§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will give for each of the calendar months of 1970; the rise or fall in national production, giving separate details for internal and export production, import and export, earnings and payments, the amount of coal produced and imported and the numbers of pits closed; and to what extent during the last six months action has been taken to bring about an improvement in these figures.
§ Mr. RidleyThe following is the information:
would total about 74 million tons but, of course, they were closed because they were exhausted or uneconomic or for geological reasons. No direct costs of major significance, other than redundancy payments, therefore arose. Opencast sites are closed when the planned amount of coal has been extracted. Opencast output in 1970–71 is estimated to be 8 million tons, and the National Coal Board plans to increase this to 10 million tons in 1971–72. Opencast coal is generally cheaper to extract than deep-mined coals.