Industry (Government Support)

It is a great privilege to speak before you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I congratulate you on your new role. I congratulate all hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who has taken my title, which I never wanted, of the last miner to enter the House. I hope he does not keep that title either, because this House would be stronger and better if more people from the mining industry came here, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) said. It is from my history of working in the mines that I have formed my view today. The truth is that there are two nations—one nation split by geography as well as history. In my history, markets have failed our part of the world, as they have failed places such as Yorkshire and the east midlands. In the years between the wars, this is what happened in areas such as mine: we saw 1,000 miners killed every year—one man every six hours—in the coal mines of Britain. Why? Because the markets would not put the money in to invest in health and safety and machinery. We had a very poor industry that was let down. There was public intervention after the war. The industry was taken over and nationalised and what did we see? Within a few years, health and safety legislation—the Mines and Quarries Act 1954—was passed through this House. We went from killing 1,000 men a year in the 1930s, to killing fewer than 20 men a year in the 1960s. That is the difference. That is what happens when we have red tape and health and safety legislation to take care of people. That is what happens when the public and the state stand up for people and do not let the market dictate. We saw the same thing in the 1980s. What happened? The markets intervened. We did away with the most productive, cleanest, the most technologically advanced and the safest coal industry in the world. What are we left with now? A rump of a coal industry, in which more people are being killed pro rata than for the past 50 years. Only a few pits are left, but we have seen a fourfold increase in deaths in coal mines. We saw the utilities taken into private ownership in the 1980s. What are we left with? There are problems with security of supply, the national grid is not fit for purpose, and there is a skills gap, because the companies have been more interested in looking after their profit margins than in developing a skilled work force for the future. But what else have we got? We have got all the utilities companies with their hands out, saying, "Give us some money from the public purse so we can develop carbon capture and storage. If you don't give us it, we'll turn our backs on the clean coal strategy and just have the dirty gas industry." Effectively, they are putting this country over a barrel, which is what they will always do, because they put themselves first. In the past 13 years, regions such as mine have had input from public bodies such as RDAs, which have been a success, because there has been a genuine partnership not only with the Government, but with local government and colleges, and particularly with private businesses, which have welcomed the fact that at long last, there has been stability, support and a way forward, particularly in the case of Nissan. At Christmas 2008, Nissan was going down the plughole, and 1,200 men were being put on the dole. Nissan worked with people from the House, and local councillors and colleges, to put together a scheme that kept people in work and training. When Nissan then got the contract for the batteries, those people went back to work, and the work force are doing better than ever. I would imagine that they will now be getting worried about where things are going. It has been said that nobody in the Opposition has any alternatives for dealing with the deficit, but I will give the House some. The Government should go and work with the trade unions, the civil service and the TUC on tax evasion. In a report before the election, they pointed out that 20,000 tax collectors lost their jobs in the past few years, for a saving of £100 million, but that is at a time when this country has a tax gap of evasion and avoidance—this has been admitted by the leaderships of both main parties—of at least £40 billion, and that the TUC report says is £120 billion. The Government should go and close that gap before doing anything else.