HC Deb 25 November 1996 vol 286 cc125-32

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Knapman.]

10 pm

Mr. Roger Berry (Kingswood)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise a subject of great importance to many of my constituents—the accuracy or inaccuracy of the Coal Authority's records of former mine shafts in Kingswood and Bristol. I am also grateful to the Minister for being here to respond to this important debate.

In a nutshell, the problem is that, in my constituency and throughout the rest of the area that once formed part of the Bristol coalfield, there is a lack of confidence in the accuracy of the Coal Authority's records of disused mine shafts. That lack of confidence is common among local solicitors, estate agents, mortgage lenders and the local authorities—Bristol city council and South Gloucestershire council. It is inevitable that Coal Authority records are incomplete and sometimes unreliable. Everyone appreciates that. After all, mine owners were not required to keep accurate plans of a specified scale until 1911.

The problem in Kingswood and Bristol is far more serious than that, however. There are numerous instances of the Coal Authority's advice on a site differing dramatically from that of a local private company, Bristol Coalmining Archives, which, as its name suggests, has an extensive archive of material relating to the former Bristol coalfield.

As a result, local solicitors do not rely on the Coal Authority when undertaking searches, but instead turn to Bristol Coalmining Archives for a second opinion, and they are doing so in increasing numbers. The company currently receives between 300 and 400 such inquiries from solicitors each and every month—approximately 4,000 a year. That is an astonishingly large figure, given the size of the former Bristol coalfield, and the figure is growing rapidly.

Moreover, the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, on which I am pleased to serve, published a report in July on former mine shafts. One of the unanimous recommendations was for an independent investigation of the Coal Authority's archive of the Bristol area.

My purpose in raising the issue is to show the Minister why I strongly believe that the Government should act on the Select Committee's recommendation and bring to an end the distress and blight brought about by conflicting advice on disused mine shafts in Kingswood and Bristol. Not only are many properties being blighted unnecessarily, but thousands of people each year are being forced to pay for two mining searches when considering buying a new home. As I think everyone would agree, that situation is unacceptable, and needs to be sorted out.

I shall start at what, for me, is the beginning. Soon after the last election, as a new Member of Parliament, I was contacted by Mr. and Mrs. Hann of Woodyleaze drive, Hanham, in my constituency. They told me that, in April 1990, a big hole had appeared in their back garden. A local mining expert, Mr. John Cornwell, the managing director of Bristol Coalmining Archives, said that his records showed it to be a former mine shaft. British Coal, as it then was, said that the hole was not a mine shaft but a well, and denied all responsibility.

My predecessor as Member of Parliament for Kingswood, Mr. Rob Hayward, took up the case, and subsequently passed on to me an extremely thick file, which makes it clear that he was most concerned about the fact that, despite strenuous efforts, the matter had not been resolved. I am extremely sorry to say that, more than six years later, John and Jacky Hann still have a hole in their back garden which Bristol Coalmining Archives says is a former mine shaft and which the Coal Authority says is not. As the House can imagine, the matter remaining unresolved for so long has had a devastating effect on their lives and health.

If that were one isolated incident, however tragic, it would not be sufficient to call into question the general state of the Coal Authority's records on disused mine shafts in Kingswood and Bristol; but it is not an isolated case. A few days after the Hanns first contacted me, I was approached by another constituent, who had had difficulties in selling her flat because a search with British Coal had shown that there was a mine shaft close to her home; a second inquiry by Bristol Coalmining Archives produced a report showing that that was not so.

Similar cases have been referred to me by constituents ever since. I soon discovered that the local authorities—Bristol city council, Kingswood borough council and Avon county council, as they were at the time—had all expressed concern about the accuracy of British Coal's records in the area, as had local solicitors, estate agents, mortgage lenders and my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, East (Ms Corston) and for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo).

Following numerous meetings and discussions early in 1993, on 17 September 1993 the then chief executive of Bristol city council wrote to the principal private secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry: There are an increasing number of instances when official coal mining searches prepared by British Coal have contained inaccurate, inadequate or misleading information. The City Clerk tells me that he has seen evidence … to support such allegations and a situation has developed whereby local residents (supported by their legal advisers) are no longer prepared to rely on the accuracy of coal mining searches prepared by British Coal. The letter continued: I am also aware that an approach has been made to the Law Society for a directive to be made to the effect that so far as the Bristol area is concerned solicitors should be permitted to make their search direct to Bristol Coalmining Archives Ltd and there should no longer be a requirement placed upon them to request British Coal to undertake a search. The letter concluded: It is clear that the groundswell of opinion is such that the matter cannot be overlooked and warrants a thorough investigation by a senior officer from your Department. The letter was passed from the Department of Trade and Industry to British Coal, which denied that there was any problem.

A little more than a year later, on 24 October 1994, another meeting was called at the council house in Bristol. Attending that meeting were representatives from the three local authorities, British Coal, Bristol Coalmining Archives, the Bristol Law Society and the Law Society.

The minutes of the meeting, which were submitted to the Select Committee, show that Mrs. Pauline Holland of the Bristol Law Society said: local practitioners wanted a 'one stop shop' search with all the relevant information available in one place. Local solicitors were placed in a very difficult position when left to decide which reply (British Coal or Bristol Coalmining Archives) to take note of'. The other Bristol Law Society representative present at the meeting, Mr. Ian Dunn, said: There had been concern about the accuracy of the British Coal search and many solicitors saw the need to obtain other information locally. Clients were advised to pay for both searches. As the Minister knows, earlier this year the Select Committee on Trade and Industry decided to conduct an inquiry into the problems caused to home owners by former mine shafts, and our report, entitled, "Former Mineshafts", was published on 17 July. Among other issues, the Committee considered the Coal Authority's records of former mine shafts, and identified a specific problem in the Kingswood and Bristol area.

It is interesting to note the written evidence to the Select Committee submitted by Bristol City council reiterated the problems that had been stated in the 1993 letter from its chief executive. The council stated: there have been a number of cases where enquiries of the two organisations"— British Coal and the Bristol Coalmining Archives— have received conflicting answers … there have … been cases where one archive has said that a property is affected and the other has said it is not. There have been suggestions that some of the alleged shafts have been old wells … Concern about this is longstanding and crosses local authority boundaries. Householders. vendors, purchasers, estate agents, solicitors and mortgage lenders are all inconvenienced by the suggestion being made that they should make enquiries of more than one body, and all the uncertainty it produces for them when the answers from different sources are different. The suggestion that the Coal Authority is wrongly identifying disused wells as disused mine shafts is supported by extensive evidence to the Select Committee submitted by Bristol Coalmining Archives.

The city council's evidence to the Select Committee is echoed by that from other local authorities—South Gloucestershire council and the former Avon county council. South Gloucestershire council lamented the lack of accurate information, and also stated: advice from the Coal Authority … is sometimes contrary to information provided from other sources (eg Bristol Coalmining Archives). Perhaps even more remarkably, it also stated: Advice from the Coal Authority on any particular site has not been consistent over a period of time". That is the opinion of the local authority—an organisation with a certain reputation in the area for being accurate when it gives evidence.

One might ask what local estate agents have to say about the current state of affairs. They, too, are rather exasperated. The Avon branch of the National Association of Estate Agents is chaired by Mr. Peter Brunt, whose business is in my constituency. He, too, submitted written evidence to the Select Committee, in which he observed: Many of my colleagues both in Estate Agency and Solicitors … are aware that the Coal Authority's records are not as accurate as they should be. If a Coal Authority search shows a possible mine in close proximity to a property then often the solicitors acting for the purchaser will ask for a second report from Bristol Coalmining Archives. It is becoming fairly common practice"— I repeat, "fairly common practice"— to purchase both reports and some solicitors … have more reliance on the coal search from Bristol Coalmining Archives than they do from the Coal Authority … In my opinion the best way to resolve this unsatisfactory position is to have an independent review of Bristol's records held by the Coal Authority and any inaccuracies are identified and rectified. How do local solicitors regard the situation? I have already referred to the recorded views of the Bristol Law Society, which has repeatedly expressed the concerns of local solicitors about the current situation. I am well aware of those concerns from my discussions with local solicitors. Given such overwhelming evidence, it is hardly surprising that the Select Committee unanimously recommended that there should be an investigation into the Coal Authority's records in Bristol.

However, in the Government's response to the Select Committee's report, they noted, perfectly reasonably, the skimpy memorandum submitted by the Bristol Law Society that cast doubt on the existence of the problem. The memorandum, penned by Mr. Kirby, included the comment: In general practitioners who follow the Law Society's Guidance Notes for Coal Mining Searches do not experience difficulties on behalf of clients. I find that comment extraordinary. As I have shown, it is contrary to everything that the Bristol Law Society has previously said, and contrary to what everyone else has understood its position to be in recent years.

The Bristol Evening Post is commendably pursuing the matter with the Bristol Law Society spokesman Andrew Gregg. In an article in the paper on 12 November, Mr. Gregg was reported to support the call for an inquiry. Just over a week ago, I had a meeting with Mr. Gregg of the Bristol Law Society, and I thought it likely that a letter would be forthcoming before tonight's debate to clarify the society's position. I regret that it has not been.

There is abundant evidence that local solicitors believe that there is a problem. I have already said that, every year, local solicitors in Kingswood and Bristol make 4,000 inquiries of Bristol Coalmining Archives. Why are local solicitors going to the trouble, not only of undertaking a search with the Coal Authority, as the Law Society requires, but of consulting Bristol Coalmining Archives?

The answer is clear: local solicitors make the inquiries because, along with estate agents, building societies and other mortgage lenders, they believe that the Bristol Coalmining Archives' records are more accurate than the Coal Authority's. Some solicitors have told me that, if the Law Society changed its rules, they would stop using the Coal Authority.

I wish to comment on the scale of the problem—other than in terms of the 4,000 annual inquiries to the private company. I understand from Bristol Coalmining Archives that it has identified more than 100 sites for which the Coal Authority's records show one thing and its records show something completely different. Either the Coal Authority says that there is a disused mine shaft on the site and Bristol Coalmining Archives says that there is not, or vice versa.

I am not talking about the odd discrepancy, but about seriously conflicting advice on a large scale. The sample search of 18 properties referred to in the Bristol Law Society's memorandum—and in the Government's response to the Select Committee—is as much a mystery to me as the rest of the communication. But I should have thought that more than 100 incidents of conflicting records could not be dismissed as of no significance.

Interestingly, local solicitors and local authorities were not the only people to seek assistance from Bristol Coalmining Archives. In his written evidence to the Select Committee, its managing director reported: the British Geological Survey has had occasion to compare the extent of the two archives. As a result it is about to enter into agreement with Bristol Coalmining Archives Ltd for the revision of mining information on the Bristol Geological maps and for co-operation in other projects. The Minister may know that that agreement has now been signed.

If the Coal Authority's records are adequate. why should the British Geological Survey be seeking the assistance of Bristol Coalmining Archives? I am not a mining engineer: I do not know who is right and who is wrong. I could not tell a mine shaft from a well if I fell down one, but I know that there must be a good reason for solicitors in Kingswood and Bristol to make 4,000 requests every year of Bristol Coalmining Archives, and there must be a good reason why the British Geological Survey has commissioned work on mining records from that same company.

Scarcely anyone with a professional interest in mining records in Kingswood and Bristol—local solicitors, councils, estate agents, the British Geological Survey—does not now use Bristol Coalmining Archives. Therefore, the case for an investigation into the matter is overwhelming, and I would not have spent so much time over the past four years working on the issue were I not convinced that it was clearly in the public interest for it to be sorted out.

I should be delighted if tonight the Minister agreed to the Select Committee's request for an independent investigation, as that would be the right thing to do. I appreciate that he may not be able to do that immediately—he may want to reflect on what I have said this evening—but I urge him to reconsider the matter seriously. I hope that he will agree to meet a delegation of interested parties from Kingswood and Bristol to hear their views at first hand.

One thing is clear: there is a problem—one that is recognised by anyone in the area who knows anything about mining records. The problem will not go away. It needs resolving, and it needs resolving quickly.

10.19 pm
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Energy (Mr. Richard Page)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) on getting a slot in order to raise this important matter. Although I understand his concerns, I have to say that, if only life was as easy as the hon. Gentleman implies, he and I would be happy men. Life is, however, more complicated than that.

It may be helpful if I give a little factual background. The Coal Authority's database records some 150,000 coal mine shafts and mine entrances, and it is estimated that as many again are unrecorded. There is probably an equal number of entrances that are not connected with coal mining.

Of the coal mine shafts and entrances, the great bulk—over 90 per cent.—date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, when records were a little sparse, as the hon. Gentleman would be the first to agree. Such structures were then relatively narrow, relatively shallow and, in fact, more akin to wells than to the mine shafts of today, which are several metres across and hundreds of metres deep. The majority of those shafts give no trouble whatsoever.

To put the issue in proportion, let me point out that the Coal Authority responds to about 120 calls a year relating to mine shafts, and only about 100 relate to coal mine shafts—100 calls in connection with perhaps 300,000 recorded and unrecorded mine shafts and entrances. Of the 20 remaining calls, I am sure that one or two related to some of the stone mines in the Bath area that have given trouble in recent times.

We must be fair and not over-dramatise the problem. Some shaft collapses are really nothing more than a dip in the ground and damage to property is exceptional. The Coal Authority has had only seven cases reported under its surface hazards procedures in which a mine shaft was found to be either partly or wholly under a building; and, in fact, only one building was actually damaged.

The Coal Authority now issues approximately 250,000 mining reports a year. Those give information on past, present and future surface and underground coal mining activities, and outline the geological lines of weakness, subsidence damage claims and working rights. Since 1947, solicitors have been asking for such reports from the National Coal Board, British Coal and now the Coal Authority as part of the process of buying and selling land. Until 1989, whether to do so was left to solicitors' judgment, but, since then, the Law Society has introduced a code of good practice and provided a standard questionnaire.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government impose no requirement on anyone to obtain a mining report on any property that is being bought or sold. The reason solicitors act as they do is to provide a service and to ensure that their clients are given the full facts. In going to more than one source of information, I would suggest that they are simply covering every available option.

It has been suggested that there should be a single provider of mining reports—which would be an attractive proposal, if life were that simple. However, questions arise if that single supplier is not the Coal Authority. If we are to have a different supplier in the Bristol area, we must recognise that other providers might wish to offer a service elsewhere—in fact, there could be competing requests in a single area.

I understand that the questions posed by the Law Society questionnaire and the answers given in the Coal Authority mining report go wider than the topics covered in the report provided by Bristol Coalmining Archives. Would solicitors and their clients be content to have a single report that was narrower in its scope than those that were previously available from the Coal Authority? I rather doubt it.

In practice, any alternative supplier would have to acquire from the Coal Authority data that it did not already have and constantly consult the authority to update its data. As we know, the Coal Authority constantly updates its records, as more information becomes available. As I have said, this is not just a matter of mine plans; we are also concerned with information about subsidence claims. Providing and updating data is a service for which the authority would have to charge to meet its obligation to cover its costs.

The Coal Authority could not just hand over the plans. The authority holds many plans on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive. Because of that health and safety aspect, the Coal Authority has arrangements to allow access to plans 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That is a requirement of the Health and Safety Executive. Any alternative custodian of those plans would need to guarantee a similar arrangement. Would other custodians be prepared to incur that cost?

We also need to consider the level of charge. The Coal Authority's financial duty is simply to recover its costs. Would we therefore need to control the charges imposed by an alternative supplier?

For all those reasons, we believe that the Coal Authority should continue to provide the service throughout the coalfields of Great Britain, whatever additional local service may be available.

Mr. Berry

Will the Minister acknowledge that I am not arguing for an alternative source of information to that of the Coal Authority? I am arguing for an investigation into the well-known fact that the Coal Authority records in the Bristol and Kingswood area are radically different from the records of another organisation. I do not care who has the final records, but surely that needs to be sorted out.

Mr. Page

I shall address that in a moment or two, provided that time is with us.

As I said, the Coal Authority database derives from many thousands of plans, many prepared in the 18th and 19th centuries. Having visited and looked at the records, I know that they were produced on a medium that is now in poor condition and costing an enormous amount of money to restore and bring up to date. If at any time the hon. Gentleman would like to visit the Coal Authority records, I am sure that I will be able to lay on a day trip for him.

The transcription of those plans by British Coal was done by experts, many of whom had detailed local knowledge, and that continues to be the case under the Coal Authority. It is therefore difficult to envisage what could be done to improve significantly the quality of the data on which those plans are provided.

In the context of Bristol, I remind the hon. Gentleman of the evidence given to the Trade and Industry Select Committee by the Bristol Law Society. The hon. Gentleman quoted several discrepancies and differences but, as we know from the Trade and Industry Select Committee: Sample searches on 18 properties of each set of records made for the purpose of the investigation showed no relevant discrepancy between each set of records, and no evidence of negligence by either party. That is from the Committee on which the hon. Gentleman serves, so it must be right—

Mr. Berry

rose—

Mr. Page

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, time is not with us.

Having said that, the Coal Authority recognises that its database is incomplete, and wishes to add to it.

The authority is also drawing the Committee's report to the attention of other bodies that are known to hold relevant information, urging enhanced co-operation. That should be the right way to proceed.

In the case of Bristol Coalmining Archives, we agree with the Trade and Industry Select Committee that there is no basis on which a company or other private sector body can, or should, be compelled to make its archives available to the authority, but perhaps it and the Coal Authority will be at least able, to a degree, to offer a complementary, not competing, service. I have asked the Bristol Coalmining Archives again to consider making available information to the authority, and I look forward to its response.

This is a specific local matter, and the hon. Gentleman said in effect that the Coal Authority should have the responsibility for precisely locating and determining the condition of the mine shafts within a distance a building. He in effect asked for the records and so on to be checked and brought up to date. The Coal Authority estimates that the costs attached to such an exercise would be between £3,000 and £4,000 per unit just to investigate each site, and perhaps another £6,000 to £8,000 per unit for a site where treatment was judged to be necessary.

In 1995, the Coal Authority prepared about 6,000 mining searches that include reference to disused mine shafts. We believe that, if the shafts were treated by the authority at the request of the property owners, the number of searches would increase substantially. On that basis, the cost of simply locating shafts would run to many tens of millions of pounds, and would substantially increase if treatment were necessary.

Mr. Berry

Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Page

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I have only 30 seconds to go.

Whatever our differences, it is clear that these are important issues. They affect many home owners in Bristol and Kingswood and other areas covered by coal mining in the past, which make use of the services provided by the Coal Authority. The data are not perfect, but that is due to—

The motion having been made at Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.