I was first.

I wish to oppose the Bill, as I want to place on record the fact that the Opposition do not want to go back to the era of privatisation in the coal mines. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) wants to increase the numbers that are allowed to work in a private mine. Just before the last election, legislation was passed which increased the numbers from 30 to 150, and every Labour Member voted against that proposal. I hope that they will do the same again today. If we as a Labour party were against increasing the number of people working in a pit from 30 to 150 it should follow that we are against any further increase.

The reason that we are against the privatisation of mines is fairly simple. The Mines and Quarries Acts, which form the backbone of the legislation on the supervision and extraction of coal, have been etched in blood—miners' blood. Over the years—in fact, decades—several disasters have taken place. Following each disaster, well-meaning people have told the House of Commons that we needed another regulation to ensure that such a disaster never happened again.

That is how many of the Mines and Quarries Acts have been built up over the years. They have grown up as a result of 80 miners losing their lives in one place and another 200 losing their lives somewhere else. The Opposition are not prepared to cast away provisions that exist to ensure the limited safety of miners when they are engaged underground and at the pit top.

None of us would claim for one minute that it is totally safe in a pit—of course it is not. But we must preserve the Mines and Quarries Acts, and the present health and safety provisions. We all know that the main reason for the coal industry being nationalised was that, at the end of, and during, the war, privatisation was seen to be failing the nation, as it would again.

We cannot provide the necessary energy through coal on the basis of private enterprise. During the run-up to the second world war and beyond, the Government had to intervene. Many of the Tories who were then involved were private coal owners, and they collaborated over the idea of public ownership.

The Opposition would be the first to admit that public ownership has not been the bees' knees in the mining industry. But why? Not because of the philosophy of public ownership, but because of the Tory people running it. There is one running it now who is called Neil Clarke. His salary increased from £98,000 to more than £200,000 when he took the job. Why did this rotten Government increase his salary? Because they knew that he would be a patsy for privatisation and running down the pits.

It is interesting that both the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Neil Clarke went on television on 13 October and said the same things. They talked about having a tiny industry. Why, one might ask, would British Coal want a small coal mining industry? Simple—because Neil Clarke and his acolytes at Hobart house wanted to run the privatised industry, and they did not want competition. They did not want 30, 40 or 50 pits; they wanted a small number of the most productive pits so that they could make a big fat profit running the industry. That is why we are opposed to this Bill.

If the hon. Lady or any other Tory Members who have spouted about supporting the miners in the past want to support the Opposition—they have been good talkers, but they have been no good in the ring, with the exception of the hon. Lady and, I think, two others on the day in question—to save the 31 pits, they will not do it by back-door privatisation. They must have the guts to tell the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry that they support the millions of people out there in the country who believe that the mines should stay open.

If the Government really believe in cutting unemployment, they have an opportunity to save 100,000 jobs in the course of the next few weeks—the 30,000 miners' jobs that would be lost and the 70,000 others. If they do not do that, those Ministers, including the Minister for Energy, who are smirking away on the front bench, will be adding to that enormous unemployment total in Britain which is now more than 4 million in real terms.

What will that unemployment cost? It is already costing £30 billion to finance that pile of human misery known as the dole queue. It is economic madness. We should not be adding to it, and nor should the Government. Anyone who wants to help the coal industry should be calling for a cut in imports—20 million tonnes this year coming from slave labour economies, some of it much dearer than the coal that is mined in Britain.

Bolsover pit in my Constituency was producing coal the other week at 67p per gigajoule, yet the Government talk about pits not being competitive. Now that the pound has been devalued by between 15 and 20 per cent., we should not be importing coal but exporting it to every country in the world.

If the Government want to save some more pits, they can cut down on opencast mining, which produced 18·5 million tonnes last year. We can do without it. Let us reduce it to the level it was when the Labour Government left office. Let us reduce the imports to the 5 million tonnes when the Labour Government left office. If we did that, we would save another 12 or 13 pits. Let us close the Magnox nuclear stations and save six more pits. Let us cut the French nuclear link and save another half a dozen pits.

If the Government or any Tory Member had the will or the guts to save the pits, it would be relatively easy to do so. The result would be that, instead of spending £900 million to finance 100,000 people out of work, with a subsidy only half that which Nuclear Power gets for 22 per cent. of the energy market, we would be saving the British taxpayer several hundred million pounds. It would not be a subsidy; it would be a saving. Those who want to help us to save the pits have plenty of opportunities to do so.

I finish on this note. My hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) knows a little bit about private mines, because the north-east has one or two. He told me about one incident fairly recently when the haulage rope in a private mine snapped. Because the mine was trying to save money, a knot was tied in the rope. That would not be allowed under the Mines and Quarries Act 1954.

How will private mines cope with pumping out water from the adjoining collieries that have been closed? Have the Government ever stopped to think about that? If Silverhill colliery were sold to a group of entrepreneurs, they would have to pay £250,000 for every pump to pump the water out of another pit five miles up the road. Would they do it? Of course they would not. They would go running to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry asking for a subsidy to pump out the water from somebody else's pit. How will they pump out the methane from an adjoining colliery? That would have to be done. It sounds all right to have a little private mine, but mines are not little and they are not private, if you want to compete in the energy market. The environmental problems of the water and methane would have to be dealt with. The whole thing is a load of nonsense. That is why those who took part in a private mine in Scotland are, despite their sterling efforts, realising that they are having to carry the costs that belong to somebody else. So do not let us talk nonsense.

The mines have always been a case of battling against mother nature. It is not like working in a factory. The strong mines help the weak, and sometimes the strong mines become weak and the weak mines become strong as they find a better coal seam. Let us have some common sense.

People think that they can come up with tinpot answers and solve the problem. The problem is staring the Government in the face. Save the 31 pits, and if we start exporting coal, the balance of payments problem will be solved—