Charter Marks

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Duchy of Lancaster – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 29 March 1993.

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Photo of Dennis Skinner Dennis Skinner , Bolsover 12:00, 29 March 1993

Why have the Government never awarded charter marks to the miners and others who work in mining? The productivity of British pits has risen by 155 per cent. in the past seven years and last week Bolsover produced coal at 50p a gigajoule—that is half the world price. So why do not the Government give the Bolsover miners a charter mark, instead of the right hon. Gentleman and his mates, including Tarzan and all the rest of them, closing 31 pits? If he did the job right and handed out awards to the workers, not to some of these tinpot business men, the Government would be doing the right thing. Instead they propose to throw 30,000 miners out of work. The right hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of himself: he and his mates should have been strangled at birth.