§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Energy what estimate he has made of the future duration of opencast mining operations in the United Kingdom and the reserves of coal already available for this purpose.
§ Mr. EadieI expect opencast coal production to continue to be necessary for the foreseeable future indeed, the National Coal Board's proposed planning objective for the year 2000 implies some increase over the present projected scale of operations. Reserves are being proved continually and are sufficient to maintain an annual production of at least 15 million tons well into the next century.