§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Energy in regard to the Government response to Cmnd. 8877 entitled "Coal and the Environment", if he will list those undertakings for which his Department is responsible which have already been fulfilled and dates for those which yet have to be undertaken.
§ Mr. Giles ShawIn addition to those items of shared responsibility mentioned in the reply of 1 February by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, there were two undertakings for which my Department has sole responsibility.
First, following the undertaking in paragraph 63 of Cmnd. 8877, my Department is preparing an updated explanatory leaflet for issue later this year explaining the rights of people affected by subsidence. Secondly—paragraph 75—my Department is discussing with the National Coal Board the treatment of the board's opencast executive in the board's annual report and accounts. A decision is unlikely to be taken on this until the summer when the board is due to present its final response to the recent report on the coal industry by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission — Cmnd. 8920 — which also touched on this question.