Mining Subsidence

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:55 pm on 13 June 1988.

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Photo of John Prescott John Prescott Shadow Secretary of State, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy 5:55, 13 June 1988

I apologise on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), who would normally have dealt with this debate. He has suffered a slight accident about which I was unaware until Saturday. He is immobile. The debate will be poorer without his expertise on these matters. In those circumstances, I apologise to the Minister because I must leave early to attend another engagement.

I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), as all other hon. Members have done, on choosing an excellent subject, which has found echoes of support from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber in its references to justice for constituents. This matter hs clearly caused considerable concern for some time. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) said, the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield was excellent. It showed the expertise, detail and example which the House likes and which shows the House at its best.

The argument put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield requires an answer from the Government. However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) said that perhaps the Minister does not want to be pushed into answering at the moment. From my brief reading on this subject, preparing for the debate, I can see that the Government have been pressed for some time in various reports to produce answers to these questions about justice for people affected by subsidence caused by British Coal.

The speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield confirmed that he has established a reputation for hard work and research on behalf of his constituents, in this case against a big corporation. I know that this is not the first fight that my hon. Friend has had with British Coal. He achieved a victory with other hon. Members in his area in preventing the Coal Board from privatising its houses in that area. I am aware of the tough style of the Coal Board management in the area and I know that it is no mean feat to battle against that management. My hon. Friend will work well for his constituents, as he has shown in his short time in the House.

The debate has clearly reflected the concern among hon. Members on both sides of the House about the issues. I had a brief read through the Waddilove report today. I have also read the reports from the Select Committee on Energy, which places pressure on the Government to act. I have seen the White Paper, produced in response to Select Committee pressure.

The consultative report states that the Goverment are likely to bring in more legislation, presumably to give force to what is already a code of practice. We have heard complaints from hon. Members that the code of practice is not adequate. It appears that the Government have accepted the argument for legislation, and that is reflected in the White Paper. Can the Minister give us any idea when we can expect the legislaton that he has promised to deliver?

The issues reflected in this debate, in the various reports including the Waddilove report, and the reports from the Select Committees are about balance.

Balance is the one aspect that really concerns the House —a balance between the rights and responsibilities of the individual versus, in this case, British Coal; a balance of justice in the payment of compensation; and a balance in the fairness of treatment. From the examples given by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield, it was clear that there is not a proper balance of justice in those matters. The various recommendations for correcting that situation, which hon. Members have mentioned show that there is a long way to go before one will be achieved.

There is also the question of delay, as was also pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield. I was astounded to hear of the legal costs involved, although perhaps of late we should not be astounded about the level of such costs. I refer to the costs of tribunals. One member of the public in Leicester, and another in Mansfield, seeking to put a case before a tribunal each paid something between £100,000 and £150,000 to have their compensation increased to a level marginally beyond that offered by the board. That is an exorbitant amount of money for anyone wishing to use the tribunal system.

The report raises serious questions about whether the tribunal system is satisfactory. I note also that the Government are aware that very few people use tribunals. Cost, as well as the question of delay, must be in the minds of many people already suffering from anxiety and stress in their desire to repair properties damaged by subsidence.

It is clear that there is an absence of equality among the parties concerned. A number of individuals have already complained that British Coal has exploited its power and that they have very limited rights compared with the board. However, I acknowledge also that many people have reached an amicable agreement with British Coal. My concern is where injustice may be perpetrated. Parliament should concern itself with arriving at a framework of law which will give a balance between the individual and a public corporation.

The same argument is equally applicable in the case of a private corporation, and that may be relevant if it is the Government's intention to privatise the British coal industry. The balance achieved in moving from codes, recommendations, a sense of fairness, and what lawyers call "acting reasonably" may prove insufficient, and there should be statutory enforcement in respect of certain aspects of the codes, as recommended by some reports. The same concern was expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for Mansfield and for Ashfield. They argued that it should be clear both now and in the future that, whatever happens to this industry, there exists a responsibility to fund the compensation necessary for those seeking damages arising from subsidence.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield made the point that the situation is becoming more acute, because the uncertainty which prevails has been increased by announcements of Government policies in other areas affecting the coal industry. Recent statements about opencast developments will reduce local authonties' rights, which one or two hon. Members have already pointed out are already limited.

If planning controls are to be reduced, and if local authorities are to have even fewer rights, the rights of individuals to pursue, through local authority planning inquiries, information and compensation will be further reduced. The removal of mineral rights advocated by the Government in view of their possible privatisation programme, under which those rights will be taken from one body and given to a number of others, will also cause uncertainty, until the Government's intentions are clear.

Overriding all that, and at the head of the Government's own basic policy towards coal, is the industry's possible privatisation. Past examples have shown that a privatised company is not given the same regulatory and economic framework as that of a nationalised industry. A privatised company is concerned with operating with fewer controls and maximising profits, with very little sense of social obligation. At Question Time, we heard the Minister make clear yet again his beliefs concerning the bureaucracy of controls, when he compared the controls he is prepared to reduce in respect of a privatised nuclear industry with the situation in America.

In considering controls and social obligations, one should be able to expect of public companies a better standard than that of a private sector company. The reports clearly show that there are inadequacies in that respect and that one needs to establish a legal framework by which the rights of the individual may be properly adjusted. That is the clear message from this debate.

A number of other issues have been raised, and given the short time available to me, I will comment only briefly on one or two of them. The question of compensation raises the whole subject of liability. There is something to be said for the claim by a number of hon. Members that the question of assessing the full extent of any damage and liability has not yet been resolved. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield commented that a study was under way in Nottingham to catalogue the extent of the problem. As someone who is new to this subject, I find it amazing, given that the problem has been with us so long, that such an effort has not been made before and that information is not readily available.

I was amazed to learn that members of the public cannot find out from an authority exactly what are its. plans or what damage had been caused to an affected property. I was appalled to discover that even claims whose registration I understand the Government still reject could not be recorded somewhere so that, by making a search, an individual could establish whether a property had suffered any subsidence damage. The Government, in their consultative document, have rejected that proposal, which is wrong. People should have all the information available to them in making a proper assessment, and I add my voice to those who advocate a proper procedure.

There are also conflicting views as to how long liability should last—be it three, six or 12 years—and about establishing the period in which damage must be declared, which might conflict with the time at which the damage itself arose. I was impressed by the case put for extending liability to all matters of consequential loss, which is one of the proposals the Government are now considering. However, it is not clear whether British Coal should have placed on it an obligation which is not imposed on others in analogous circumstances. That aspect is not properly explained. What are the same or similar circumstances which the Minister has in mind? How limited will be the liability compared with the six or 12-year period we have discussed? Perhaps the Minister can give the House further information.

I am persuaded by those who argue that there is a national responsibility and a strong argument for a national fund with the resources available to guarantee justice. It follows that such a fund should be separately administered. If it is the Government's intention to privatise the industry, it is all the more important that there is an independent, separately funded body for that purpose. The Government do not totally accept that British Coal should carry all the cost. The Select Committee's report rejected the view that British Coal should not carry any part of the cost of subsidence, but it also rejected the Government's view that their sole concern was the taxation cost. I do not have time to quote from paragraph 161 of the Select Committee's report, but it said that there should be a balance between the two—and that balance probably represents a cost far greater than the industry should carry.

It is amazing to discover from the Select Committee's report how much subsidence costs add to the price of a tonne of coal—particularly in an area such as Nottingham. In 1983, it was about £1·11p, but it has risen nine times to about £9·58. That is an extraordinary cost for any industry to carry·whatever may be considered to be its fair share of that amount.

The Government have given the industry a rather fair economic framework, designed to cut it down to size in readiness for privatisation, to a level at which it will become profitable—and therefore attract the resources for which the Government hope. I hope that the Government will address themselves to the problems I have described, because otherwise they will either deter people from purchasing the industry—and there is something to be said for that—or there will be attempts to cut costs, leaving even fewer resources to ensure a balance of justice.

Having heard about the costs of arbitration for the lands tribunals and the time involved, I feel that there is an argument for independent local adjudication. I noted that the Government mentioned that as a proposition in the White Paper, but they did not follow it through in the consultative document. I hope that the Minister will say something about it now.

On the issue of repair versus compensation, I favour what seems to be the majority view—shared by the Government—that the emphasis should be on repair. We already know the arguments, but I wonder whether the Minister can tell us whether he intends to do anything to assist local authorities—which have tremendous problems in this regard—to obtain extra resources to deal with their housing estates. There is a legitimate argument for such action. I know that it conflicts with the local authority financing arguments, and that it involves another Department. Nevertheless, I should like to hear what the Government have to say.

I have offered the House merely a few observations based on a limited amount of research and judgment. I think, however, that it is agreed on both sides of the House that this is a question of justice, and that a proper balance must be achieved—one that puts more emphasis on statutory enforcement, so that an individual can exercise his right when his property is damaged by subsidence.