HC Deb 19 October 1998 vol 317 cc1054-60

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

10.2 pm

Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

In the quiet countryside of Northumberland, an environmental disaster is waiting to happen. It will happen around the middle of 2000 if nothing is done to prevent it.

Immediately south of Alnwick, alongside the A1, there are two former pits, Shilbottle and Whittle, which, during my time as a Member of Parliament, employed 1,500 men. They produced coal that was famous for household use. The wife of my former colleague, the late Jo Grimond, told me that her coalman in the Orkney islands used occasionally to appear with a look of triumph on his face and say, "I've got you some Shilbottle coal, Mrs. Grimond." No one can have Shilbottle coal any more, because those pits have been closed.

The two collieries are connected underground. In their flooded state, they are a single water system. Shilbottle closed in the 1970s, but Whittle remained open longer. It was closed by the Coal Board in 1987, and was re-opened under licence. It went through a series of financial problems, until it passed into the hands of a company called Stonegate Mining, which went into receivership.

What went on immediately before final closure was a scandal. Men were sent underground without employers' liability insurance cover, and the mines inspectorate seemed powerless to stop it. There are men who are still unable to obtain compensation for injuries they received because the company is in receivership and there was no insurance. The receivers sold the surface assets to a non-mining company.

In March 1997, the pumps were stopped because the electricity bill had not been paid. They had been pumping 1 million cu m a year to keep the water level down. When the mine was working, they pumped 3 million cu m a year. The Environment Agency identified the seriousness of the problem in its local Environment Agency plan for the area in July 1997, and immediately public concern grew. Water levels are rising by 9 cm a day, and it was accepted that the mine was likely to overflow on a very large scale early in 2000.

Heavily polluted water would pour into the River Coquet through the Hazon burn and by other routes, destroying the entire ecology of a famous and beautiful salmon river with a rich variety of wildlife. As a site of special scientific interest, it would be destroyed. Very large costs would also arise because water is extracted from the Coquet for domestic supplies serving a large area. As the agency began further investigations, using boreholes, public concern grew.

There was an additional concern about stythe—mine gas—being forced upwards by the water. There has been a tragic death in my constituency from stythe in the Widdrington area. We have debated the issue before, as the Minister knows well. I hope that he can assure us that this aspect of the problem is being watched carefully.

Every level of local government became involved in the pressure for a solution. The county council organised some of the meetings, and the district council was very active. The local parish councils were particularly concerned. All sorts of local organisations and many individuals made representations to me of their concern, and I pay tribute to all their efforts and to the public bodies which recognised the urgency of the issue. We are all conscious of the fact that, for every day that went by, a million gallons of water were added to the flood level, with the water rising 3 to 4 in a day.

It became clear that treatment of the water was the only feasible solution, although there were some technical arguments about the relative contribution of chemical and reed-bed treatments, and about whether a longer-term system could be devised which required less energy. A scheme has been identified, with capital costs of around £450,000 and initial running costs of £30,000 to £80,000 a year.

On 16 July this year, the Minister for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), was interviewed about the issue on Radio 4. I was delighted to hear him say: There's no question, action is going to be taken—no question whatsoever. He referred to the Strathclyde principle, under which the Coal Authority has moral obligations beyond its legal duties in cases of severe breakout of water. But it was still not clear who would be paying.

The Minister for Energy and Industry, who is to reply to tonight's debate, issued a press release on 2 October in which he announced: the Coal Authority will take the lead role in preventing pollution and … funding will be provided to ensure a scheme is in place in good time. That sounds fine, but there is a rather worrying line in the press release which refers to the Coal Authority, the Environment Agency, Northumbrian Water and other local groups, and says: these organisations will now decide the best way of making provision. Is it clear that the Coal Authority will foot the bill? If not, who else? What if it does not agree that it should contribute? Are the Government guaranteeing, as the Minister implied on the radio, that the money will be produced on time without any doubt or delay? Delay, of course, would be utterly disastrous, but we are entitled to some reassurance. I want to know whose name will be on the cheque.

Minewater flooding is a widespread problem in many parts of the north-east, and the British Geological Survey team has drawn public attention to it. There are other instances in my constituency. At Spittal, which lies across the Tweed from Berwick, we had serious flooding in the main street across from old mine workings in June this year. Large numbers of homes were flooded by polluted water, and there was a lot of damage to property, as well as a lot of distress to residents, many of them elderly.

In the context of today's defence debate, I should mention that tremendous help was received by residents from soldiers—fusiliers from the local TA company—who were on the scene within 25 minutes of being called in. We will lose that kind of practical help if we do not have the TA in Berwick. Residents of Spittal and the council are now having enormous difficulty in getting anyone to accept liability for the damage caused by flooding, and for the cost of preventing it from happening in the future.

It has happened before. It happened before the war; older people remember it. The Coal Authority denies liability. The water company whose sewers are involved does not accept it, either. The Environment Agency cannot seem to help. Meanwhile, the residents of Spittal, who have had to face flooding from both directions—from the sea and from the land—are left with the worry that flooding from the old mines might happen again. I appeal to the Minister to use his influence to ensure that the Coal Authority sorts it out.

Returning to the issue of flooding at Whittle, I am grateful for the prompt response of Government—it needed to be prompt—and for the firm indication from the Minister for the Environment that it is going to be dealt with, but we need to know who is paying the bill, or at least that someone is going to pay the bill, and that the Government have underwritten a solution. Without action, the biggest environmental disaster in the country will be Northumberland's millennium experience. We need to be sure that it is going to be prevented.

10.9 pm

The Minister for Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle)

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick- upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) on securing this debate. I thank him for his persistence and the clear and succinct manner in which he has raised the serious issue of minewater flooding. It is not only of local concern, but of national importance.

In opposition and in government, we have made it clear that our concern for coalfield communities throughout the country relates to the legacy of mine workings in those communities. It is not surprising that the Government's actions to establish a level playing field on which the coal industry can compete, both here and in Europe, have attracted most attention in recent weeks and months. That is, perhaps, inevitable, but we have, I hope, also shown our determination to face up to the difficult legacy of former coal mining.

Any of us familiar with coalfield areas will be familiar with the impact that coal mining can have on rivers and streams—a working mine, a spoil heap, a blackened river. When mining ceases, the picture changes, sometimes over a long period. The mine is abandoned, the pumps that once drew cleaner water to the surface to keep the workings dry are switched off and water begins to rise. As it does so, it often picks up mineral deposits, principally iron, but sometimes lesser quantities of manganese and aluminium.

If the rising minewater surfaces and overflows into a river or stream, the iron within it generally turns the river not black but orange. The watercourse not only becomes an eyesore—not an amenity—but, depending on the severity of the pollution, loses much of the life within it. There are other repercussions—for example, if the watercourse is used as a source for abstraction by water companies.

As the right hon. Gentleman will recognise, what I have described is exactly the situation that faces us at the former Whittle colliery, near Warkworth in Northumberland. Here we have a mine where the surface land and shafts were sold in the 1980s by British Coal to a private operator. Over time, it changed hands until, in 1997, the last owner went into receivership, the mine was abandoned and the pumps switched off.

In due course, the Environment Agency raised concerns over the possible effects of that action—that contaminated water was rising through the workings and might eventually discharge into the nearby Hazon burn, a tributary of the River Coquet. The Coquet is a site of special scientific interest. It is home to a range of aquatic life, including salmon, otter and lamprey and, further downstream, is used as an abstraction point by Northumbrian Water. Therefore, it was unsurprising that the agency's worries led to a good deal of local concern from the right hon. Gentleman, the local council and other organisations that have raised the matter.

The challenge was how best to deal with those concerns. To do that, a partnership of interested parties—the Environment Agency, the Coal Authority, Northumbrian Water, local councils and others—was put together. That partnership approach reflected the fact that Whittle was in private ownership. That is a different situation from others in which the Coal Authority was involved, as they were ordinarily linked to mines that were formerly owned and operated by the National Coal Board and by British Coal and are formally vested in the Coal Authority.

At the same time, the situation at Whittle clearly had to be dealt with. The Coal Authority had found that a partnership approach had been successfully adopted at other sites; I mention Bullhouse in South Yorkshire. It was clear to that partnership that, before any action was taken, the agency's predictions had to be objectively tested by independent research to get the appropriate remedial action right. That research was carried out by the consultancy Entec UK Ltd., primarily with funding from the Coal Authority.

Entec's findings, which became available for consideration by the partners in September, provided the necessary information on the status of the water within the mines, the rate at which it was filling the workings, whether and when it would overflow and the likely severity of any pollution. In the light of that, Entec's report set out the expected time scales, the options for treatment and the estimated costs of that treatment.

With that information to hand, it is now possible for the Coal Authority, in liaison with the other partners, to take decisions on the most appropriate method of treatment and how it will be implemented. I understand that, in the light of the Entec report, the authority has identified various potential sites for the location of treatment systems. As at other sites, decisions on the precise method of treatment to be used will be for the authority to take.

Typically, treatment at minewater sites involves the removal of iron deposits through aeration and filtration, followed by the passive absorption of further iron by reed beds, after which the water can be safely discharged to the watercourse.

I shall now turn to a point on which the right hon. Gentleman sought specific reassurance. On 2 October, I was able to confirm that the Coal Authority would oversee implementation and that the Department of Trade and Industry would ensure that the necessary funds would be available to allow it to do so. The first estimates are that the capital costs of the treatment will be around £450,000, with annual running costs of between £30,000 and £80,000. That spend will not adversely affect the authority' s existing minewater programme. As a result of that action, any pollution of the River Coquet will be avoided.

The Coal Authority has developed considerable expertise in dealing with minewater from coal mines, which it can bring to bear at Whittle. That expertise can be seen at first hand throughout the coalfield areas of Britain in the series of eight minewater remediation projects, including Polkennet in Scotland, where an overflow was prevented by the installation of pumps by the authority. Obviously, the authority's commitment does not stop there. It also carries out pumping to prevent pollution at a number of stations, notably not far from the right hon. Gentleman's constituency in Durham, where pumping protects the River Wear, and it has carried out feasibility studies on a number of other serious overflows with a view to treating them in the future.

The authority has agreed a priority list of around 50 of the most serious minewater pollution problems with the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. So, all its research, preventive and treatment work is carried out in close co-operation with the organisations that monitor water quality and pinpoint potential problems. The authority spent more than £3 million on its programme in 1997–98 and expects to spend around £4 million this year. I hope that that reassures the right hon. Gentleman that a coherent programme is in place to prevent minewater pollution from Whittle, that funding is available to enable it to be carried out and that the key organisations are involved in the process.

Mr. Beith

I am grateful to the Minister, who seems to be assuring me that the Coal Authority not only will be able to fund the work, but will do so without detriment to the rest of its programmes. I hope that I should rightly take that to mean that the Government, however they provide funding to the Coal Authority, will make good the exceptional costs involved there so that the rest of the programme is not disrupted. If that is so, it is the clarification that I wanted from this debate.

Mr. Battle

I think that I can give the right hon. Gentleman that reassurance. Such problems have to be tackled and we are determined that they shall be.

We firmly believe in the "polluter pays" principle and we should always reinforce that. Having said that, it is fair to say that the legal framework for responsibility for pollution from abandoned mines is complex. Under the Water Resources Act 1991, it is an offence knowingly to cause pollution from an abandoned mine, and the Environment Agency has powers to prosecute those who do so. That statute was augmented by the Environment Act 1995, and after 31 December 1999 it will be an offence to permit pollution from an abandoned mine.

In July this year, new regulations came into force setting out the procedures for those operators intending to abandon mines, requiring them, among other things, to give the agency six months' notice of their intention to abandon and to advise it of the measures being taken to avoid a pollution incident.

In the case of both coal and non-coal mines it is the agency's responsibility to take a view on whether the Water Resources Act 1991 has been broken and, if so, whether to prosecute. I emphasise once more to the right hon. Gentleman the fact that not all abandoned mines produce overflows and that, where they do, the level of pollution can vary greatly in severity.

The Coal Authority takes very seriously the problems posed by stythe or mine gas produced by former coal mines. The movement of water in former mine workings can push mine gas towards shafts and up to the surface. I understand that the Coal Authority has sought particular advice on the problem from the consultants who are advising on Whittle, and that the British Geological Survey has suggested the production of a hazard map, showing sites of potential overflows. As operational decisions on the minewater programme are for the Coal Authority and the agencies to take, it is for them to determine whether such a map would be useful.

The position in respect of non-coal mines is somewhat different, not only because of the scale of former coal mining but because, unlike most mining and minerals industries, coal mines were publicly owned and operated. That is why, during the passage of the Coal Industry Act 1994, a commitment—he so-called Strathclyde principle—as made that the Coal Authority would seek the best environmental result in the area of minewater treatment that could be achieved within available resources.

The Coal Authority has a programme to deal with minewater from abandoned mines within its ownership—ines owned and operated by the National Coal Board or the British Coal Corporation. I understand that the Environment Agency has spent £9.5 million since 1990 on research and treatment at the Wheal Jane tin mine in Cornwall and is monitoring the situation at the recently abandoned South Crofty mine, and that it has commissioned a report on the environmental implications of the end of commercial operations at the Grove Rake fluorspar mine in Weardale, County Durham.

We take pollution from abandoned mines seriously, but it is important to keep the problem in clear perspective. Coal mining has been carried out in this country since Roman times, and more or less intensively for the past 400 years. Although overflows occur throughout the coalfields, the number of serious pollution incidents is amazingly low, given the scale of former coal mining. The priority list agreed between the Coal Authority, the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency includes about 50 sites with serious discharges. Other pollution incidents do not figure on that list, but they are relatively minor in scale and impact.

The agencies are monitoring recently abandoned mines that have not yet produced overflows, and if they are felt to require treatment or preventive action they can be prioritised accordingly.

I hope that I have been able to convey to the right hon. Gentleman the seriousness with which the Government take their responsibility to deal with the historical legacy of former coal mining and minewater pollution problems in particular. The Coal Authority will deal with the problem and the money will be available to allow it to do so. The pollution of the River Coquet from the Whittle colliery will be avoided.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Ten o'clock.