§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Energy what is his estimate of the reserves of fireclay in the United Kingdom and the percentage of the total that is associated with opencast coal mining operations in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. CryerI have been asked to reply.
There are large resources of fireclay in the United Kingdom, but we have no estimate of how much there is. A significant part of these large resources is associated with coal that can be mined open-cast and this is an important source of our fireclay production.
We are considering a request by the National Federation of Clay Industries Ltd. for the Institute of Geological Sciences to undertake a paper study of the resources and use of fireclay in this country.