Coal Stocks

HC Deb 21 July 1980 vol 989 cc37-8W

Miss Maynard

asked the Secretary of State for Energy what are the latest coal stocks compared with 1979, 1978 and 1968, respectively.

Mr. John Moore

Coal stock statistics are published in my Department's monthly bulletinEnergy Trends and in the annual digest of United Kingdom energy statistics, copies of which are available in the Library of the House. For convenience, the figures are as follows:

Total* coal stock	(million tonnes)
end of June 1968	43.4
end of June 1978	31.8
end of June 1979	27.5
end of June 1980	31.8
* Figures include stocks held by NCB and the conversion industries, but exclude those held by other industrial users and those in merchants' yards, statistics of which have not been collected since 1973.