when I was seeking to protect the hedgerow. In their greenery, the Government have blocked every attempt to protect hedgerows. My attention was drawn to the fact that, invariably, private Enclosure Acts required that the common land enclosed when fields were established be protected by hedgerows in perpetuity. This is a serious matter, because those Acts have never been repealed. It

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      would suit me if the Government decided that they could ignore those laws and that the terms of the enclosure legislation were no longer legal, because I could say, "Very well, we will return the land to the people." We could restore the common to the descendants of the owner of the goose in the doggerel quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson).
      I should find that a matter for rejoicing, but the Government will not agree to such a dramatic change.
      It is interesting that commons were enclosed largely because of the argument that as the population of England swelled in the industrial revolution, food production had to increase and agricultural efficiency had to be achieved. Yet now, we are talking about reducing agricultural production, so perhaps there is a case for the repeal of the commons legislation.
      In amendment No. 4, I am being perfectly reasonable—I hope that the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West will not say that I am being subservient—in merely asking the Government to uphold the law.
      I first raised the matter in a question to a Minister of Agriculture. I can recall that Minister—I have spoken to him today—leaning on the Dispatch Box and confidently saying, "I have reason to believe that these old measures no longer apply." I took up the matter and correspondence ensued. I established that the last case on the subject was Pratt v. Garnett in 1928. The law was upheld in that case. I pointed out to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that, over the previous 30 or 40 years, millions of pounds of ratepayers' money had been spent on grants for farmers to grub out hedgerows. The Ministry had never bothered to check on that, but I said to the Minister, "You must accept that a huge amount of ratepayers' money, under successive Governments, has been given in grants to grub out hedgerows, which are required to be maintained under the Enclosure Acts."
      I found the correspondence with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods entertaining. The Minister said, "It is not our fault. If someone has been given a grant for grubbing out a hedgerow, we could not have been expected to be aware of the Enclosure Acts; he should have been aware of them, in which case we shall have to recover the full amount of grant that has been paid."
      Some Conservative Members think that the Labour party does not like farmers, which is quite untrue. I recognise that such a burden and blow to an agricultural practitioner could be almost ruinous. I did not wish farmers to be bankrupted, so I drew the matter to the attention of the National Farmers Union.
      I congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Energy on his appointment. He sat through the Committee's proceedings on the Bill last week. He will recall that last Thursday I gave him notice of this matter. The fact remains—the Minister must confirm this—that the law stands. A private Act of Enclosure is almost certain to include a requirement that the fields established shall be surrounded by a thorn fence and that it shall be maintained in perpetuity.
      Amendment No. 4 is entirely in accordance with the law of the land. I am aware of a case in Lincolnshire—this applied in many parts of the eastern counties—where the persons enclosing the land were required not only to plant
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      and maintain a hedge in perpetuity but to protect it by oaken fencing three rails high. An area in Lincolnshire was turned into a Royal Air Force bomber command station during the war. No one then could have put the interests of the Enclosure Acts and the environment before the needs of the nation, but now we are talking not about the needs of the nation, but about money sharks who want quick investments and to cook the books, to make a quick profit, to rape the countryside and to destroy communities. I do not believe that our historic law should be ignored so that a few sharks, who will have more friends among Conservative Members than among Labour Members, can make a lot of money.
      I have been involved in conservation for a long time. I recall that when we established the position about enclosure, I said to conservation bodies that we should establish a test case and that it would be useful to fund such a case. In all the cases known to me in the past three or four years in which a farmer was about to grub out an enclosure hedgerow, and was warned that he would be breaking the law and that action would be taken, he retreated.
      In my own constituency, for example, I learned a couple of years ago that a landowner was proposing to take out some hedgerows. I sent him a courteous note and said that I was sure that he would be aware that the area concerned was enclosed common land and that the local enclosure award required the perpetual maintenance of the hedgerow. He replied immediately, saying that I was aggressive and threatening. I said that I was merely telling him what the law of the land was. I said that I thought he held a copy of the enclosure award, but that if he was in doubt, there was a copy of it in Rotherham library. In fact, copies of most of the enclosure awards for the area can be found in Rotherham library and every one of them has a requirement for the perpetual provision of hedgerows.
      The other day, a little girl called Charlotte Bowen from Rawmarsh wrote me a splendid letter in which she expressed her concern about a small pond, which is served by Colliers brook. I wrote to the borough council, which said that the problem was that it did not know who owned the pond. It pointed out that British Coal might wish to carry out opencast mining and to destroy the pond, which Charlotte showed me a few days ago. However, the area was covered by an Enclosure Act; in fact a considerable area in South Yorkshire is covered by Enclosure Acts.
      I must tell the Minister that, as a law-abiding, constitutionalist Member of Parliament, I am not prepared to see the law ignored for the purposes of greed or for the environment in my area to be subject to the strains that we thought we had seen the last of in 1950. There was opencast mining around the villages of Wath upon Dearne and Wentworth in the 1940s and 1950s. Much attention was paid to that in the national press at the time and we were assured that everything would be restored properly. However, the farmers in that area still cannot grow potatoes half a century later. I made that point to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) in Committee the other day.
      The problem is that although there was a great deal of upheaval in the 1940s and in the 1950s from the opencast operations there, we now see greater engineering capacity, as my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) reminded us. Opencast mining

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      can now go deep. No area in the existing coalfield is likely to be free from the attentions of the private money-grabbing opencasters.
      The opencast mining in my area in the 1940s and in the 1950s took out two or three seams of coal near the surface, but there are another four or five seams of coal that are accessible to opencast mining on a large scale. I am not prepared to see an area such as mine, where pits have been closed and where there has been complete disdain and disregard of local needs by half the members of the present Government, treated in that way.
      I am sorry to have to refer to this matter on successive days in the House. An area of my constituency spills over in the west into the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. Redmond) and in the east into the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay). Every pit in the Dearne valley has closed, as have the glass works and the coking plants. What was once the largest railway coal concentration yard in Europe has closed.
      In the middle of that area, there are 2,711 drums of toxic waste, about which the Government do not seem to be the slightest bit concerned. As I said yesterday, had those drums been in Surrey or in Finchley—would that they had been—the Government might have taken action. It is not acceptable for us to have that amount of dereliction to our north and then to face the risk of environmentally destructive opencast mining to the south.
      In view of the pathetically small sums available for derelict land grants, there is no reason for hon. Members who represent coalfield areas to fall over backwards to accommodate such ruinous developments. I am opposed to them. 1 am glad that the areas that were enclosed—and a large proportion of lowland England was enclosed—had invariably to be surrounded by fences, thorn fences or hedgerows which had to be maintained perpetually. I want the Minister to assure us tonight that all the people who will be queueing up to opencast, to destroy the environment and to rape our green heritage will be made aware that they must not carry out their opencast mining if it means that hedgerows which the law says must be there for ever are to be destroyed. I am not a lawyer, although I have consulted lawyers about this matter in the past. However, I hope that the Minister will accept that the Enclosure Acts may be old, but that they still have meaning and considerable value in protecting the environment in the coalfields.
      8.15 pm
      Mr. Hood: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) is not in his place, because I want to comment on his reference to some of my colleagues who were formerly miners and members of the National Union of Mineworkers. He said that over the years, we had been subservient to British Coal. I was a miner for 23 years and I am still a member of the NUM. I can remember many occasions when area directors wanted to speak to me and when colliery managers wanted to remonstrate or to reminisce with me. I can assure hon. Members that the one word that they never used to describe me in 23 years in the pits was "subservient". It was an interesting comment and may prove how much the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West knows about the mining industry.
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      Opencast mining is an environmental problem that always excites heated debate, and our debate today has been heated and good. We must always remember that planning authorities are—and must remain—the custodians of the local community and of the environment. When discussing planning applications for opencast mining, they have to balance commercial need and the effect on the environment.
      Last week in Committee, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell) made a comment about previous planning refusals for opencast mining. He had statistics which showed that 80 per cent. of the planning applications that were refused were under Labour authorities. I said that I hoped that he was not trying make a correlation between the authorities that refused permission and the party that was in the majority on them. He said later that that was not the case. The obvious point, as I said in Committee, is that where there are coal reserves, there are usually not many Tory councils, so that point of the hon. Member for Gedling was not relevant.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) made an important point, which could apply equally to the Scottish coalfields. There has always been loyalty in Scotland between the local authorities and the coal-mining industry. In Scotland, the deep-mining industry and the opencast mining industry were one. There was always a cross-subsidy, so the deep-mining industry depended on the opencast industry to make it more viable. Our local communities throughout Scotland, almost without exception, had loyalty to mining—that word is not too strong—and tolerated planning applications for opencast mining where they would not normally have done so.
      The Scottish coalfield has been devastated since the Government came to office in 1979. It has been ravaged to the extent that we now have one remaining colliery, and have lost 18,500 jobs. Now local authorities are rightly saying that their loyalty has been abused in the past and that they will not allow it to be abused in the future, and we may well find that opencast mining is rightly viewed more critically in Scotland and elsewhere than it has been in the past.
      The Bill increases the amount that may be mined from 25,000 tonnes to 250,000 tonnes. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred to the abuses that have taken place under the existing laws. In my own area, we have what I describe as plot mining. When the limit was 25,000 tonnes, a firm would be given a licence for that tonnage for one plot, a second licence for another plot, and so on. I can speak with some authority on this, partly because I was a miner for 23 years and partly because I have 140 million tonnes of coal reserves in my constituency, known as the Harpendon coal reserves.
      My constituency also has the largest opencast site in Europe—the site named Dalquahandy—where we have 20 million tonnes of proven reserves, a figure which, in the opinion of those who know the area well, could be doubled. Sometimes, in the planning process, those employed in some sections of the industry have ended up on the other side of the table. I remember that, when we were dealing with the Dalquahandy opencast planning application, the regional council planning boss seemed to be pushing British Coal's planning application. He left the regional council with a golden handshake and the next we heard of him was that he was employed by British Coal and had managed to get planning permission for highways

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      for the construction. I dare say that British Coal and the gentleman concerned would say that that was a coincidence, but not many people where I come from believe in such coincidences.
      The hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West made an important comment, as did the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester). Opencast mining must be properly planned on a long-term basis. On the Dalquahandy opencast site, development has been started without the proper infrastructure being provided. If we are to allow opencast mining, we must provide the proper infrastructure and long-term planning for dealing with reclamation and restoration. Everything must be in place before we develop sites.
      Hon. Members have referred to the activities of individuals and companies engaged in private mining. We all have our own horror stories about the activities of private mining companies that have been given licences by British Coal. Recently, a private licensee came to me complaining that he had had his licence taken off him. When I asked him why, he said that British Coal had been unreasonable. I said, "I'm used to British Coal being unreasonable. How are they being unreasonable now?" He said, "Well, they have closed my little mine down because I owed them £12,000." I asked him, "Why do you owe British Coal money?" He told me that his accountant, had spent £12,000 of the miners' pension contribution. That sum had gone missing, and the poor accountant, who by then had died, got the blame.
      We have all heard stories such as that. One mining company in my area—the LAW mining company—has applied for planning permission to drill all over the Douglas basin, where there is loads and loads of coal. That company has been prosecuted many times for dumping in and so polluting our streams and rivers.
      Many hon. Members remember the previous chairman of British Coal, Sir Ian MacGregor without affection, although I suppose that some Conservative Members may remember him affectionately. He promised a company that it would get a plot in my constituency known as Townhead near the village of Rigside, with coal reserves of 250,000 tonnes. I give credit to British Coal for insisting that it would not give permission or a licence to mine the Townhead site. It may well be a coincidence that the figure of 250,000 tonnes, promised by Ian MacGregor to the private mining company concerned, is the figure that now appears in the Bill.
      I am sure that the Bill will be looked on with horror by villages in my constituency such as Rigside and Ravenstruther. The opencast quarries to which I referred mean that a 32-tonne coal truck goes through the villages every six minutes, 12 hours a day—sometimes 24 hours a day—six days a week. The coal reserves at that site are such that the villages can look forward to 20 years of such harassment and damage to their environment.
      The Bill spells disaster for the little villages in Clydesdale. It will do further damage to Rigside and Ravensburgh and other small villages in my constituency. I shall certainly be voting for the amendment and against the Bill.
      Mr. George Buckley: My hon. Friends have given examples of the devastation that is wrought by opencasting. Conservative Members should realise that
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      those of us from mining constituencies are mindful of the fact that opencastings are destined to increase in our area, particularly where pits have recently been closed. In areas where pits have closed—and closures have been fairly extensive since the 1984–85 strike—opencasting applications have almost inevitably been made in respect of the closed colliery sites. As Conservative Members have said, we are concerned that such applications have now been extended to green field sites, which will be even more devastating to the environment.
      The closure programme that has been embarked upon by the British coal industry and supported by Conservative Members has reduced employment in mining constituencies. It is unacceptable to our communities that whereas mines may now employ 900 men—for example, Ackton Hall in Featherstone—their opencast equivalents employ a maximum of 30 or 50 men. Opencasting is devastating not only to the environment but to employment prospects in coal mining communities. That is the main reason that local authorities may justifiably oppose opencast mining applications. Areas that have suffered such manpower losses will not accept a continuation of such devastation.
      The Bill would extend the tonnages for opencast sites from 25,000 to 250,000. 1 draw the attention of hon. Members to a point that I made in Committee. New section (2A) states:
      "shall not render unlawful anything done in accordance with such a licence."
      Does the Minister interpret that as stating that licences can be issued in contravention of the legislation? The extension to 250,000 tonnes may, by licence, be extended under the Bill. That would add further devastation to mining areas.
      The amendments are necessary to cushion the community from the proposals outlined in the Bill. I would further extend the requirement. An application for a licence to mine 250,000 tonnes should be solely for the relevant local authority. If devastation is to be experienced by a community, it ill behoves the Minister, who is not familiar with that community, to override a local authority on planning applications. Responsibility should be in the hands of local community representatives. The economic viability of and justification for a proposed site and its environmental consequences should be weighed by people who are familiar with the area. The matter should not be in the hands of a Minister who may override the refusal of a planning application.
      8.30 pm
      Because of environmental intrusion, I foresee greater opposition from local people. There was enough devastation in the past, even with the restriction of 25,000 tonnes. The Bill will permit far greater devastation. Will the existing licences that were granted under the 25,000 tonne limit be extended under the proposed legislation? Local people were assured that permission was granted for a limit of only 25,000 tonnes. Certain environmental conditions were agreed. However, conditions and promises will be overridden by the granting of new licences.
      People in my constituency were reasonably happy with guarantees of protection. I should like an assurance from the Minister that the figure in the Bill is a maximum tonnage, not a permitted tonnage that can be extended under licence, as set out in clause 4.

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      I hope that Conservative Members, and the Minister in particular, appreciate that the Government have embarked on supposedly environmental legislation. I hope that the principles laid down in the Environmental Protection Bill are embraced in this Bill on behalf of people in mining communities.
      Many people move to mining communities on the understanding that mining operations have ceased. They will strongly object to a reduction in the value of their properties as a consequence of a proposed licence to extract coal in the near vicinity of their recently acquired properties. Those people will be at the forefront of protests about environmental devastation.
      Mr. Skinner: Opposition Members have a fairish chance of winning the vote on this amendment. At least two Tory Members have said that, like Opposition Members, they are very much opposed to the extension of the opencast limit from 25,000 to 250,000 tonnes. I expect the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) to join Opposition Members in the Lobby to support the matters about which he feels angry. Other Tory Members who have reservations now have a great opportunity to declare themselves. They could induce the Secretary of State to vote with them. He does not like the ground in his constituency being disturbed. Of course, it was to do with low-level nuclear waste, but he would not even allow drilling to take place. I have news for the right hon. Gentleman: opencast mining extends over a large area of his constituency. He could accept the amendment, and it would be game, set and match.
      We know why there is more opencast mining. It is partly because pits have been closed left, right and centre. Many have been going through occasional or temporary economic problems. The Coal Board has come along, shut the pit and given a nod and a wink to its friends on the opencast executive and its friends in big business and said, "Look here, there is plenty of coal left in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Scotland"—
      Mr. Ashby: Leicestershire.
      Mr. Skinner:—and Leicestershire—"You can get the contractor to come along, dig big holes, and make a lot of money." Of course, coincidentally, the combine is engaged in motorway construction. It is very strange. Suddenly, we find great big diggers digging out large sections of motorway. Work is concluded, and people ask, "Have you heard who has the new opencast?" The same people have all the spare machinery and need to occupy it for a certain time. They move from the motorway and start digging a hole in the opencast area.
      People talk about market forces. I do not believe that many opencast operations that have taken place in my lifetime, especially since I have been involved in politics, have been carried out on the basis of fair and open competition. It is almost as though people say, "It is your turn for the next one." All hon. Members have heard stories in their constituencies. One firm does one opencast, and then it asks, "Who is going to do the next?" My hon. Friends can recount all the usual stories about how companies move from one area to the next. It has been part and parcel of the pit closure programme. When they have churned out the coal, made large sums of money and left the dereliction behind them, they leave the big hole, and somebody comes along and says, "We will dump some toxic waste in it and make some more money."
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      I have continually said that it is important that we do not have toxic waste—low-level or high-level nuclear waste or any form of waste—dumped in those areas. It is one thing for communities to put up with large-scale opencast mining—even more so if the Bill is passed—but there will be even bigger holes in which to dump rubbish. Dioxin was dumped in my area of Morton. My hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood) can no doubt tell another story.
      Mr. Hood: I hesitate to mention The Sun newspaper, but there was a report in it only a few weeks ago about the Clay mining company, which had six little mines that were bought for £40,000 and were sold to Lea Waste Disposal Limited for £17 million. That company is to dump toxic waste in those six mines.
      Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What is more, it is worth placing on record, as my hon. Friend did in Committee, the fact that opencast mining companies use some of the profits that they make out of opencast mining and put them into the Tory party's funds to fight elections. I am referring to companies such as—[Interruption.] I hope that "World in Action" will do a programme on this matter as well. I will give it some names to start with. The research has already been done. They include Taylor Woodrow, Costain and Wimpey. They are ready and available to grease the palms of those Tory Members who are to support the Bill.
      The real scandal is evidenced in some correspondence that I came across today showing that another opencast and private mine is now going to be developed in the centre of a tiny village in my constituency—which has only a few hundred inhabitants—called Stanfree, where Tommy Swain used to live. All my hon. Friends will remember Tommy. The opencast mine will be within 20 or 30 yards of Tommy Swain's old bungalow, and not only that, but 16 old-age pensioners' bungalows will be within spitting distance of the opencast operation, if it takes place.
      I place it on record here and now in Parliament that I am fully behind the Stanfree pressure group that is to oppose the opencast operation and the private drift mine in that village. Just imagine, the Bill has not yet become an Act—it is not yet law—but it is already being anticipated. Those concerned know that opencast operations can now be extended under private licence from 25,000 tonnes to 250,000 tonnes. They know that private mines can be extended in terms of the people working in them from 30 people to 150 people or more.
      Already, people are beginning to say that there is money to be had and no doubt some of the money from the Derbyshire mining company that has some proposals on this will be passed to the Tory party. Even if it is only 1 per cent., there is a lot of money to be had and it will probably finish up—
      Mr. Ashby rose—
      Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman is a lawyer. He will probably be one of the lawyers who launder the money from the mining companies and the opencast work into the Tory party.
      Mr. Ashby: That is a disgraceful and most irregular statement for the hon. Gentleman to make. He should know more about corruption than anybody—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman should answer one

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      question. Is there any difference between opencasting on a large scale by British Coal or by companies in the private sector? It is as bad with both. What is the difference?
      Mr. Skinner: None.
      Mr. Ashby: Which is more efficient?
      Mr. Skinner: None. Frankly, the hon. Gentleman has been trying to split hairs all night. He has a problem and is full of guilt. He wants to be able to tell his constituents what he has done about opencasting, so I invite him to join us in the Lobby. He can get rid of all his guilt. Guilt is riddling his body. All that he needs to do is a simple thing that will take only a few minutes. He can walk into the Lobby with us when my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) seeks to put the amendment to the vote. That is all that the hon. Gentleman has to do. Indeed, he could bring some of his Tory friends with him—those Tory Members who are making all the noise and who have crocodile tears pouring from their eyes every time they make such speeches. All that they have to do is to go back to their constituents and say, "Judge me by what I did last night and not on anything else."
      I understand the hon. Gentleman's problem, but both I and my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) have a problem in our constituencies in respect of the Slaley site and the Pinnock site. The Slaley site was a real scandal. We had an inquiry and the Labour-controlled county council opposed the proposal as did the Labour-controlled Bolsover district council and the parish councils. We had a massive inquiry. We fought the Coal Board and its expensive lawyers and we won because the inspector said that the board could mine the coal for only 11 seconds a day, and you cannot get a much better victory than that. They put the flags out in Clowne and Barlborough.
      What a great victory, but what happens? The Secretary of State sits on it. We thought, "Right oh, we've won," but along comes the new green and friendly Secretary of State for the Environment and the first thing he does when he gets the job is to look at the Barlborough, Clowne and Slaley application and overturn the decision. "Old Fag Ash" supported us, but this green and friendly one has allowed the opencast to proceed.
      Both I and my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East condemn the Slaley proposal because it should have gone back to the people. They should have been allowed to decide. There is now another proposal called Pinnock site, most of which falls in the constituency of my hon. Friend.
      There are four opencast applications within the space of four miles in those two constituencies. Three are massive applications. It is an absolute disgrace. All this is combined with the closure of pits in these areas and there will be even more.
      However, when the pits are closed, opencast operations will take only about one third of the reserves. Two thirds will be lost for ever because, once opencast begins, it will not be possible to drift or bore a mine. The coal is lost forever. Two thirds of the coal that belongs to the nation will be completely sterilised. That is short-termism. It means that someone can make a quick buck and line the
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      pockets of those in the Tory party and the opencast executive, but large areas of coal reserves will be lost to the nation forever.
      On top of that, there is the problem at Arkwright, a drift mine that was closed recently. Methane gas then poured into the houses in the village and although many families had to be evacuated, British Coal is now saying that it will not pay compensation. I put it on the record before the matter goes to court and becomes sub judice—and this is probably the last chance that I shall have—that I am saying to the Secretary of State, "Look into the Arkwright case." I mentioned this matter several times when the right hon. Gentleman was Leader of the House. Now, in his new job, I am asking him to say to British Coal, "Be decent and honourable and pay out compensation to the families in Arkwright." I repeat that families in my constituency had to leave their homes for weeks because of the methane gas that escaped from that drift mine after it was closed.
      8.45 pm
      There is no doubt that we must vote for the amendment. There is no question about the fact that we do not want Tories coming here, rabbitting on about how much they oppose opencast, but then sneaking away in the night. If those Tory Members really mean it, they have a great opportunity. They can join us in the Lobby and then go back to Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and all the other places before they are defeated in the next general election and say that they used their voices and followed them with their votes. That is the opportunity that is presented to them tonight. 1 hope that some of them have the guts to take it.
      Mr. Mark Fisher: As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) said, the hon. Members for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Ashby), and for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester), who is not in the Chamber at the moment, both spoke passionately against opencast mining. It will be extremely interesting to see whether they have the courage of their conviction in following their voices into the Lobby.
      Mr. Ashby: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that what I said was that it is inevitable that the coal will have to be extracted, but that it must be extracted under strict conditions, taking full account of the environment? That is what I said, and that is what the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) failed to understand. The coal is there and has to come out some time, but only under the strictest of conditions.
      Mr. Fisher: I am sad that the hon. Gentleman is now trying to talk his way out of what I took to be a speech that was extremely criticical of opencast mining.
      The ground on which the hon. Gentleman and the Member for Broxtowe criticised opencast mining was the destruction that it caused to the rural environment and to beautiful places. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) and others talked about the destruction that is caused to communities. I wish to make a short contribution about the damage and destruction that opencast mining can do to urban areas in the middle of our cities.
      At present, the opencast executive has an application to mine 650 acres right in the middle of the city of Stoke-on-Trent on a site called the China site, which is

      233
      surrounded by thousands of homes. It is right in the middle of one of the largest cities in this country. The devastation to that community and to the city will be great. That is why I am speaking against the extraordinary tenfold increase in the licences from 25,000 tonnes to 250,000 tonnes, and against opencasting in recreational and enclosed land. Those 650 acres comprise scrubland that has always been open land, right in the heart of our city. It is one of the few lungs in our city, but the opencast executive now proposes to take 3 million tonnes out of that site, which I repeat is in the middle of one of this country's largest cities.
      The executive will work to a depth of over 300 ft. At present, there is no road access to the site. It is proposed to take 3 million tonnes of coal out of the site by road, right through the heart of Stoke-on-Trent. When the project was announced 12 months ago, the opencast executive said that it was willing to go ahead only because it had a willing partner in the local city council. When it leaked its plans, it met, not surprisingly, with total opposition from every resident of the city, from everyone who was interested in the environment and from both the district council and the county council. The executive could not find a single supporter for its plans in north Staffordshire.
      In spite of the assurance that the director of the opencast executive gave to me, that he was going ahead only because he believed that he had a willing partner, the plans will proceed. The day after tomorrow, the executive will launch a slightly modified plan for only 165 acres over the next four years and a mere 1 million tonnes. It is interesting to note the relationship between that decision and clause 4.
      There will be public consultation about the plans and, again, they will meet total opposition. I ask the Under-Secretary of State to make several points clear when he responds to the debate. Is it not significant when everyone in an urban community such as Stoke-on-Trent is completely opposed to a project? Should not those voices be taken into account? Should not it be taken into account that both local authorities reject the plans? Is the middle—not the edge—of one of the largest cities in the country a suitable site for extracting 3 million tonnes of coal?
      If that were planned for the middle of London—for example, in Hyde Park—would the Government give permission to go ahead? If it were the middle of Manchester, Southampton, Bristol or Winchester, would the Government say that it was perfectly all right to extract 3 million tonnes of coal, although the site is surrounded by residential areas on three sides and by commercial, industrial and retail developments on one side? Is it reasonable to take 3 million tonnes of coal from under people's homes? It is proposed to go right up to the edge of people's gardens.
      Opposition Members understand anxieties about the environment and about destroying the green and beautiful parts of the country. To work 3 million tonnes of coal right in the middle of a city in this day and age is equally appalling.
      In Stoke-on-Trent we have paid our dues in coal. We have done enough. The whole city is built on a seam and is undermined. The major pit in Stoke-on-Trent, Hanley deep pit, had its main gates on the opposite side of the street to the main department store until the second world war.
      234
      For 200 years we have lived with the devastation that coal dust can cause in a community. Virtually every man in Stoke-on-Trent either has white dust on his lungs from pot banks or black dust from working down the pit. In the ward abutting the proposed opencast pit, with which the executive is determined to proceed, 50 per cent. of the men do not live to pick up their pension. We have paid our dues, and many people have paid with their lives. We are now being asked to have a 650-acre opencast mine in the middle of our city. That touches a raw nerve in the people of Stoke-on-Trent and they will not tolerate it.
      The Under-Secretary should understand that the changes in clause 4 imply not only the destruction of the countryside and a complete abnegation of the Government's commitment to a green and pleasant environment, important though that is, but the destruction of urban environments. The Government talk about inner-city regeneration. Is it inner-city regeneration to mine 3 million tonnes of coal in the heart of Stoke-on-Trent? The Minister cannot mean that. He should examine the plans and reject them as surely as everyone in Stoke-on-Trent and both local authorities reject them. We have paid enough. That is the reality of the Bill. I hope that the Under-Secretary will understand that when he replies to the debate.
      Mr. Harry Barnes: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) mentioned north-east Derbyshire in connection with both the Pinnock site—which affects his constituency and mine—and Tom Swain, who formerly lived in Stanfree in his constituency. Stanfree is to be subject to an opencast development. It is a pity that Tom Swain did not live and had that unfortunate accident. He would have been solidly behind the fight to ensure that the opencast mining development does not go ahead.
      The Pinnock site has been mentioned previously in the House. It was the subject of an Adjournment debate introduced by my hon. Friend and of a petition that I presented to the House from residents of Mastin Moor on 13 June 1988. Those people live next to the proposed Pinnock site. The usual arguments against opencast mining, such as the disruption that it causes and its dangers, were presented earlier in this debate and were listed in the petition. The petition was responded to by the Department of the Environment, but such petitions should also be examined carefully by the Department of Energy, because such opencast sites will be affected by the Bill.
      Opencast developments face a problem, in that the conditions for such developments have already been weakened in a circular issued 18 months ago by the Department of the Environment in connection with planning permission. It has become increasingly difficult for local authorities that have objections to granting planning permission for opencast mining, to act within the rules to block applications. There have been attempts to ensure that planning permission is squeezed through at local level and does not go to appeal or a planning inquiry, which in many cases overturns the local planning decision.
      In an earlier debate I mentioned the problems with opencasting that arise from the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill. In order to compete with foreign coal, the Coal Board and the private sector companies will promote a smaller number of deep mines and super pits at the expense of other pits. They will also go over to opencast mining developments in a cavalier manner.

      235
      That is particularly the case in the areas that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover represent. My constituency has an odd structure, the eastern side being similar to the constituency of Bolsover and the western side being more like the constituency of Derbyshire, West in its rural aspects and in its towns. It is divided politically, the western side being more strongly Conservative and the eastern side more strongly Labour.
      However, the opencast issue is a great unifying force. The opencast executive has given me a huge map of the area showing how opencast mining will be developed. Those developments will be similar to those described by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover. Pits such as the Renishaw Park pit, in former industrial areas, have been closed, and sites such as the Pinnock site will, when it is developed, take coal that would otherwise have been taken by the Renishaw Park pit.
      However, the western side of my constituency, with its agricultural land and commuter towns, also has fantastic potential for opencast mining. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was full of cutrills and drift mines. The map that I have shows not only the areas already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, but many others in both our constituencies, with fantastic potential for opencast development.
      9 pm
      Dronfield in north-east Derbyshire is separated from Sheffield by a small strip of land known as the green belt, but that is all on coal, so it could soon become a black belt, with a host of transport problems and other forms of disruption for the communities in the area.
      I could travel round my constituency from parish to parish showing the extent of the problems in the two regions that I have described. I will do everything that I can to stop opencast mining being developed by British Coal or its successors, or by private developers, ripping open my constituency and causing problems for north-east Derbyshire, such as those that existed in the constituency of the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby).
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Tony Baldry): This has been a lengthy and interesting debate upon this group of amendments on opencast mining in which hon. Members on both side of the House have taken part. I want to make it clear to each and every one of them that the Government believe that opencast mining must strike a proper balance between national economic needs and environmental concerns. That is clearly paramount.
      The House should recall that Britain's opencast industry is an important natural resource, producing coal of excellent quality, low in ash and chlorine. A substantial proportion is used for blending with deep-mined coal that would otherwise be unusable. Several major coal consumers have tight specifications that can be met only by opencast coal. Their business would otherwise go to other fuels or to imports.
      Opencast coal is also one of the cheapest forms of energy available to Britain. Its costs are, typically, a third less than those of deep-mined coal, which means that it can compete with anything on the international market. That
      236
      ]source of energy is a real import beater and any Government who turned their back on it would be irresponsible.
      However, I fully recognise that an environmental penalty is attached to opencast coal. That is why the Government introduced new planning guidelines on opencasting 18 months ago which spell out more fully and more tightly than ever before the environmental criteria that operators must meet. The mineral planning guidelines then issued spelled out more fully than ever before the environmental criteria, including restoration, that have to be met, and the Government have also insisted on full environmental impact assessments on all but the smallest sites.
      The new guidance represents a proper and durable balance between the interests of energy supply and the environment. Tighter regulations also prevent time wasting in the planning process because environmentally unacceptable applications will not be put forward.
      We should recall that in the case of small sites that have traditionally been worked under licence, the present 25,000 tonnes statutory limit on their size has led to a piecemeal working of opencast deposits. That small surface area has limited operators' ability to adopt imaginative schemes of restoration. The Bill lifts that obstacle and thereby reduces the period of disruption to the community and gives greater scope for even higher standards of restoration. I am glad to tell the House that local authority representatives in Scotland and England have welcomed the new, tighter guidance.
      Mr. Ronnie Campbell: Does not the Minister recognise that when there are larger opencast sites there will be more transport on the road because transporters will be in use? The bigger the output, the more transport there will be on the roads.
      Mr. Baldry: The fact that opencasting is subject to full planning procedures seems to have been missed out of the debate. It is important for the House to recall why we have been discussing this group of amendments on opencast mining. Doubts were expressed, initially by the Select Committee on Energy in its report in 1987, about British Coal's practice of licensing opencast sites of up to 35,000 tonnes, against the statutory limit of 25,000 tonnes or not greatly in excess of 25,000 tonnes. The Government have taken the first legislative opportunity since that report to remove any doubt by raising the limit to 250,000 tonnes. The Bill retains the flexibility for British Coal to issue licences for amounts not likely to exceed, or greatly to exceed, 250,000 tonnes. Such flexibility is needed because we can never be precise about how much coal is available in a particular site.
      Mr. Ashby: Do I understand my hon. Friend to say that, as I suggested, British Coal has been breaking the law for years?
      Mr. Baldry: It was because the Select Committee drew attention to the fact that there was uncertainty about how licences were being issued that we took the first legislative opportunity to clarify the position. I hope that that clarification will be much welcomed by the House.
      Some hon. Members expressed concern about the issuing of consecutive licences. I would not expect British Coal to issue consecutive licences in the same deposit. Where a licence for up to 250,000 tonnes in a large deposit

      237
      of coal is being considered, I would expect the corporation to have regard, among other factors, to the likelihood and desirability, under current mineral planning policy, of the deposit being extracted as a whole under a single operation.
      Each of the amendments in the group is interesting. However, for reasons which I hope I shall make clear, they are all superfluous and unnecessary. Amendment No. 4 was first raised in committee by the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) when he asked my predecessor, now the Minister for Housing and Planning, for an assurance that approval for an opencast site would not be given if the site was covered by a pre-1840 private Enclosure Act. I cannot give such an assurance. Even if the condition relating to hedgerows, which the hon. Member for Westworth has discovered in some pre-1840 Acts, is to be found—it is far from clear that it is to be found—
      Mr. Hardy: I have made the point—but the Minister appears to be disregarding it—that obviously, I have not studied all 4,000 private Enclosure Acts. However, I have studied, or had studied for me, a substantial proportion, dealing with various parts of the country. They all contain the clear, perpetual requirement that those hedgerows enclosing the fields and taking over the common land should be maintained for all time. The Government cannot have their cake and eat it. Either they respect the law or they do not. If the Government respect the law, the Minister cannot continue to maintain his evasiveness.
      Mr. Baldry: Even if the Enclosure Acts contain conditions relating to hedgerows, it is questionable whether any persons other than adjoining landowners could ever enforce them. That matter is for the planning authority to take into account when issuing the planning consents that all opencast sites require. If the hon. Member for Wentworth contends that the Enclosure Acts continue to have legal force, amendment No. 4 is unnecessary. If they have no such effect, it would be improper to extend them in the way that the hon. Gentleman proposes. In either case, amendment No. 4 is superfluous.
      As to amendment No. 5, I emphasise that proper and responsible restoration of opencast sites is of paramount importance and should be a fundamental consideration when appraising any proposal for opencast mining. Amendment No. 5, which requires applicants for exploration and production licences to make undertakings relating to site restoration is, again, unnecessary and superfluous. Such requirements are already dealt with in planning legislation. A local planning authority can, and generally does, attach restoration conditions to any planning consents. The authority also usually requires an applicant to provide an environmental impact assessment. The Government's current planning guidelines deal specifically with restoration standards.
      As British Coal does not issue production licences unless prior planning consent has been obtained, no purpose would be served by including restoration requirements in the licence, and to do so could cause confusion if they were inconsistent with conditions stipulated by a local planning authority.
      British Coal also requires licensees to deposit a bond to ensure the fulfilment of restoration requirements. The current practice, whereby British Coal issues a licence on condition that planning consent conditions are met, is perfectly satisfactory. It places planning issues where they
      238
      belong—with local planning authorities—and avoids the risk of confusion by requiring only one set of restoration conditions. It is a matter for local planning authorities to ensure compliance with any conditions that they attach to consents.
      Amendment No. 1 requires applicants for production licences to deposit a bond with local authorities to cover estimated restoration costs. Such a provision is also unnecessary and superfluous because local authorities can effectively already require such a bond to be lodged with them as part of the planning consent process. As, again, British Coal will not consider an application unless the applicant for a production licence has prior planning consent, there is no need for any amendment.
      In view of the proper balance that the Government have introduced in respect of opencasting, and having heard my explanation as to why the amendments are unnecessary and superfluous, I hope that the Opposition will feel able to withdraw them.
      Mr. Dobson: I should have welcomed the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) to his new job earlier. I may add that he has proved to be a hit of a disappointment already. We had hoped that Baldrick would come up with a cunning plan, but he has failed us.
      Our amendment would require any applicant for planning permission to place a bond with the local authority against the possibility of going broke or deliberately not restoring the land properly afterwards. The bond placed with British Coal does not do that, because British Coal has other financial relationships with those private opencast operators and may use the bond for those purposes, rather than to look after the local environment and neighbourhood. The Opposition think that amendment No. 1 is a sensible amendment and we do not understand why the Government cannot accept it. All the Conservative Back-Benchers who spoke thought that it was a good idea.
      9.15 pm
      We think that it is a good idea and we want to put amendment No. 1 to the vote.
      I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Amendment proposed: No. 1, in page 2, line 27, at end insert—
      '(1A) After subsection (2) of that section there shall be inserted—
      "(2AA) Applicants for a licence under subsection (2)(c) above shall undertake to deposit a bond, with the relevant local authority, sufficient to cover the costs of the restoration of the land affected by operations under that licence as estimated by that local authority.".'—[Mr. Dobson.]
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided Ayes 161, Noes 229.

      Division No. 37]

      [9.15

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Bradley, Keith

      Allen, Graham

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Anderson, Donald

      Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

      Ashton, Joe

      Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

      Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

      Barron, Kevin

      Buchan, Norman

      Battle, John

      Buckley, George J.

      Beckett, Margaret

      Caborn, Richard

      Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

      Callaghan, Jim

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      Boyes, Roland

      Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

      239

      Campbell-Savours, D. N.

      Leighton, Ron

      Canavan, Dennis

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

      Lewis, Terry

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Litherland, Robert

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Clay, Bob

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Clelland, David

      Loyden, Eddie

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      McAllion, John

      Coleman, Donald

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      McCartney, Ian

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Macdonald, Calum A.

      Cousins, Jim

      McFall, John

      Cox, Tom

      McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

      Cryer, Bob

      McKelvey, William

      Cummings, John

      McLeish, Henry

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      McWilliam, John

      Dalyell, Tam

      Madden, Max

      Darling, Alistair

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Marek, Dr John

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      Martlew, Eric

      Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'I)

      Maxton, John

      Dewar, Donald

      Meale, Alan

      Dixon, Don

      Michael, Alun

      Dobson, Frank

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Doran, Frank

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

      Douglas, Dick

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Dunnachie, Jimmy

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

      Eadie, Alexander

      Mowlam, Marjorie

      Eastham, Ken

      Mullin, Chris

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Murphy, Paul

      Fatchett, Derek

      Nellist, Dave

      Fearn, Ronald

      O'Brien, William

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      O'Neill, Martin

      Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

      Pike, Peter L.

      Fisher, Mark

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Flannery, Martin

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Flynn, Paul

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Foster, Derek

      Redmond, Martin

      Foulkes, George

      Richardson, Jo

      Fyfe, Maria

      Robertson, George

      Galloway, George

      Rogers, Allan

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Rooker, Jeff

      Gordon, Mildred

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Gould, Bryan

      Rowlands, Ted

      Graham, Thomas

      Ruddock, Joan

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Short, Clare

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Grocott, Bruce

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Hardy, Peter

      Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

      Haynes, Frank

      Spearing, Nigel

      Hinchliffe, David

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Hood, Jimmy

      Strang, Gavin

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Howells, Geraint

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

      Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

      Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

      Turner, Dennis

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Vaz, Keith

      Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

      Walley, Joan

      Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

      Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

      Illsley, Eric

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan

      Ingram, Adam

      Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

      Janner, Greville

      Winnick, David

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Wray, Jimmy

      Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Lambie, David

      Mrs. Llin Golding and

      Lamond, James

      Mr. Martyn Jones.

      Leadbitter, Ted

      NOES

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Alexander, Richard

      Ashby, David

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Atkins, Robert

      Allason, Rupert

      Atkinson, David

      Amess, David

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

      Amos, Alan

      Baldry, Tony

      Arbuthnot, James

      Batiste, Spencer

      240

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Beggs, Roy

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Bellingham, Henry

      Hannam, John

      Bendall, Vivian

      Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

      Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

      Benyon, W.

      Harris, David

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Hawkins, Christopher

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Hayward, Robert

      Boswell, Tim

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

      Bowis, John

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Hind, Kenneth

      Bright, Graham

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

      Holt, Richard

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Hordern, Sir Peter

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

      Howard, Rt Hon Michael

      Burns, Simon

      Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

      Burt, Alistair

      Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

      Butler, Chris

      Hunter, Andrew

      Butterfill, John

      Irvine, Michael

      Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

      Jack, Michael

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Janman, Tim

      Carrington, Matthew

      Jessel, Toby

      Carttiss, Michael

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

      Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

      Chapman, Sydney

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Chope, Christopher

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

      Key, Robert

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Kilfedder, James

      Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

      King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

      Colvin, Michael

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

      Knapman, Roger

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Knight, Greg (Derby North)

      Couchman, James

      Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

      Cran, James

      Knowles, Michael

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Knox, David

      Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

      Lang, Ian

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Day, Stephen

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Devlin, Tim

      Lightbown, David

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Lilley, Peter

      Dover, Den

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Dunn, Bob

      Lord, Michael

      Durant, Tony

      Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Emery, Sir Peter

      Macfarlane, Sir Neil

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Evennett, David

      MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

      Fallon, Michael

      Maclean, David

      Favell, Tony

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Malins, Humfrey

      Fishburn, John Dudley

      Mans, Keith

      Fookes, Dame Janet

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Forman, Nigel

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Forth, Eric

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

      Mills, Iain

      Fox, Sir Marcus

      Mitchell, Sir David

      Franks, Cecil

      Moate, Roger

      Freeman, Roger

      Monro, Sir Hector

      French, Douglas

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Fry, Peter

      Moss, Malcolm

      Gale, Roger

      Moynihan, Hon Colin

      Gardiner, George

      Neale, Gerrard

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Neubert, Michael

      Gill, Christopher

      Norris, Steve

      Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Patnick, Irvine

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Raffan, Keith

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Gow, Ian

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Riddick, Graham

      Grist, Ian

      Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

      Ground, Patrick

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Hague, William

      Rost, Peter

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Rowe, Andrew

      241

      Sackville, Hon Tom

      Thurnham, Peter

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Tracey, Richard

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Trippier, David

      Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Walden, George

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Walker, Bill (T'side North)

      Shersby, Michael

      Waller, Gary

      Sims, Roger

      Ward, John

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Speller, Tony

      Warren, Kenneth

      Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

      Watts, John

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Wells, Bowen

      Squire, Robin

      Wheeler, Sir John

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Whitney, Ray

      Stern, Michael

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Stradling Thomas, Sir John

      Wilshire, David

      Sumberg, David

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Summerson, Hugo

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Wood, Timothy

      Taylor, Rt Hon J. D. (S'ford)

      Woodcock, Dr. Mike

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Mr. John M. Taylor and

      Thorne, Neil

      Mr. Stephen Dorrell.

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Mr. Barron: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 40, at end insert—
      '(2A) After subsection (2) of that section there shall be inserted—
      "( ) A licence under subsection (2)(a) above shall not be granted to

      (a)any person who, or company which, has been convicted of an offence relating to its colliery activities in the relevant period, or

      (b)any company in which the controlling interest is held by a person who, or company which, has been convicted of an offence relating to its colliery activities in the relevant period.

      ( ) For the purposes of subsection (2B) above the 'relevant period' shall be defined as five years prior to the date of the application for a licence under subsection (2)(a) above, or the date upon which this Act received its Royal Assent, whichever shall be later.".'.
      We are concerned about the lack of regard to safety and health accompanying the increase in the number of private mineworkers. It cannot be denied that the safety record of the private mining industry is appalling and would not be tolerated in most industries. On Second Reading and in Committee, we discussed the ratio between major reportable accidents, and fatal accidents, in the private sector and those in mines operated by British Coal.
      In Committee last week, the Minister referred to a press statement issued on 8 January by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) about the number of underground private-sector mineworkers. In order to ensure that the statistics used were safe, my hon. Friend assumed that about 4,000 were employed, but the next day the then Under-Secretary of State said that he believed that the figure was about 1,700. That can be found in column 121 of the Official Report, Standing Committee A, 9 January 1990.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras received from the Secretary of State a written reply to a parliamentary question today in which figures were given from the British Coal Corporation's annual report for 1988–89 showing that only 1,524 people were working underground in the private licensed sector. In
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      other words, the record that we regarded as bad when we began to look at the statistics for the private sector is shown to be even worse than we thought.
      9.30 pm
      The Government say that we exaggerate the concern that is felt and that coal mining is, by its nature, a dangerous job. That is so, and that is why we are seeking to ensure that safety standards are of the highest.
      The amendment would prevent anyone who had been convicted under the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 from being granted a licence to mine for coal. That is not to ask for a great deal, for we are again seeking an assurance that safety standards will be paramount and that they will be considered as the first priority for everyone in the mining industry, be that British Coal or the Federation of Small Mines of Great Britain in the private sector. We have not been convinced that that priority exists. The utmost protection must be given to those who work in that sector of the industry.
      Many questions about the Bill have been put to the Department, and we still await answers to them. For example, it appears that British Coal was not consulted before the changes were proposed. In a British Coal press release following the publication of the Bill, it was said that British Coal would be having discussions with the Government. Have those discussions taken place, and if so, what was the outcome?
      We have asked whether the Department of Energy or any other Government Department has discussed the issue with the mines and quarries inspectorate, which has statutory responsibility for the upkeep of safety standards in British coal mines. I hope that, when responding to the debate on the amendment, the Secretary of State will answer our questions. Until now, we have received only assertions, which have gone no way to allaying our fears about safety and health in an expanded private licensed sector.
      The mines and quarries inspectorate shares our fears. For that reason, in the summer of 1988, it initiated a meeting with the Federation of Small Mines and gave a damning indictment of the standards of safety in that sector of the industry. In a newspaper report dated 4 October 1988, Mr. Albert Davies, a deputy chief inspector of mines, was reported as having said in relation to that indictment of safety practices in that sector:
      "Professional standards of management in licensed mines must improve. All too often the reports record very poor mechanical, electrical and mining standards. There is no excuse for these or the fact that managers often do not understand what proper standards should be."
      The principal district inspector of mines and quarries in the south-western district wrote to all licensed coal mine owners and managers in 1988 instructing them to improve safety standards.
      Is it any wonder that we are concerned about the amount of regard that is given to safety in that sector when, in response to such criticism, the chairman of the Federation of Small Mines said on 3 October 1988:
      "I think it would be an error to focus too much on safety."
      Does the Secretary of State take that view, or does he agree that those who operate in that sector must be proven to have safety as their first consideration?
      In the last 10 years, the Government have allowed safety standards to fall and to become subordinate to cutting costs and increasing profit. In that period, there

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      have been nine convictions under the Mines and Quarries Act, at least two of which were the result of deaths in that sector.
      It would be interesting to know how many of those nine prosecutions were mounted after an accident had occurred and how many, if any, were mounted after the mines and quarries inspectors had found something not up to standard. If, as I suspect, most, if not all, of those convictions occurred following an accident or a death, the Opposition's fears about that sector and whether we should be discussing its expansion are justified.
      Incidentally, another written reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras contained the information about the prosecutions over the past 10 years. In every one of those nine cases, the owners of the mines were found guilty as charged. The fines totalled more than £31,000. In one case, a fine of only £1,500 was imposed after a death occurred leading to a conviction under the Mines and Quarries Act 1954. It does not seem to me or my hon. Friends, whether or not they have worked in coal mining, that that would be much of a deterrent after the loss of a life after breaking the law. That is a paltry fine. We have been repeatedly told that raising the numbers that can work underground in private mines will make the pits safer, as there will be investment in modern technology.
      Many Conservative Members, although sadly not Ministers, accept that the private sector seems to think that such investment will take place only if there is total deregulation. Is it not more to the point that the raising of the employment limit is a sop to those in the City and on the Conservative Back Benches who made it quite plain on Second Reading that they were pressing the Government for more deregulation and privatisation? It is just a taster of what they have in mind for the industry in future.
      The former Under-Secretary of State told us—almost as his parting shot from the Department of Energy—in a press release from the Department of Energy that the new provisions
      "should also provide opportunities for new employment through working remnant coal at closed pits".
      That seems a contradiction in terms, but given the fact that that statement was made in a press release from the Department of Energy, perhaps the Secretary of State can tell us tonight exactly what lay behind the comments in the press release which were not made on Second Reading nor in Committee when the Minister used some of the press release.
      A statement was sent out to the press telling us that the Government are now talking about
      "working remnant coal at closed pits".
      Very few pits operated by British Coal would be accessible for private coal mine operators—most of them are too deep. The pits that have already closed have put that coal out of reach. It is a great loss to the coal industry and to the nation that those reserves have been sterilised, perhaps for good. Are we to assume that, in the few cases where it might be possible, the private mine operator will inherit the benefits of all the investments made by British Coal, or rather the British public, in sinking shafts and maintaining them over the years? What will happen if private operators take over mines that are running down production?
      Will the Secretary of State tell us—I see that he is swapping notes with the new Under-Secretary of State—exactly what is meant by 150 people in clause 4? Does it mean that 150 people will be underground at a particular mine on a particular day? Does it mean that there will be
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      a limit on the number of people underground but no limit on the number of people who can be employed at a particular mine? As opposed to the present situation, when there may be 30 people at a mine, could there be 150 people at a mine on different shifts? It is important that we have answers to those questions, as it is not certain exactly what will happen.
      The Secretary of State may be aware that, in Committee, we said that it was impossible to find out exactly how many people work in that sector of the industry—hence the three misleading statements about the total work force, or exactly how many people work in each individual coal mine. That seems wrong under the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908, which states that people who work in a coal mine should be registered.
      Consequently, the Department should be able to answer questions similar to the question that my hon Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras put to the Secretary of State for Employment:
      "if he will list the private licensed coal mines known to the mines and quarries inspectorate, giving the numbers employed below ground in each case."
      The reply was:
      "Following is a list of private licensed mines held by Her Majesty's inspectorate. Figures for persons employed at individual mines are not readily available."—[Official Report, 15 January 1990; Vol. 165, c. 64.]
      We argued in Committee that that would be a breach of coal-mining regulations under the 1908 Act. Given that the Secretary of State intends to expand by ten times the number of people who can work in these mines, what guarantee have we that the regulation will be complied with? We have no idea how many people will be working in the private mines.
      We are not satisfied by the complacent attitude of Government spokesmen that everything will be all right, and that particular attention is not needed. It is abhorrent to us that a sector so damned by the mines and quarries inspectorate should be given freedom to employ more workers without prior evidence of a commitment to uphold safety standards.
      That is why we believe that amendment No. 2 will not guide the Department of Energy for ever but that it is necessary now to protect lives and people's safety. The private licensed sector should be tightly regulated. It has a deplorable safety record. It is difficult for the mines inspectorate to keep it under control. Until we have the safeguards that are in the amendment, we shall oppose clause 4 and all its implications.
      Mr. Allen McKay: I want to relate what my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) has said to health and safety and problems in small mines. I recall that on Second Reading the Minister said that the expansion of the number of people in small mines would take account of the use of modern machinery. That raises some questions.
      The manager of a small mine does not need a manager's certificate; he can have a lesser certificate. If the number of people employed in small mines is to be expanded, will the person in charge of the mine need a manager's certificate? If so, will the person who is second in charge need a qualified under-manager's certificate? If a manager is responsible for a mine for 24 hours, even when he is not there, there has to be someone in charge who is fully qualified. If private mines are to have electrical and mechanical equipment such as is used in deep mines, will

      245
      there be an electrical engineer and a mechanical engineer in charge? Will there be a second in command to look after the electrical and mechanical equipment? Will those people he qualified under the Mines and Quarries Act 1954? Will the manager and the under-manager be qualified under that Act?
      If the small mines sector is to expand, we must consider carefully the safety of the people who work in the mines. There must be a proper management structure. I should like answers to the questions that 1 have put.
      Mr. Eadie: We may be reaching the fag-end of debates on the Bill, but this is an important one. Safety is of paramount importance in the mining industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) said that he had worked for private mine owners. I started in the pits as a boy of 14 in 1934, when the safety record of private mines was deplorable. Thousands of miners have been killed during this century, most during the period of private ownership. I remember working as a boy at the coal face, and I remember some of the things that were done in the interests of producing coal at a profit. We have heard much about producing coal at a profit, but many good men were killed at that time.
      To some extent, the amendment is a test. This debate on safety will be nothing compared to the debate that we shall have on the Government's proposals to privatise the coal industry.
      9.45 pm
      My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) said that sanctions must be placed on safety. The Minister may think that it is a sacrifice for private mine owners to have to comply with safety regulations, but the history of safety in the mining industry has been born from sacrifice. I am old enough to remember when we had to introduce sanctions on safety in the days of private enterprise. We made great personal sacrifices. If a man was killed in the pit, what sanctions were we able to apply? We decided that if that happened no one would work in the pit on that day.
      My wages when I began working in the pit were 2s 9d a day. A man on day wages received 7s 6d a day. Those fortunate enough to work at the coal face earned nine or 10 bob a day. To lose a day's wages was a great personal sacrifice, but we owed that to our colleagues. We said, "If the private coal owners are not prepared to look after our safety, our only sanction is to harm their profits." No man worked on a day when a man was killed. Unfortunately, if we consider the history of the mining industry, we are talking about not one man but dozens being killed. I remember the Gresford disaster, when 200 men were killed.
      One of the great achievements when the mines were nationalised was that we stopped that slaughter in the industry. We were also able to build up the independence of the mines and quarries inspectorate, which was respected by miners. They knew that it could apply certain sanctions and that safety would prevail.
      The amendment tests the Government's sincerity. Do they want to see slaughter in the industry as more private mines open? The Minister shakes his head, but we shall test his sincerity. The amendment places sanctions on people who ignore regulations. They are not fit to become owners of these mines. This is the test. Incidentally, the Government should have a close look at deregulation,
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      about which I am sure that my hon. Friends will talk later. It will make it easier for private owners to operate mines in relation to the Mines and Quarries Act 1954.
      I feel emotional about this subject, because some of my family have been killed in the pits. If I do nothing else tonight, I owe it to them to make this contribution to the debate.
      Mr. Ronnie Campbell: It has been well documented on Second Reading and in Committee that the private mining sector has an appalling record on safety. I said in Committee, when we were debating raising the manpower in private pits from 30 to 150, that I foresaw disaster occurring somewhere in the mines because of the attitude of some private mine owners. I gave examples of many incidents that were described by mineworkers. Some were horror stories that would make one's hair stand on end if one were a miner working in the British coal industry.
      I want to illustrate why private mine owners should be severely watched when they open a mine. I want to quote from the case of a 51-year-old fellow who was killed at the Robin Rock pit in Northumberland. It emerged at the inquest that
      "electrical equipment at this mine had been poorly maintained".
      Danger signs had apparently been seen for three weeks beforehand. An electrical junction box had caught fire, and sparks and smoke had come from it. Fortunately, the men managed to get out of the pit in time. Any fire in a mine is a reportable offence to the mines and quarries inspectorate, but on that occasion, the mine owners did not inform the inspectorate. Apparently they thought that as everyone had got out of the pit, they need not report it.
      The same thing happened three or four weeks later. The box caught fire and smoke came out. Unfortunately, one of the old fellows did not make it and was suffocated by the smoke. The three brothers who owned the mine were prosecuted, and each was fined £1,000. When they were asked at the inquest whether they had an electrical engineer, they replied, "No." When they were asked whether they had an electrician, they said that they did. When they were asked what his qualifications were, they said that he had served his time at another colliery as a mining apprentice.
      We have had a great debate. Safety in the mines is an emotive subject and I am sure that we shall return to it. With my 20-odd years' experience of the mines, 1 ask the Minister seriously to consider new laws for the private mines. He—not the Opposition, who hope to win in the Lobby—is increasing the private mines. The responsibility will lie on the Minister's head. I shall never let him forget what I have said when there is a disaster in the private mines after the level of manpower is raised from 30 to 150.
      Mr. Hardy: Given the position adopted by my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), I should be foolish to seek to make a long speech. Nevertheless, it is appropriate that I should remind the House that I am sponsored by the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers, the trade union that represents those employed underground in the British coal mining industry, who have a statutory responsibility for safety. Let us leave aside for a moment all questions of politics and dogma. NACODS is deeply concerned about the extension of private mining. It is the considered view of the NACODS leadership—people who have a great deal of

      247
      experience—that the Government's proposals will lead to more people being killed and maimed. That must surely be a serious matter.
      I know that we shall not persuade the Government to withdraw the proposal, but although the Minister has only just taken office, he is aware of the points that we have made concerning the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908—a subject to which I referred twice in Committee. That Act is not being enforced. The Government have already had several weeks in which to ensure that the Act was being enforced. I want an assurance from the Minister that no private mine will be allowed to operate under present arrangements or in future unless that regulation has been put into practice. This is another example of the law being observed when the Government want it to be observed because it suits them. In this case, common sense and the need to save limbs and lives make it essential to ensure that the provision is put into effect without further delay.
      Mr. Lofthouse: I hope to be able to persuade the Minister to accept this modest amendment. I certainly deem it to be modest; I should have liked it to go much further.
      I realise that Conservative Members may feel that people of my generation—my hon. Friends the Members for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) and for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes)—speak with some bias on these matters because of our experience in the privatised coal industry. Conservative Members, who have never had such experience, are probably justified in questioning our views.
      I wish to outline briefly my own experience both of present-day technology in the mining industry and of licensed mines in Britain. In my experience, the American coalfield, which as we all know is privatised, does not bear comparison with the British coalfield and its industry. I can say to the House with all sincerity that the American coal mines that I have been down are the most unsafe that I have ever visited in all my experience—since the age of 14—in the mining industry.
      I have been down American mines—with ladies working in them, incidentally—where, on reaching the end of a coal face, my party has had to be brought back by what we in this country call a deputy. The normal system in this country is to go through one roadway on to the coalface and then through another roadway at the end of the coalface, which is called the return. In America we got to the end of the face and had to turn back.
      Conservative Members who accompanied us on that trip did not take exception, because they did not realise what was happening. We had to be brought back the length of the face because there was no other way out. There was only one way in and out. That is privatisation: the firm was saving the expense of a second roadway. I have never before seen such unsafe conditions. It was the only time that I have ever experienced fear in a coal mine.
      The conditions in private mines in this country were drawn to the attention of the House by the 28 January 1987 report of the Select Committee on Energy. Paragraph 171 states:
      "Other operators in the industry as well as BC have a responsibility to safeguard their workers' safety. Figures given to us show that 1 in 100 workers in the private deep mines suffered a fatal or major injury in 1985–86, compared with 1 in 187 in BC's pits."
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      That accident rate is a fact. The accident rate in private mines in this country was nearly double the rate in British Coal's mines. Incidentally, only 40 per cent. of American mines are unionised, and only those mines record accidents. Their accident figures are 2·5 per cent. to 4 per cent. higher than British Coal's.
      It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
      Ordered,
      That, at this day's sitting, the Coal Industry Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Lightbown.]
      Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
      Mr. Lofthouse: I challenge any hon. Member to produce accident figures relating to any country that operates a private mining sector and compare them with British Coal's figures. I should be very surprised if an hon. Member can do that.
      I well remember on 19 December 1939 going down a big hole in the ground in Featherstone in West Yorkshire. I was a 14-year-old boy at the time. I saw conditions in those days that were not fit for people to work in. I saw circumstances in which men were criminally killed because there were no roof supports for protection. Within three months of my going down that mine, driving a pony, I arrived at the coal face one morning and saw a man lying dead because he had had nothing to support himself with. The cemetery at Featherstone in Yorkshire is full of such men.
      Only in recent times, Mr. Kenneth Moses, who was a technical director of British Coal and, I suppose, can be recognised as one of the senior mining engineers in the country, was questioned by the Select Committee. I asked:
      "How do you explain the accident rate in the private pits in this country compared with British Coal?"
      Mr. Moses replied:
      "Well, because we are using two entirely different technologies."
      He can say that again.
      "The private pits are using the technology we were using in 1947, we are using highly mechanised modernised technology, and the way in which we have reduced accidents is, in fact, by the application of mining engineering technology."
      Mr. Moses conceded that the high accident rate in private mines in this country was because we were mining coal with pre-1947 technology.
      It is one thing to organise and control a mine with 30 men with pre-1947 technology, but it is another thing to expand to 150 men without that technology. Small mines will not be able to maintain British Coal's safety record, because the capital development which previously enabled British Coal to supply mechanisation for coal faces and so on will not exist. The Bill, which extends the number of men in private mines, will, as sure as night follows day, create a situation in which men in the mines will be in much more danger than their British Coal counterparts.
      One can say, "Well, they are protected by the inspectorate." It is true that the inspectorate visits the mines and that the mine owners must carry out the inspector's instructions. However, I remind the Secretary of State and the House that it is the self-same inspectorate that is inspecting the private mines now that is inspecting British Coal mines, yet the accident record in private mines has nearly doubled. It is not an argument for being protected by the inspectorate.

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      I hope that these arguments and the personal experiences that have been put to the Secretary of State tonight will lead him to consider—and, I hope, concede—this modest amendment.
      Mr. Wakeham: It has been a short and important debate. I had been, and am, going to quote exactly the same remarks that were made in the Select Committee report by Ken Moses, as were quoted by the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse), but perhaps towards the end of the debate we were nearer to getting a better understanding of the problems. Of course I understand the sincerity, the feelings and the passions that are raised by safety questions and by history. I hope that hon. Members will hear what I have to say, which I claim modestly to be stated with as much sincerity as that with which they made their remarks.
      The Opposition's position on the licensing of mines seems to remain the same as that stated in their comments that were attached to the end of the Select Committee on Energy's 1986–87 report into the coal industry. They believe that the manpower limit should remain at the levels set in 1946. In other words, they wish to condemn private sector mineworkers to the working methods and the safety levels of the 1940s. On the other hand, we believe that the most effective way of making mines safer for underground workers is through mechanisation.
      This is borne out by British Coal's own experience. Mr. Ken Moses, British Coal's technology director, pointed out recently when giving evidence to the Select Committee on Energy—in exactly the same piece of evidence quoted by the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford—that the private pits are using the technology of 1947 and that British Coal is not. He said that British Coal has improved the accident record
      "by the application of mining engineering technology."
      I believe that to be absolutely right. It is the reason for our wish to increase manning levels in the licensed sector. I have no doubt that the out-of-date working practices that licensed mines are currently forced to use because of their size prevents them from improving their safety standards. I accept that the accident rate at licensed mines does not compare favourably with that at British Coal's mines, but that is because their mining practices have not kept pace with technological developments. [Interruption] We heard what Opposition Members had to say, so I think that I should be allowed to speak.
      The reports of the mines and quarries inspectorate on accidents in the licensed mines sector suggest that many of the fatal accidents reported would not have happened had modern mechanised group support and conveyance systems been employed. The investment required for that can be generated only by mines that are larger than the existing ones. The need to increase productivity by multi-shift working or by working two faces means that more men are needed, which means more mining jobs—jobs in areas where they are needed.
      Of course we wish to see improvements in licensed mine safety. We believe that the improvement in the manpower limit will enable modern, mechanised and, above all, safer pits to be developed in the licensed sector.
      The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) and others have raised with me the question of the numbers of men employed in licensed mines. I shall do my best to give an answer, but it is not the clearest answer that I have ever given in my life. However, I repeat that I shall do my best.
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      The hon. Member for Wentworth asked about the exact number of people employed in licensed mines and related that to the provisions of the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908. I should make it clear that the 1908 Act required that a register be kept of persons going below ground and returning to the surface, so that a record is kept of the hours spent below ground. It may be a useful guide to the numbers of persons employed in the mine, but it is not a register of persons employed; nor has it ever been that.
      As I have said, the hon. Member for Wentworth was also most concerned to have a cut-and-dried answer to his question about the numbers of people employed in licensed mines. I am sorry that I cannot give a precise answer to that question. The work force in licensed mines changes frequently. Unlike for British Coal's mines, there is no central organisation to collect figures.
      Not all licensed mines belong to the Federation of Small Mines of Great Britain. Her Majesty's mines and quarries inspectorate makes inquiries to ensure that the numbers employed at the mine and the qualifications of officials are consistent with the requirements of the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 and associated legislation. The inspectorate does not keep detailed records of the numbers employed at each mine.
      As the licensing authority for private coal mines, British Coal must satisfy itself that the mining plans submitted with a licensed application could be undertaken by 30 men or fewer. Once the mine is in operation, it is for the owner to ensure that he complies with the requirements of the licence. British Coal will have to consider carefully whether a licence should be revoked at a pit where it is discovered that there has been an infringement of the licensing agreement.
      The hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) asked about the qualifications of managers. I can answer his question simply. The basic principle is that the management qualifications required for a given size of mine are the same for a licensed mine as for a British Coal mine. A manager would require a first-class certificate at a mine employing more than 30 people.
      Mr. Allen McKay: I accept that, but is the Secretary of State saying that there will be 150 men per shift over three shifts? If there are 150 men per shift, a structure of under-managers will be needed too.
      Mr. Wakeham: I shall not go further than what. I said, because that is what I was advised. The same regulations, under the same Act, will apply whether the mine is a private licensed mine or a British Coal mine.
      The amendment was not referred to very often in the debate. I recognise the importance of the issues with which it deals. I recognise that mine safety must be paramount. I agree that mines should be run by those fitted to do so. It would be inappropriate to use the Bill to impose mandatory sanctions on owners for offences not directly related to its subject. The safety regulations covering the mining industry are part of the heath and safety at work legislation.
      The amendment does not distinguish sufficiently between serious and trivial offences. It would be iniquitous to put a company out of business for committing a relatively minor misdemeanour. I recognise the force of the argument behind the amendments. The most effective and proper way to deal with the issue is through the licensing process, not legislation. That is precisely how we deal with

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      the problem in licensing North Sea oil operations, where safety is equally vital. The statutes covering those licences do not contain requirements similar to those in the amendment, but applicants' safety records are taken into account in the licensing process.
      I shall draw the attention of British Coal to what has been said and ask it to take into account any criminal record of the mine manager or owner in any application for a licence or renewal of a licence. I cannot accept the amendment, although I understand the reasons for it.
      10.15 pm
      Mr. Barron: I am dissatisfied with the Secretary of State's explanation, as I am sure many of my hon. Friends are. He argued that mechanisation was the answer. No Opposition Member or anyone in the mining industry would disagree with that. He talked about running two faces of a coal mine with a limit of 150. But when Marine colliery in south Wales was mothballed, Mr. Crispian Hotson of Ryan International said that 150 would not be adequate to run such a colliery with fewer than three coal faces.
      The Minister's argument does not stand up. At no stage since the introduction of the Bill have the Government ever spoken to British Coal, which issues the licences and should police that sector, about the implications of clause 4 and raising the figure from 30 to 150.
      We still do not know how many people work in the private licensed sector. We have had three different figures in the three weeks that the Bill has been considered in Committee. The Minister says that the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908, which we and everybody else, including the inspectors, believed gave the number, as a useful guide. But that is not good enough when people are working in the same environment that existed pre-1947, when three or four coal miners were killed every day in British coal mines. We cannot accept an extension of that.
      At least 18 counties in Britain, sadly not all with Labour Members of Parliament, have private mines or plan to have private mines. Yet Conservative Members sit in silence when we are debating a measure which will increase fivefold the number of people who can work in private mines.
      We do not accept all the Minister's arguments about mechanisation, because that is limited by the number in the Bill. I am not arguing for more. We do not accept that there is any regulation at present of the licensed mine sector; hence the present number of deaths and injuries. Over the past 10 years, there have been nine prosecutions under the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 in the private sector and not one in British Coal mines during the past 10 years. Therefore, the people who work in the private sector now, and who will do so in future, need the protection that the amendment gives, and we shall put it to the vote.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 149, Noes 214.

      Division No. 38]

      [10.17 pm

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Barron, Kevin

      Allen, Graham

      Battle, John

      Anderson, Donald

      Beckett, Margaret

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Beggs, Roy

      Ashton, Joe

      Beith, A. J.

      Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

      Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

      252

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

      Boateng, Paul

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

      Boyes, Roland

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Bradley, Keith

      Lambie, David

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Lamond, James

      Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

      Leighton, Ron

      Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Buchan, Norman

      Lewis, Terry

      Buckley, George J.

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey.

      Caborn, Richard

      Loyden, Eddie

      Callaghan, Jim

      McAllion, John

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

      McCartney, Ian

      Canavan, Dennis

      McFall, John

      Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

      McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      McKelvey, William

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      McLeish, Henry

      Clay, Bob

      McWilliam, John

      Clelland, David

      Madden, Max

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Coleman, Donald

      Marek, Dr John

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Martlew, Eric

      Cousins, Jim

      Maxton, John

      Cryer, Bob

      Meale, Alan

      Cummings, John

      Michael, Alun

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Dalyell, Tam

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

      Darling, Alistair

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

      Dewar, Donald

      Mowlam, Marjorie

      Dixon, Don

      Mullin, Chris

      Dobson, Frank

      Murphy, Paul

      Doran, Frank

      Nellist, Dave

      Douglas, Dick

      O'Brien, William

      Dunnachie, Jimmy

      O'Neill, Martin

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

      Pike, Peter L.

      Eadie, Alexander

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Fatchett, Derek

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Fearn, Ronald

      Radice, Giles

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Redmond, Martin

      Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

      Robertson, George

      Fisher, Mark

      Rogers, Allan

      Flannery, Martin

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Flynn, Paul

      Rowlands, Ted

      Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

      Ruddock, Joan

      Foster, Derek

      Short, Clare

      Foulkes, George

      Skinner, Dennis

      Fyfe, Maria

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Galloway, George

      Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Spearing, Nigel

      Gordon, Mildred

      Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

      Gould, Bryan

      Strang, Gavin

      Graham, Thomas

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Taylor, Rt Hon J. D. (S'ford)

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Hardy, Peter

      Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

      Haynes, Frank

      Walley, Joan

      Hinchliffe, David

      Warden, Gareth (Gower)

      Hood, Jimmy

      Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

      Howells, Geraint

      Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

      Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan

      Hoyle, Doug

      Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

      Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

      Winnick, David

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Wray, Jimmy

      Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Illsley, Eric

      Mrs. Llin Golding and

      Ingram, Adam

      Mr. Ken Eastham.

      Janner, Greville

      NOES

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Alexander, Richard

      Ashby, David

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Allason, Rupert

      Atkins, Robert

      Amess, David

      Atkinson, David

      Amos, Alan

      Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

      Arbuthnot, James

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

      253

      Baldry, Tony

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Batiste, Spencer

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Fishburn, John Dudley

      Bendall, Vivian

      Fookes, Dame Janet

      Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Forman, Nigel

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Forth, Eric

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

      Boswell, Tim

      Fox, Sir Marcus

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Franks, Cecil

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Freeman, Roger

      Bowis, John

      French, Douglas

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Fry, Peter

      Brazier, Julian

      Gale, Roger

      Bright, Graham

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

      Gill, Christopher

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

      Goodhart, Sir Philip

      Budgen, Nicholas

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Burns, Simon

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Burt, Alistair

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Butler, Chris

      Gow, Ian

      Butterfill, John

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Gregory, Conal

      Carrington, Matthew

      Grist, Ian

      Carttiss, Michael

      Ground, Patrick

      Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

      Hague, William

      Chapman, Sydney

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Chope, Christopher

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

      Hannam, John

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

      Colvin, Michael

      Harris, David

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

      Hawkins, Christopher

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Hayes, Jerry

      Couchman, James

      Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

      Cran, James

      Hayward, Robert

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

      Day, Stephen

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Devlin, Tim

      Hind, Kenneth

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Hordern, Sir Peter

      Dover, Den

      Howard, Rt Hon Michael

      Dunn, Bob

      Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

      Durant, Tony

      Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

      Emery, Sir Peter

      Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

      Hunter, Andrew

      Evennett, David

      Irvine, Michael

      Fallon, Michael

      Jack, Michael

      Favell, Tony

      Janman, Tim

      254

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Key, Robert

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Kilfedder, James

      Shersby, Michael

      King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

      Sims, Roger

      King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Speller, Tony

      Knapman, Roger

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

      Squire, Robin

      Knowles, Michael

      Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

      Knox, David

      Steen, Anthony

      Lang, Ian

      Stern, Michael

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Stradling Thomas, Sir John

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      Summerson, Hugo

      Lightbown, David

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Lilley, Peter

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Lord, Michael

      Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

      Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

      MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Thorne, Neil

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Malins, Humfrey

      Thurnham, Peter

      Mans, Keith

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Trippier, David

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Walden, George

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Walker, Bill (T'side North)

      Mills, Iain

      Waller, Gary

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Ward, John

      Mitchell, Sir David

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Moate, Roger

      Warren, Kenneth

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Watts, John

      Moss, Malcolm

      Wells, Bowen

      Norris, Steve

      Wheeler, Sir John

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Whitney, Ray

      Patnick, Irvine

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Renton, Rt Hon Tim

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Riddick, Graham

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Wood, Timothy

      Rost, Peter

      Woodcock, Dr. Mike

      Rowe, Andrew

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Sackville, Hon Tom

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Mr. John M. Taylor and

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Mr. Greg Knight.

      Question accordingly negatived.
      10.30 pm
      Mr. Wakeham: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      I shall be brief, as I do not intend to deal with the detail of the Bill, other than to note that there has been a general welcome for the proposed capital reconstruction of British Coal. We had good debates in Committee on the detailed clauses and, thanks to the Opposition, we have had three good debates today on the issues that concern them—subsidence, opencast mining and licensed mines.
      The Bill, together with the power stations' contracts for large tonnages over the next three years, gives British Coal an opportunity to build on the success that it has achieved over the past three years. Against that background, I have asked it to carry out a fundamental review of its business prospects, taking into account the prices achievable by each coalfield and the productivity improvements achievable by each colliery. As I emphasised on Second Reading, continuing strong productivity gains are essential if those opportunities are to be realised. The Bill provides further Government support for British Coal's restructuring programme.
      The core of the Bill, is how to deal with the deficiency in British Coal's accounts—which will probably be more than £5 billion and could range up to another £2 billion. I do not claim that our deficiency grant is simply an act of generosity; it is essential if British Coal is to be re-established as a viable business. By valuing each colliery on the basis of its future earnings potential, the industry can establish more clearly than ever before where its future lies. Ultimately the size of the industry will depend upon the efforts of management and men together to maintain the trend of productivity growth and cost reduction.
      As I said on Second Reading, given all that, I am confident that the capital reconstruction will provide the industry with the means to compete in the market place of the future, and I commend the Bill to the House.
      10.31 pm
      Mr. Dobson: I, too, will be brief. On publication of the Bill, and again on Second Reading, we welcomed the Government's proposal in effect to write off the debts of British Coal so that the industry could compete and run its business properly. However, we are suspicious that this write-off is the precursor to the ultimate sell-off of British Coal, which would harm those who work in the British coal industry and the people of Britain in general.
      We also welcome the increased provision for redundancy payments, but we regret that the contract that has recently been negotiated—if that is the right word—between British Coal and the electricity generating companies will involve further losses in coal burn, which will inevitably lead to redundancies for which these payments will be necessary.
      We remain fundamentally opposed to the proposal for a fivefold increase in the number of people allowed to work below ground in private pits. In terms of safety, private pits are a disgrace. They are four to five times more dangerous than the British Coal collieries. It is preposterous for the Government to launch into that fivefold increase without any serious consultation with any of the people or bodies concerned with the safety of mines.
      The National Association of Colliery Managers and the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers are utterly opposed to the proposal, as is the
      256
      National Union of Mineworkers. Even if the Government insist on the increase, because of the known poor safety record of private mines there should be a parallel development and stiffening of the safety provisions covering private mines. If they do not work for 30 people, they certainly will not work for 150.
      We have presented proposals to improve safety provision, and the Government have rejected them. I should have thought that a Government who presided at the time of the King's Cross, Piper Alpha and Herald of Free Enterprise disasters, as well as innumerable others, would at least put safety first in the mining industry, but it appears that safety is not one of their priorities. I sincerely hope that Ministers will not be coming to the House within a few months to say, "We got it wrong: if we had taken a bit of notice of people who knew what they were talking about, this disaster would not have come about." Opposition Members do not look for such disasters, but we do fear them.
      The Government also propose a tenfold increase in the size of private opencast workings. The new Minister's preposterous justification for that proposal was uncertainty about whether it was lawful for British Coal—blatantly,deliberately and with the agreement of the Department of Energy—to exceed the present limit of 25,000 tonnes and increase production to as much as 35,000 or 40,000 tonnes. To avoid the problem of a marginal increase over what was set down in the statute, he proposed an increase to 250,000 tonnes.
      Although, for the sake of argument, we accepted that barmy proposition, we demanded parallel protection for the communities and the environment in areas where opencasting was already in progress and was likely to continue. We have not been assured of such protection; consequently, operators of ragshop, ruinous, rotten, awful opencast workings will be able to do so on 10 times the present scale.
      We remain disappointed—and we are sure that the coalfield communities will be at least as disappointed as we are—that the Government have not taken the opportunity to improve the arrangements for compensation for mining subsidence. I understand that the Press Association has put it out on the tapes that the Secretary of State announced great improvements today, and said that all sorts of wondrous things would be done. No doubt all credit is due to the press officer sitting in the Box, but the PA seems to have omitted the fact that almost all the proposals concerned were put to the Government nearly six years ago, and the Government have done nothing about them. We feel that, if the Government are not prepared to introduce provisions to improve subsidence compensation when the House of Lords debates the Bill, they should find time to introduce such provisions in some other part of the threadbare legislative programme that they intend to push through this year.
      For all those reasons, we are still opposed to the Bill as it stands. However, as it will provide the coal industry with substantial sums that are very necessary, and as we have already registered our opposition to the private mine proposals on Second Reading, we shall not vote against Third Reading.
      10.39 pm
      Mr. Denzil Davies: As my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said, the Bill provides substantial sums of money for British Coal.
      I wish to highlight a scandalous situation in my constituency, which used to be the heart of the anthracite coalfield. There is one drift mine, Carway Fawr, which, though mothballed, is almost ready to mine. It is being maintained by British Coal and has not been opened. I understand that £330 million has been spent on it.
      I discovered a few days ago that some of the heavy electrical equipment in that mine has been removed to another mine. I appreciate the reasons for that, but there is fear in my constituency lest more heavy equipment is taken out. Once that happens, that mine will never re-open.
      There is a shortage of anthracite in Britain, especially of good quality anthracite. Imports are coming in from China, and last week there were rumours of imports coming here from Vietnam. That imported coal is not cheap and the quality is not very good. Those imports are coming here because of a desperate shortage of anthracite, yet British Coal is sitting on this mine, which could employ 600 people and produce first-class, top quality anthracite for the British market. That is scandalous.
      In his discussions with British Coal about the additional money that it will receive under the Bill—we welcome that—I hope that the Secretary of State will raise the anthracite issue again and ask British Coal to make a decision. Will it, or will it not, open this mine? If it does not, I shall regard it as my duty to have the matter investigated by the Public Accounts Committee or the Audit Commission, to find out why £30 million was spent and wasted. I hope that that will not be necessary. The coal and the jobs are needed. I urge the Secretary of State to intervene.
      10.41 pm
      Mr. Spencer Batiste: Like other hon. Members, I welcome the Government's commitment to writing off the debt of British Coal as firm evidence of the Government's continuing and long-standing support for the coal industry and for putting it on to a firm and viable footing.
      As for the remainder of the Bill—affecting British Coal and the private sector—I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is aware that for the communities affected, environmental issues are of the greatest importance. One of the most important measures that the Government undertook was to take planning issues away from the Department of Energy and to put them into the normal planning procedures under the Department of the Environment.
      I listened with interest to the comments of the Under-Secretary when he said clearly and categorically that nothing in the Bill would derogate from normal planning procedures or would remove existing protections from communities faced with planning applications for opencast, drift or deep mines. On the basis of those clear, categoric and unequivocal assurances, I welcome the Bill.
      10.42 pm
      Mr. Malcolm Bruce: The Bill is necessary—in some cases regrettably necessary—because British Coal needs a major financial injection. That is why my hon. Friends and I voted for the Bill on Second Reading and why we support it tonight. But certain issues which arose during the passage of the measure remain unresolved, and I fear that we shall have to return to some of those, probably in further legislation.
      The two main points that have been debated are the increase in the numbers employed in private mines and the substantial increase in opencast mining. I remain convinced that we need firmer guidelines and a much clearer policy on the issue of opencast if we are to reassure communities affected by it not only that they will get the restoration that they need but that they will receive the sort of compensation that is justified for the devastating effect of a much bigger expansion of opencast mining, and we shall need new environmental practices to minimise that impact.
      I hear the Labour party's clear opposition to the increase in the licensing of private pits from 30 miners to 150, but given that it will happen, there are causes for concern, in that who will be licensed will continue to be entirely a matter for British Coal and the criteria for licensing them will also remain a matter for British Coal.
      The right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) made a plea on behalf of his constituency for a working that has been mothballed, which British Coal can choose to leave mothballed and about which nobody else can do anything. In Committee I raised the case of Betteshanger, which has been closed, and Monktonhall, which has been mothballed, and there may be other examples.
      When resisting my amendments suggesting that the transfer of licensing from British Coal to the Department of Energy was the way forward, the Minister hinted—in Committee and to some extent informally—that such a step might be taken at a later date. For many of those enterprises, that later date may come too late and the opportunities, reserves, pits and jobs will be lost for ever.
      I remain dissatisfied that a genuine attempt to ensure that the issue was addressed was not just defeated in Committee—as was perhaps predictable—by 21 votes to one, but did not secure a recognition from the Government that, in the changing climate that they are creating, British Coal cannot be trusted to be the sole custodian of the nation's coal assets and the sole determiner of licensing conditions and applications and which pits should be closed, which pits should be mothballed and which pits should be operated.
      I predict that, in future, communities will tell hon. Members that they are dissatisfied with the fact that their potential is being obstructed by British Coal and that the law does not allow any way around that, and not even a right of appeal to the Secretary of State. I hope that the Government will take those points seriously, because I am sure that they will reappear again and again.
      10.45 pm
      Dr. Woodcock: In general, the Bill is to be welcomed, but with reservations. Many hon. Members have expressed their concerns about subsidence, and we welcome the statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about that as a significant move forward.

      259
      Some of us also have reservations about private mining operations, licensing and royalties. I recently asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in a written question whether he would review the royalty paid by the private mine operators. My right hon. Friend replied:
      "Royalties are a matter for the British Coal Corporation, as owner and licensee of coal reserves."—[Official Report, 20 December 1989; Vol. 164, c. 307.]:
      Royalties should not be a matter for British Coal, and it should no longer own the coal reserves. We hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will do something about that in the not-too-distant future.
      I remind my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that the coal industry does not simply concern British Coal employees and private mining operators. Many other people are involved in the industry, including wholesalers, importers, exporters, producers of smokeless fuel, coal merchants and many others. Many of those people are concerned about some of the practices of British Coal that are allowed under the present law. They are particularly concerned about back-door nationalisation and anticompetitive practices.
      I want my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to bear those points in mind. Ultimately, I want to see the privatisation of the state sector of British Coal and not the nationalisation of what remains of its private sector. I hope that my right hon. Friend will bear that in mind when he considers other legislation.
      10.47 pm
      Mr. Michael Welsh: I will be brief and refer to two important issues in clause 4. Under that clause, the manpower in a private mine can be increased from 30 to 150. Clause 4 states:
      "to work below ground there is at no time likely to exceed, or greatly to exceed, 150".
      An increase of 200 may be covered by the term "or greatly". The Bill would provide for such an increase unless the Secretary of State gives a different undertaking. The increase will be 150 only if the Secretary of State gives that undertaking. At the moment, that is not clear from the Bill.
      I do not believe that the private mine operators will be able to use deep mines with 150 people below ground. However, is the Secretary of State aware that the miners' rescue team is run by the Coal Board? We can all hope that we never see another explosion in a mine, but they can occur. The Coal Board rescue teams will have to go underground if such an explosion occurs, because that is their job and they are a brave set of individuals. However, I cannot see why they should have to do that. The private mines are there to make a profit and the nationalised industry should not pay for the rescue teams. At the moment, equity does not prevail in that situation.
      On deep mining, especially in seams like the Barnsley seams, the only reason we have had no explosions is because we have been able to seal them solidly by stowing. It costs a lot of money and manpower. If people risk deep mining without stowing, as sure as God made little apples, a mine will go up, and our lads will have to go in and rescue the poor individuals who are underground.
      Once, there was no stowing. I remind the Minister that there are still four men sealed in the pit that I worked. In 1940, when I had just started, I was pony driving, taking
      260
      sand down to seal it off, when it went up a second time. There are four still in there because it was too dangerous to go in for them. The consensus was that they were dead. Since stowing started, we have never had an explosion. At Bentley in the 1930s, I think that over 30 men were left in because stowing was not done then.
      I am frightened that, if there is not investment in stowing in deep mines, our lads from the miners' rescue squads will have to rescue the poor sods who are down there. I hope that it never happens. I hope that the Minister will pass on to the chairman of British Coal, whom we saw this afternoon, that conditions should be laid down before licences are granted.
      There is to be an increase in opencast operations. We all know what has been happening. Where there has been permission to take 50,000 tonnes, when that has been extracted, British Coal has agreed to the extraction of a few more tonnes just because the machinery was there. What will happen if the operators want a bit more when they are taking 250,000 tonnes? I remind the Minister that this is not America or Canada. It is a small island. The Government are raping it by allowing this to go ahead.
      If it takes two years to get 25,000 tonnes, with lorries going through beautiful little villages, will it take 20 years to get 250,000 tonnes? If Conservative Members vote for this, I remind them that permission will be granted about the time of the next election, and their electors will not like it. I would not like it if lorries were passing my house for 10 to 20 years. They could do it in five or six years by increasing the capacity of the lorries and having them going past people's front doors 24 hours a day. If that is the outlook of a Government who say that they have green policies, thank goodness they do not have the opposite to green policies, or they would double the amount again.
      I ask the Minister to consider even at the eleventh hour keeping the quantity to 50,000 tonnes. He should give the kiddies and mothers who live round these developments a break. That is not asking a lot. Unless pressure has been put on the Minister—I do not know people who do such a thing—he should limit the amount to 50,000 tonnes. That should be enough in any area. I ask the Minister to consider that again when the Bill goes to another place.
      10.53 pm
      Mr. Gerald Howarth: For the past two and a half years, as parliamentary private secretary to my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer), I have by convention been unable to participate in coal debates. Therefore, I seek the opportunity of a newly won liberation to support the Bill which has been brought to the House by my right hon. Friend. As he knows, I represent a number of miners in the Cannock Chase coalfield.
      I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste) said about the Bill showing the Government's commitment to the coal industry. To write off £5,000 million of accumulated debt represents a substantial commitment, and I challenge any hon. Member to suggest that the Government do not care about it. Those who work in it should understand that, as a result of the munificence of the taxpayer, the industry is being restructured. It will be put on a proper financial footing, which is only fair and proper after it has dramatically improved its productivity.

      261
      It must be recognised that the redundancy payments are more generous than those that have been offered by other industries. Those payments are the latest in a long line of investments that the Government have made in the industry. Hon. Members mentioned investment in private mines. There is no doubt that my constituents have benefited from the Government's investment in the coal industry.
      I welcome the liberalisation measures in the Bill. It gives Conservative Members much pleasure to see the Labour party so vociferously opposing clause 4. Whether it will extend its opposition to other clauses is another matter, but I believe that the liberalisation measures are modest.
      Conservative Members understand the sincerity of the views expressed by the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) and other Labour Members. We recognise that they hold heartfelt opinions about the industry in which they worked and in which they saw their friends killed. I hope that they do not believe that Conservative Members give safety a lower priority than they do, because we believe passionately in it. I honestly believe that the Labour party cannot argue that it is in favour of giving safety the high priority that it alleges it does when it is prepared to countenance the continuation of private pits that employ only 30 men, which cannot be economically viable unless they operate old-fashioned and dangerous techniques.
      My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has done well in bringing the Bill before the House. It will greatly benefit the coal industry in the private and public sectors.
      10.57 pm
      Mr. Allen McKay: I shall begin where the hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Howarth) left off—with the writing off of the coal industry's debts.
      Labour Members welcome anything that will improve the industry's debts, but the Bill should be put in perspective. The industry has incurred most of its debts on redundancy payments and pension provision. When the Government talk about writing off its debts, they are talking about writing off its social costs.
      No figure has been given for the amount of debt that will be written off. Some of the money that has been allocated will be spent on continuing to pay for the debt. It has not been said when and how the debt will be written off. That point must be answered.
      We have been asking for help for the nationalised coal industry for the past two or three years. It does not require much thought to realise that this is an enabling Bill for the privatisation of the coal industry in the next Parliament, should the Government be re-elected.
      The Secretary of State did not fully answer the question about the managers of private mines. A manager does not merely to to university, gain a degree and have a class 1 mining certificate. He also has to go through a period of apprenticeship, and he must work in every facet of the colliery, before he can obtain the practical experience to go with his academic experience and his degree. Where will the managers come from for the expansion in private mining? They will not be plucked out of thin air. The managers who have been made redundant from British Coal and to whom I have spoken are adamant that they will not go into the privatised mines. Where will they come from, and how?
      The Secretary of State also did not answer the question about electrical and mechanical engineers. He did not say
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      whether an electrical engineer or a mechanical engineer would be in charge, and whether one would be in charge for the whole 24 hours or whether one would be in charge for each shift.
      I want to return to what my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) said about the viability of the mechanisation of private mines. Who will pay the capital costs? The only reason why the industry was capitalised and mechanised was that it became a nationalised industry. In the old days, the private owners could not afford that mechanisation. What makes the Secretary of State think that the owners will be able to afford mechanisation? How will they obtain a return on the tremendous capital costs of mechanising even one coal face?
      I want to see the legislation on opencasting tightened up now that the Government have increased the amount of coal that can be taken in that way. A mine in my area has gone through the usual stages and will hold up the industrial development of the area for the next eight to 10 years. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) believe that it will cause huge devastation to the locality. There is the prospect of opencasting in the valley, and the people on the periphery of the valley will not be able to ignore the noise and the dust, because there will be no baffles.
      In addition, the River Dearne will have to be redirected, which we certainly do not want. Following the huge opencast executive applications are a number of small private applications which will devastate the whole area. Some of the areas were opencast areas in the 1950s. As a result of new technology, opencasting can go deeper, so we shall have opencast applications time and time again, if we are not careful.
      As for subsidence, we must debate the Waddilove report on the Floor of the House. That would be only justice. We should debate the recommendations, the form of compensation and the need for compensation. All my constituency is devastated because of mining subsidence, although the collieries that caused that subsidence are closed. Who is picking up the cheque for the repairs that need to be carried out?
      Should this Government return to power and privatise the mines before the Waddilove report is debated, and before compensation arrangements are effectively tidied up, who will pay the costs of mining subsidence? The people in those areas want an answer to those questions. We have asked them time and time again, but we have never had an answer. It is time that all the cards were put on the table so that we can see what will happen to the mining districts, and especially to the mining communities.
      11.3 pm
      Mr. Lofthouse: I want to point out to the Secretary of State that, although I welcome any financial assistance for the British coal industry, I regret the amount of finance that has been made available for redundancies, because I wish that it had not been necessary. Whatever the argument over the total numbers, it is a fact that thousands of men will lose their jobs. We should hear in mind that fact, and the fact that, as I have often said in the House, the average age of these young miners is 34. There is no cushion of weekly payments, as the redundancy

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      payments will be based on a lump sum. Many of those young men are burdened by large mortgages, and the present interest rates do not help.
      In January 1987, the Select Committee on Energy said clearly that the industry should never again be run down so rapidly without a policy co-ordinated by the Departments of Energy, of Trade and Industry and of Employment to cushion the blow and limit the social consequences.
      Since 1985, when the rundown began, some mining communities, including my own, have had not one farthing of Government assistance in attracting alternative employment. Only about three weeks ago, I accompanied a deputation to the Department of Trade and Industry and met the Minister for Industry, who was very sympathetic to our problems in the mining communities—certainly to those of my own constituency—but told us clearly that he could offer us no assistance whatever because our areas had not been zoned as having intermediate area status.
      Thousands and thousands of jobs have gone, and we had no assistance at all. That cannot continue. One is forced to think—it is certainly what my constituents think—that the reason why the Government are not interested in helping our areas is purely political. The Government know full well that, even if they help us to attract industry, it will not win them any votes. It will certainly not win them Pontefract and Castleford. Nevertheless, the Government have a moral obligation to give some assistance to the communities that their policies have wiped out.
      Has the Secretary of State any plans to help the thousands of young miners who will lost their jobs? Does he plan to have discussions with his colleagues to try to decide whether the areas can be helped to find jobs for these young men? If he has no such plans, the Government's policy is immoral and they have kicked the miners in the teeth. If there are no signs of help, my constituents' suspicions will be confirmed. I suggest that the Secretary of State and the Minister should give a lead—unlike their predecessors—and show that they have some feeling for the mining communities.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

PETITION

  NHS Reform
  11.7 pm
  Mr. Matthew Taylor: I wish to present a petition from Cornish residents, to bring to the attention of the House our concerns about the National Health Service and the Government's proposed reforms. The Cornish people are overwhelmingly opposed to the Conservatives' plans.
  This week, a Liberal Democrat survey of local doctors showed that 90 per cent. believe that the reforms will be detrimental to patients. My petition carries 82 signatures, each of which represents 100 signatures on the health petition organised by local Liberal Democrats that I have already presented to the Department of Health. That means that 8,200 of my constituents in all call on the Government to abandon their proposals, and a further 100,000 people have signed the Liberal Democrat petition nationwide.
  I welcome this opportunity to bring our opposition to the attention of the House, and I hope that Ministers will begin to respond to the overwhelming concern felt by the people of Britain.
  To lie upon the Table.

Radiation Overdoses (Compensation)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Durant.]
11.8 pm
Mr. Tony Speller: I have sought this opportunity to raise the matter of compensation arrangements for patients damaged by radiation overdoses at the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital in Exeter. That hospital looks after the radiation side of treatment for people in my constituency of Devon, North and a further five constituencies in the south-west of England.
Since the problem arose, several questions have been asked in the House and several comments and statements made, of which the most apposite was that made by the then Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), two years ago. She said that Exeter health authority
"intends to deal with claims as expeditiously as possible in a way which will cause as little distress to patients and their families as the circumstances will allow. The Authority has instructed its solicitors to reflect this desire."—[Official Report, 13 December 1988; Vol. 143, c. 753.]
That was two years ago, and time passes. It passes quickly in this place, but it passes slowly on a sick-bed. Recently, I asked my hon. Friend the Minister of State what had happened about claims for excessive dosages of radiation. I wanted to know how many had been settled, what ranges of payments had been made, and how many cases remained to be settled. I also asked whether the Minister would list how many settlements had been made. What was the highest? What was the lowest? Finally, I asked the Minister to list the number of payments that were made to staff who were sacked. Of course, two of the staff were actually sacked for negligence or professional misconduct.
Sadly, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, answering all those questions, which were of great importance to my constituents and to my colleagues in the area, said that all those matters were for Exeter health authority as far as they affected patients or their representatives. The two physicists who were dismissed received severance payments. Those details are confidential to the parties concerned.
The Minister of State told me, "Don't ask the Minister, ask the health authority." The health authority, which has been in correspondence with my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery), keeps saying, "Everything is confidential." There comes a time when we must take confidentiality by the scruff of the neck and ask, "Is this merely a smokescreen? Is confidentiality merely the excuse for obscurity—the excuse for no action?"
The history of this sad case in Exeter is straightforward. In February two years ago—23 months ago from now, to be exact—a new radioactive cobalt source was fitted and calibrated to one of the machines used to treat patients who have problems or expected problems with cancer. The machine was calibrated with a 25 per cent. excess in the dosage. Every person who received treatment received 25 per cent. radioactivity over and above the basic dose.
There is no secret about that, except that it happened in February. Nobody checked that the equipment had been properly calibrated. It does not say very much for the physicists—they have gone with severance payments. It says very little, for the administration—quite a few of them have gone elsewhere without penalty. It says very little
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frankly, for the consultants or the doctors who treated patients who had been damaged, and damaged over a period of five months.
It came to pass that, in July 1988, after five months, he machine was rechecked. It should have been checked months before, but it was not. No one was penalised, except the poor patients. But then, of course, they trusted our Health Service, the consultant, the person who administered the treatment, and the nurses. Several of them spoke to the nurses and said, "I was told that it would not hurt, but it hurts. I was told that it would not burn, but it burns." One of my constituents was burnt through the breast into the back and was given, gratis, a bottle of calamine lotion and told to apply that. That does not reflect tremendously well on the quality of the care administered in that place.
Patients complained to the nurses, and some of the nurses mentioned it to the doctors, but their complaints never reached a consultant. According to the Thwaites report, not one consultant was aware of the damage done and not one consultant was aware of the complaints. I do not know why the medical hierarchy is so scared of consultants—one never speaks to them. My constituents and others were damaged for life, their life expectancy was shortened, and no one paid any attention to their complaints or queries. It is the old business—the expert knows best.
In July when the calibration was rechecked, the 25 per cent. mistake was not found, but thank God—I say that sincerely—on 12 July 1988, Exeter health authority agreed
to enter into some form of national check on the equipment in use. That special check—not the routine checks, because there was none, and not a random check after five months—found the fault.
What happened then? The brief answer is, nothing. There was clearly a "fox in the henhouse" in that organisation, but the patients and the Members of Parliament knew nothing. No one was told anything for some time. Then a nurse—I do not know her name—got in touch with a national newspaper, asking whether it knew about what had happened. The paper did not know, but checked with a local reporter on the Exeter Express and Echo, who checked with me. I had not heard about it. The long and the short of it was that when the paper telephoned the hospital and said, "We're going to break this story," all of a sudden a press report was issued and a meeting held—all with such speed that all my constituents, and those of other hon. Members, also learned from local radio and television that they might have been terminally damaged.
But even then the matter was not taken as seriously as it should have been. It was a case of, "Oh well, it is an overdose, but don't worry. It'll be all right." One of my constituents was told, "Don't worry, my dear, your name isn't on the list," but she recognised on television the piece of apparatus on which she had been checked. She said, "That is the piece," and was told, "Oh yes, you are on the list." Just imagine—a young woman who is in the depths of despair is told, "You aren't on the list of those damaged,"—thank heavens, happiness—but she sees the very machine on television. What sheer inefficiency.
The then Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South was very straight and said, "Yes, there has been a mistake. Yes, the Health Service—us—is at

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fault. Yes, we accept our responsibility and yes, restitution will be made." At that stage, all of us thought that something would happen swiftly.
In fact, two men were sacked. They were sacked because their machine had overdosed and because it had not been checked, but was found wanting after someone else had checked it. They were sacked, but they were paid in compensation sums that I cannot discover. The Minister says, "Ask the health authority," but the health authority says, "It's confidential." Although it is public money, the amounts are confidential. Rumour has it—I say no more than that—that one of the men received about £50,000 and the other about £40,000. They will not tell us, so I cannot prove it. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will tell us, because those figures put into pretty shabby perspective some of the offers made to my constituents.
The employees were not prosecuted and as far as I know, they were not disciplined. They work elsewhere, but no restitution has been made to those affected, except good money to those two men as restitution for being sacked. In the businesses in which I have been involved, if one is sacked, one leaves, but not with a lot of money.
Although I speak basically of my constituents, the picture is larger. The health authority identified 217 people who were treated during the period of overdosing, of whom, as at the end of last week, 121 are dead; and 96 remain. I do not deny for a second that many of those people were terminally ill, and no one is suggesting for a moment that there has been some vast killing. That is not the case, but none the less, folk were damaged. Professor Joslin, the specialist brought in by the health authority, says that about 33 people are at no risk at all, so we are down to about 60 people.
The problem is always that there is confusion. We cannot find the details. All that we can tell is that the health authority hopes to pay out what it calls PSA claims—which stands for pain and suffering allowances. It is now two years since that pain and suffering was inflicted, but the health authority only hopes to have the claims finalised by April. The pain and suffering is not finalised, but I repeat that the health authority hopes that the claims may be. The health authority admits liability. Indeed, in answer to a question in the House, I was told that insurance was not needed because the funds had been found from the authority's own resources.
Perhaps therein lies the core of the problem, because a pattern is apparent to me. There is a great dragging of feet in paying these poor people, although there is no doubt about liability. It is not like settling a claim for a car crash when, if one side has not filled in the form, its company will not pay out the loss. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton suggested way back in December last year that we should talk about some form of independent panel or assessor to put zip into the process. There is no zip whatever in the health authority.
It is not difficult to argue about why a claim cannot be paid. It is the old Catch 22. The health authority says, "Until you make a claim, we cannot pay you." The people who have been damaged and their lawyers say, "We cannot make a claim until we obtain the medical details that you hold. You who injured us hold the records that prove how much you injured us." The position changes as the weeks and months progress. The effects of radiation on
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a body that is perhaps already damaged inevitably change. We cannot expect the position to be static. That is why I appeal to the Minister to provide for an instant payment. I do not care how it is worked out. Perhaps there should be three bands of payment, which will not be a final payment.
Today I was talking to lawyers from the United States of America. I described the case of my constituent who was burnt through the breast to the back. I asked what damages they would seek. They said that they would not seek tens of millions, but certainly they would seek millions. I understand that the tacit verbal offers going around are about £5,000 for the blighting of a human life and for the people who can no longer work. If that is true and if no one has been punished, it is a disgrace to us all.
There were 217 injuries. Fewer than 100 of those people survive. How many settlements have been made in the 18 months that have passed since the problem first became known? Fewer than 10 settlements have been made. Some people have died. Of my eight constituents who were involved, five are dead. Perhaps their widows or families will be compensated, but that is no consolation to the person who has gone or to the family. The money is needed now. That is why I appeal to the Minister to think of some form of payment that can be made now. He might create three bands of payment. I am not an accountant, but perhaps they can be payments of £5,000, £10,000 and £20,000. The final payment will be much higher, but for goodness' sake, let us, as a nation and as a Health Service, pay something to those people now.
A claimant taking us through the courts would probably finish up with a six-figure payment. If, as I suspect, the men sacked for inefficiency were given £50,000, it will be hard to deny the person damaged twice that sum.
I conclude by saying that the compensation paid instantly was to those who moved from their jobs. It is strange and unreasonable that those who were sacked took the money with them but those who were injured are still waiting. Some payment must be made to those who were injured. We are talking about £1,000 here and £5,000 there. I do not say for a second that my hon. Friend the Minister and the health authority do not accept the problem. The problem is that they will not expedite it. The wheels of the law grind almost as slowly as the wheels of medicine.
I have spoken to the lawyers who represent my constituents. They say that they are doing what they can, but that they are waiting for papers from the health authority. The health authority says that it would like to pay, but that it is waiting for the claims. No paper, no claim. No claim, no paper. That is the top and the bottom of the argument.
Somewhere along the line, we the Government, not the health authority, must take the bull by the horns and do something to help the people injured who still live—we hope, healthily. Some are women who are young by my standards, healthy, strong, able and determined. They are not likely to die, praise God, but they are likely to be damaged. They are not likely to have to leave work but they may never work as they did. Their career and family opportunities have been damaged by us and by our Health Service. It is not fair that we the Government, who care for our people and our constituents, should allow the health authority to get away, almost literally, with murder.
11.23 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Roger Freeman): My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) has once again done a great service to his constituents by securing this Adjournment debate supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) who also has a great constituency interest in the matter. The matter has been of continuing concern to him and to other hon. Members in neighbouring constituencies.
I am aware of my hon. Friend's concern that everything possible should be done to speed up the negotiations between Exeter health authority and the patients or their representatives in securing agreed compensation payments. However, as the House will appreciate, it is a matter of great sensitivity and confidentiality, and not one in which I or my Department are directly involved, although we are indirectly involved.
Negotiations are taking place on the wake of this most regrettable incident in the radiotherapy department of the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital early in 1988, on which my predecessor answered questions in the House in July of that year. The incident led to the accidental overdosing of 207 patients undergoing radiation treatment. The circumstances surrounding the incident were investigated by an independent panel of inquiry led by Professor Sir Bryan Thwaites, who subsequently reported to the health authority in December 1988 with 21 recommendations, all of which are being implemented by the health authority.
I hope that my hon. Friends have seen that report. The preface to that report is signed by the chairman of the Exeter health authority. It is dated 6 December 1988 and in it he says:
"1 wish to express my deepest sympathy to everyone affected and to record here my lasting regret that an incident such as this ever occurred. Unfortunately, what these reports"—
he is referring to the reports of a committee of inquiry—
"or indeed, any inquiry into such a regrettable incident, cannot do is to lessen the anguish which has been experienced by the patients and families who discovered that they were involved."
I am sure that my hon. Friends would associate themselves with those remarks.
Following the incident, the health authority acknowledged that the overdosing had been caused by negligence on the part of its employees failing to calibrate the equipment properly, and invited every patient affected, or their executors, to make a claim against the authority.
My hon. Friend touched upon the severance payments of the two physicists involved. They were payments consequent upon their dismissal for negligence over the affair. There are no legal suits against the health authority and no legal prosecution was considered possible against the two individuals involved.
As I have explained previously, the severance payments involved are confidential to the parties involved, but I am advised that it is speculation that the sums involved were of the order of £40,000. I can tell my hon. Friend that the figure that he mentioned is greatly over-estimated. I understand how my hon. Friend feels about those payments but they were to avoid any prolonged appeal process which would have prevented the posts being refilled as soon as possible. It was a simple matter of priorities, and the continuing care and safety of the patients came first.
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At national level, the Standing Medical Advisory Committee's sub-committee on cancer subsequently set up a sub-committee on quality assurance in radiotherapy which is hoping to report by the end of the year. My predecessor also wrote to regional chairmen on the sensitive handling of untoward incidents in the best interests of patients, following the lessons learned at Exeter.
In addition to the Thwaites report, from which I have quoted, a confidential medical risk assessment for the health authority was carried out by Professor Charles Joslin of Leeds university on each of the patients affected, initially through the medical records of the patients concerned. That assessment has formed the basis of the health authority's early work on the claims.
Of the 207 patients originally affected, I am sorry to say that 121 have since died, but not, I hasten to add, necessarily earlier than they would have done had they not received the overdose. The House will realise that they were all suffering from cancer. Of the 86 survivors, 35 are thought to be at insignificant risk from the overdose, in the main because only a small part of their treatment was given on the miscalibrated machine.
I understand that the position at the beginning of this year was that there had been claims from a total of 103 patients to date, of which 95 were still to reach final settlement. However, a variety of payments to 65 claimants have so far been made. The number of claimants who have had their claim finalised and to whom a full agreed payment has been made is eight. A further seven claims have been met in settlement of
"pain, suffering and loss of amenity".
Interim payments have been made to 50 other eligible claimants, and the total so far paid out is more than £400,000 in varying amounts according to the degree of physical harm judged to have been done by the radiation overdose.
Thirty-three of the remaining 38 claims where no payment has yet been made—including one claim which was subsequently withdrawn—were on behalf of patients assessed to be at insignificant risk. A further five claims are in respect of deceased patients assessed to have been in a low risk category, which are still under consideration and in respect of which no payments have yet been made.
My hon. Friend will, I am sure, appreciate that settlements are bound to take a little time even though the claims are not being pursued in the courts. Legal representatives of the patients have to decide whether to advise pressing for early settlement or to delay pursuing a claim until the client's medical condition is clearer. This has to be entirely a matter between the patients and their legal advisers. Some effects may be long term, while others may be short-lived. Meanwhile, the health authority stands ready to register any further claims and pursue them with all diligence.
While the health authority is willing to do all that it can to expedite matters, it nevertheless has a duty to be fair and scrupulous in weighing claims, since it has a duty to the taxpayer as well as to the claimants. The nub of the issue is to determine the amount of damage caused by the excess radiation, since radiation treatment itself is intended to be damaging to cancerous cells, but inevitably there is peripheral damage to health tissue, and a great deal of painstaking work has gone into that.
In claims of this kind, there are two kinds of damages. The first is for pain, suffering and loss of amenity; and the

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second is for special damages to cover such things as the need for domestic help, taxis, dressings and so on. It is the former that will usually be the larger amount and the subject of considerable debate. Those special damages—the second class to which I referred—can be derived from medical evidence, actual costs incurred and life expectancy tables. It is clear that some legal advisers are, perfectly legitimately, holding back on the second issue until they are fully clear about the implications for their clients.
The health authority has therefore, with the full agreement of the solicitor who is co-ordinating the claims, separated the two sets of damages in order to speed things up. Meetings are being held with legal representatives of both sides to settle at least the pain, suffering and loss of amenity claims as quickly as possible, and the health authority is anxious that all those claims can be settled by the end of April.
Mr. Speller: Will all claims be settled or just those for pain, suffering and loss of amenity?
Mr. Freeman: If I may finish the paragraph, I shall be happy to answer that point.
If the claims are not settled, it will not be from want of will on the part of the health authority.
My hon. Friend asked whether all the claims would be settled or just those in the pain, suffering and loss of amenity category. I cannot give him an assurance that all claims in the second, so-called special damages, category will be settled within that timetable. That is partly because, as I have said, I understand that for perfectly legitimate and reasonable grounds the advisors acting for the patients involved wish to assess various other factors. Therefore, I am advised that the authority is not in a position to estimate whether that second category of claims can be settled by the end of April. As to the second category of damages, on which I am not in possession of comprehensive advice tonight, I shall write to my hon. Friends the Members for Devon, North and for Honiton, with an estimate of the timetable for settlement of the claims.
Sir Peter Emery: I thank my hon. Friends the Minister and the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) for allowing me to intervene. Everyone is concerned about the excessive length of time involved. I made the suggestion to a previous Health Minister and to the health authority's chairman that there should have been established immediately a panel comprising a leading
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Queen's counsel or judge concerned specifically with compensation, a specialist—someone of the calibre of Mr. Joslin—in cancer, and an insurance specialist concerned specifically with the aspect of compensation for medical accidents.
My proposal was that such a tribunal should quickly review every case and make a recommendation for compensation. No legal rights would be taken away from the individual, and if he or she then wanted to continue with the legal process that had already been under way for some considerable time, they would be at liberty to do so.
Had that been done, many of the claimants would have received money before they died and have enjoyed the mental benefit of being free from anxiety. The health authority's chairman is concerned because many of those involved are worried about the publicity that their own cases have attracted.
Will my hon. Friend the Minister consider using a mechanism such as I have described to achieve a settlement on any appropriate occasion in future? I feel sure that my hon. Friends the Minister and the Member for Devon, North, and Mr. Murray French, Exeter health authority's chairman, want to do whatever they can to help the patients concerned.
I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to reveal that he has said privately to me, and to publicise from the Floor of the House tonight the fact that any person in the queue who is concerned at the delay, and believes it to be the fault of the health authority, should contact him personally.
Both he and I believe that much of the delay has been woven by the lawyers. I am sorry to have to say that, but while certain of the lawyers have stated that they have been working for nothing, I hope that their fees will amount to no more than 10 per cent. of the value of the settlements—so that they are seen to live up to their word. Leaving that to one side, can my hon. Friend the Minister see his way to finding a solution more quickly?
Mr. Freeman: In the one minute remaining to me, I give my hon. Friends two assurances. I am advised that there is no dilatoriness on the part of the health authority and that the matter is one for resolution between it, its patients, and their legal representatives. I share the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton. I take a close interest in the matter, and I will make further inquiries and write to both my hon. Friends if I can add anything further to tonight's brief debate.
Question put and agreed to.
House adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes to Twelve midnight.