§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. John M. Taylor.]
11.31 pm§ Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse (Pontefract and Castleford)I am grateful for the opportunity to describe the problems of unemployment in my constituency and in neighbouring constituencies.
In December 1991, the official unemployment figures for the Castleford and Pontefract travel-to-work area were 10 per cent. of the total work force and 13 per cent. of the male work force. Recent announcements of job losses in the mining industry in my constituency and in neighbouring constituencies—at the Prince of Wales, Sharlston and Kellingley collieries and the Whitemoor colliery at Selby—will mean that 11.7 per cent. of the total work force and 15.7 per cent. of the male work force will be unemployed, the increases being 17 per cent. and 21 per cent. respectively. In December 1991, 8.7 per cent. of the total work force and 11.9 per cent. of the male work force in west Yorkshire were unemployed. Thus the unemployment rate in the area to which I am referring far exceeds both the rate for west Yorkshire and the national rate.
Since 1981, 17 collieries have closed, with the loss of 14,640 jobs. If one adds to that the 920 job losses announced last week in my area, the total number of jobs lost is 15,560–90 per cent. of Wakefield metropolitan district council's mining work force in 1981. Again, if one adds the jobs lost in spin-off industry, the job losses in the area total 20,000. Moreover, only yesterday, National Power announced that there would be hundreds of job losses at the Eggborough and Drax power stations.
The average age of the miners who have lost their jobs at the collieries to which I referred is 33. Some 95 per cent. of the Sharlston and Prince of Wales miners live in the Wakefield metropolitan district council area, as do 90 per cent. of the Kellingley miners and 60 per cent. of the Whitemoor miners. A total of 1,035 of the latest redundancies will affect people living in the area.
We must also take into account the closure of the Allerton Bywater colliery in March, with some 600 people —many of them also residing in the area—losing their jobs. The House and the Minister will appreciate the great problems that we are experiencing in my area and in other mining communities.
The collieries to which I refer are not unsuccessful collieries. For instance, as I understand it, those collieries can produce coal at about £38 per tonne, which compares well with the recently announced £68 per tonne reference price band for the European Community. The House can well appreciate how those miners will be feeling, given their efforts since 1985. Only a few weeks ago, some of them were breaking national output records, but this is the reward that they are now getting.
§ Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton)I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene at this point. My hon. Friend will be aware that in July last year, when the chairman of British Coal presented his report, he said that British Coal had made 79 per cent. profit on the operational account and had broken records because of the dedication and the will of the men who worked in the industry. What a poor reward it is for people who have given devoted service to 923 be told only a few months later that they are to be made redundant. The travel-to-work area to which my hon. Friend referred covers a part of my constituency. I put it to the Minister that there is a great deal of concern, and the way in which British Coal has treated its work force in this recent announcement of redundancies is shameful.
§ Mr. LofthouseI am grateful to my hon. Friend. I fully appreciate the points that he has made. His constituency is affected by the recent announcements.
Over the past year, production levels have been as follows: Sharlston, 1 million tonnes; Kellingley, 2.1 million tonnes; Prince of Wales, 1.35 million tonnes; and Whitemoor, 1.36 million tonnes. Two of those pits have made good profits over the past year. Two have not done so well, but both are in development phases, preparing for production that will make profits.
The colliery closures have had spin-off effects in the mining engineering industry, with which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) is familiar. He has been doing a lot of work recently to assist that industry, which is mainly based in his constituency.
§ Mr. David Hinchliffe (Wakefield)I am grateful for my hon. Friend's reference to the mining engineering industry and I commend him on his efforts over many years on behalf of the coal industry in general. He is aware, I know, that last year the Wultex factory in Wakefield closed down, with the loss of 60 jobs. In the last week or two, we have lost 100 jobs at Gullick Dobson in Wakefield. Is it not absolute nonsense that in this situation, with the loss not only of 15,000 mining jobs but of an additional 5,000 jobs in industries affected by the coal industry, we do not get one scrap of assistance from the British Government to regenerate the economy in Wakefield? The only help we get from the European Community is blocked by the British Government, who refuse to allow us that assistance. Is that not absolute nonsense?
§ Mr. LofthouseMy hon. Friend is right. At the beginning of the 1980s, the mining engineering industry was a very healthy industry in the area. Local firms were performing well and were innovators and they provided good-quality training. In 1981, 1,651 people were employed in the local industry. A large proportion of the work force were very highly skilled engineers.
As the mining industry has been run down, there has been parallel picture in the mining engineering industry. Between 1981 and 1987, the local mining engineering industry was cut back slightly, to 1,532 employees. With the acceleration in the colliery closure programme from 1985 onwards, the markets of the mining engineering industry have been massively reduced. Between 1987 and 1989, there were more than 400 job losses, reducing the local work force to 1,121 in 1989. Since 1989, the local work force has been halved, leaving only 577 employees in the industry in January 1992. Another 95 job losses in the next weeks have been announced. If they go ahead, the industry will have declined by 1,169 men, or 70.8 per cent. of the work force, since 1981. In the four years since the 1987 census of employment, the industry will have lost 1,050 men, or 68.5 per cent. of its work force.
I appreciate that the Minister is not responsible for National Power and PowerGen, but they seem to have got around the table in a cosy arrangement with British Coal to fix the coal contracts after 1993. They are going through the exercise of negotiation but, according to the 924 International Coal Report of 13 January, they have already agreed the tonnage that they will take from British Coal after 1993. It will be about 40 million tonnes, including opencast. That means that there will be 25 million tonnes of deep-mined coal.
There are also rumours that, because the commercial director of British Coal did not agree with that cosy little arrangement, he has got the sack. There is evidence of that. If the information about the tonnages is right, it means that the mining industry will be run down to about the size suggested in the Rothschild report. That could mean the loss of 30,000 to 40,000 more jobs in the industry between 1993 and 1995. It would mean that there would be no further competition in the electricity industry, as was foreseen at the time of the privatisation legislation. If British Coal is run down to the level needed to meet the demands of National Power and PowerGen, new players in the field could not purchase coal in this country. If gas is used for new or replacement capacity, the evidence is that it will be much dearer than coal.
If that is the case, newcomers would be in breach of the licences given on the privatisation of electricity. They would even be in difficulty in trying to import coal, because National Power and PowerGen have now got control of the ports at Immingham and are interested in Liverpool, so they are tying up that avenue, too. Therefore, there will be no competition in the supply of electricity. What is happening with British Coal, PowerGen and National Power is creating unemployment in mining communities such as mine.
My main point, which I have made many times in the House over the years, is that the Government have organised the rundown of the mining industry. For many years, they have had a duty to create replacement jobs in those communities but they have never done that in the areas to which I am referring.
The allocation of RECHAR to West Yorkshire totals £10.5 million, consisting of £8,568,000 from the European regional development fund and £1,792,000 from the European social fund. The Minister and his colleagues are witholding the RECHAR programme because of the Government's position on additionality. If that was not the case, projects ready for implementation within the Wakefield metropolitan district council area, which includes Pontefract and Castleford, would provide the following jobs: 600 in environmental improvements, 800 in the social and economic infrastructure, 550 in factory units and premises, 300 in tourism and 500 in small firms measures. Therefore, a total of 2,750 jobs could be got off the ground immediately in Wakefield alone if the Government would release the RECHAR programme.
I recognise that if RECHAR is released, Wakefield metropolitan district council's capital programme is so small that it would be unable to maximise the ERDF claim. But I strongly press the Minister to release RECHAR in view of the amount of the European social fund which is revenue-additional. At present, Wakefield could claim £622,000 for the 1990 and 1991 tranches, having incurred that expenditure to date. It could claim a further £1 million for 1992–93. All that money could be spent in the next two years on training redundant mineworkers and others in the power industry.
In those circumstances, and given that the Pontefract and Castleford area within the WMDC has received no Government assistance since the rapid rundown of the coal industry, I implore the Minister to release the 925 RECHAR money to save mining communities such as my constituency from devastation and to provide employment for young redundant mine workers, who have achieved record-breaking production since 1985, only to be rewarded with the loss of their jobs. I hope that the Minister will take the advice in several of the Energy Select Committee's reports, where it has recognised the problems of the mining communities and advised the Government to support them. So far, that advice has been ignored.
Only the other day, a press statement was attributed to Commissioner Millan, saying that he was considering further moneys for areas like mine after the announcement of those job losses. There has been a further announcement that this country could lose up to £900 million if the Government do not change their attitude. Surely no Minister would want those young miners, who are thrown on the scrap heap as a result of Government, British Coal and PowerGen policy, to face a future with no employment at all, when money is available to provide jobs for many of them.
Any Government, whatever their political label, who do not decide to relieve that problem when they have the power to do so are failing in their duty. They have an obligation to mining communities. Miners have worked hard to produce the cheapest coal in Europe but they are now being thrown out of work. Selby miners in particular have been transferred from pit to pit and they have taken out high mortgages to buy lovely houses, to which they are entitled. They are now worried stiff.
I hope that the Minister will have some news for us tonight, and say that the Government may change their minds over the RECHAR programme, as the Secretary of State for the Environment suggests.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Eric Forth)I congratulate the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) on having obtained this Adjournment debate. The House and I fully understand the concern which he has described in his constituency, and which his hon. Friends, have described in neighbouring constituencies, at the recent developments that have taken place. I do not want to involve myself—it is not my place to do so—in the energy policy elements that he has understandably raised. I shall confine my remarks to his points about employment and what can be and is being done to alleviate the problems that he outlined.
May I put in context the figures that the hon. Gentleman gave at the outset of his speech? He mentioned the Pontefract and Castleford travel-to-work area. It is worth reflecting on the fact that in June 1983, nearly 7,000 people were out of work in that area and that by June 1987, the figure was 8,347. The last available figure that the hon. Gentleman quoted was 5,632. Although that figure is still unacceptably high, as such unemployment figures would be in any part of the country, it shows that progress has been made, even against the background that the hon. Gentleman described. That figure suggests that progress has been made.
The hon. Gentleman concentrated on the fact that further recent job losses have been announced at the Kellingly, Prince of Wales and other Yorkshire collieries.
926 I appreciate that those losses are severe and why the hon. Gentleman has argued against those job cuts. However, I must remind the House that such matters are for British Coal to judge as an employer. It must make its best judgment about the commercial pressures and the jobs that it is to sustain. It must make a decision about the manpower requirements needed to produce the required tonnage to sell in competition with other fuels. I do not believe that the Government should seek to intervene directly in that process.
§ Mr. HinchliffeSurely the Government have already intervened by actively supporting the Immingham port legislation, which will enable coal to be imported up the Humber. That direct Government intervention has undermined the Yorkshire coalfield in Pontefract, Castleford and my constituency.
§ Mr. ForthThe hon. Gentleman is correct in the sense that it is for the Government of the day to determine the broad framework of energy policy. Coal, in conjunction with other fuels, fits into that framework. It is for those responsible for providing energy to the country to make the decisions about which fuels are the most appropriate. British Coal operates within that framework and it must draw its own conclusions about what level of employment is sustainable in different mining communities.
This debate is about the outcome of that series of policy decisions. I do not shrink from that and, in that sense, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) is correct to say that the Government have some direct input. I appreciate the personal and family problems that are caused when individuals lose their jobs. However, with the continuing provision of the coal restructuring grant and other policies, redundant employees are still offered generous severance terms according to any measure.
British Coal announced recently that the age-related supplementary lump sum payments will terminate on 31 March 1992, after being in operation for more than two years. When British Coal announced that scheme in 1990, it said that its continued availability would be subject to review at an appropriate date. Whether any future scheme is introduced to replace those payments is a matter for British Coal and outside my responsibility. However, I understand that payments made under the scheme will be available to miners at the pits in the area mentioned by the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford where job losses have recently been announced, provided that miners apply before 31 March. I hope that those payments will ensure that the level of provision remains equal to that made in the past two years at least.
§ Mr. LofthouseI appreciate that this is not a matter for the Minister's Department, but he has not got the real picture. Some of the young men aged between 30 and 38 will end up with a payment of £18,000—equivalent to about a year and a half's salary. However, those men have no hope of any other job and they have a large mortgage around their necks. They believe that they have no future. That is their reward for achieving record production levels since 1985.
§ Mr. ForthI can understand that reaction as an immediate response to what has happened, but that is not the full story. I do not know whether time will permit me 927 to mention all the schemes that are available through my Department, the Employment Service and the training and enterprise councils.
Many agencies can help people who have had the misfortune to lose their jobs to identify their strengths and weaknesses, or their skill requirements. They can help to identify the way in which those people can either find other work or set themselves up in self-employment. Many other miners who have lost their jobs have subsequently become self-employed. They will use the severance payments to seek other employment or self-employment. These possibilities exist. It is the responsibility of the dedicated people in the Employment Service—those working in the TECs—to seek to help people who have lost their jobs in mining to find alternative employment.
I hope that Opposition Members will help by looking at the positive opportunities that exist for re-employment or self-employment for those of all ages who have received redundancy payments and who have skills, energy and vigour still to offer. That is a better approach than claiming that people who have lost their jobs in mining are in some way—I think the phrase was used this evening —on the scrap heap or forgotten. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite the concern expressed by Opposition Members this evening, putting the matter in such a negative light does not help these people. Government Departments try in these difficult circumstances to come up with policies that help.
Grants and money are important, but equally important is identifying more positive employment alternatives.
It is worth noting that during British Coal's major restructuring there has not been a single compulsory redundancy. That goes for job losses in the pits in the Selby coalfield—
§ Mr. O'BrienThe men at the Selby coalfield were told that, if they did not let the management know by the Sunday night whether they would take redundancy, they would receive no redundancy payments. If that is not compulsory, what is?
§ Mr. ForthI am not in a position to comment on that, but the hon. Gentleman may want to pursue the matter to establish whether reasonable alternatives have been offered. But within the strict definition of compulsory redundancy, what I said remains true.
Those who choose redundancy will continue to be provided with specialist counselling and positive assistance in obtaining jobs by British Coal Enterprise, the body established expressly to help redundant miners and their communities. As hon. Members know, the Department of Energy has made over £60 million available to British Coal Enterprise, which has enabled it to create more than 75,000 opportunities for work nationwide. Over 80 per cent. of those registering at job shops set up by British Coal Enterprise at collieries which have closed have found employment. That reinforces my positive message of a moment ago.
As Opposition Members probably know, British Coal Enterprise has such a job shop at Allerton Bywater colliery; and I understand that it will now be setting up job shops at Sharlston, Kellingley and Prince of Wales 928 collieries. These are all positive steps being taken by British Coal Enterprise to meet the challenge outlined by the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford.
Opposition Members may want me to comment briefly on RECHAR. The allegation, repeated tonight, that the British Government are withholding the money is a travesty of the truth. It is Commissioner Millan who is withholding the money—
§ Mr. Derek Enright (Hemsworth)Will the Minister give way?
§ Mr. EnrightThe Minister is afraid to give way.
§ Mr. ForthI am trying to comment on a point that hon. Members have asked me about.
It is the Commissioner who has said that he is withholding the money, or who has threatened to withhold it because he claims that there is some sort of difficulty over the British Government's use of the money. That is not true. The Government continue to pursue policies in this matter which they have pursued for some time. The British Government want these programmes to be used in a positive way to help the areas for which they are designed. It does not help the communities involved when a former Labour Secretary of State comes up with such arguments—
§ Mr. EnrightGive way!
§ Mr. ForthIt is unhelpful of the Commissioner to come up with arguments that prevent the release of funds to help the very communities that the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford has mentioned. I hope that we can all move forward, as the Government hope to do, together with the commissioner, to identify whatever difficulties may exist and to work out ways of using the money in the ways for which it was intended—
§ Mr. LofthouseIf the Government have their way and the money is paid to central Government, will the Minister guarantee that the money will come to Pontefract and Castleford and areas like it?
§ Mr. ForthProvided that good will prevails on all sides and the matter is dealt with sensibly and practically, there is no doubt that the funds designed to help these areas will be directed towards them. No one wishes otherwise. The Government and the Commissioner must continue to try to identify any difficulties. Certainly, the Commissioner has admitted from time to time that he has similar difficulties with the definition of additionality even in other member states. The problem has arisen and continues to arise from time to time in various member states of the Community.
I hope that Opposition Members understand the Government's wish to adopt a positive attitude to the problems rightly brought to our attention by the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford this evening. I hope that he will accept my comments in that positive and helpful light.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Twelve o'clock.