Orders of the Day — Coal Industry Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:21 pm on 2 February 1982.

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Photo of Mr Barry Henderson Mr Barry Henderson , Fife East 7:21, 2 February 1982

I declare an interest, in that I am connected with a firm that is involved with the coal industry. About 20 years ago I gave some of the best years of my life to help with the computerisation of the payroll for mineworkers in the Durham and Northumberland divisions of the NCB-in the piping days of Conservative prosperity when there were about 120,000 miners in the coalfields.

I listened with great interest to what the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. Roberts) said, and before coming to my principal remarks I wish to touch on two points that he raised. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think that a decision about whether private enterprise was good or bad compared with State enterprise should be based on a judgment about whether life in the 1920s is a reliable measure for private enterprise working conditions in the 1980s. In all sincerity, I do not believe that that is a sensible comparison.

Perhaps I can give the hon. Gentleman a fairer comparison in another energy industry. Within the last few months, I have visited a platform drilling oil in the North Sea. I promise the hon. Gentleman that the standard of food and conditions of service of every worker on that platform compare favourably with anything found in the House of Commons. They are certainly better than anything that the hon. Gentleman will find in the coal industry. That platform is run by a private enterprise company. I shall not labour the point, except to say that the hon. Gentleman's comparison between public and private enterprise should be made in present-day terms.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to exports. I agree with him about the importance of seeking to develop an export market for coal. If the hon. Gentleman knows anyone from abroad who is looking at British attempts to export coal, I hope that he will try to persuade him to believe what his hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) said about subsidies. If it were believed that we were subsidising exports of coal below the cost of production, there would be a lot of trouble for all our trade with many countries. I therefore hope that what the hon. Member for Midlothian said will be believed.

Apart from the hon. Member for Midlothian, I am the only Scottish Member attending the debate. I am grateful to the Minister for visiting the Cardowan pit last weekend. What he said while there, and his remarks this afternoon, will be greatly appreciated in Scotland, particularly by those concerned with the mining industry. It was encouraging to hear the hon. Member for Midlothian support what the Minister said on that occasion about the safety aspects and the effectiveness of the operations.

The discussions arising out of that kind of disaster relate mainly to the safety conditions, the environment in which miners work and the fact that it is a horrible and dangerous job. That sometimes means that Labour Members suffer from a sort of schizophrenia. I suppose that that is simply a posh way of saying "two-facedness". On the one hand they point to all the horrors of a miner's work, yet the moment someone proposes to stop putting men down a dirty hole to do the work they say "You must not stop any miners from going underground. You must not have any pit closures or improved mechanisation." There is a confusion o f argument. I look forward to the day when we can have an effective coal industry without anyone burrowing underground.