Contribution
I thank most hon. Members for the tone of the debate. I will return to the shadow Minister’s remarks later.
I thank the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) for securing the debate, and for recognising the context that it sits in. Several hon. Members have done the same. I wish to reflect first, as she did, on the fact that 59 years ago, 116 children and 28 adults lost their lives in Aberfan. I, too, am an MP for a constituency with a legacy of coalmining. In Lanarkshire in Scotland, we know that the hon. Member’s point about coal running through the legacy of people and communities is important. Even generations on from the coalmines in my constituency, I still see the impacts and the outcomes for people right across my community. I entirely understand the point, which is well made.
I thank hon. Members for grounding their remarks in that legacy and for recognising, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) did, how far we have come as a country in phasing out coal, and the importance of the consensus that got us to that point, while paying tribute to those workers, as I pay tribute to the workers in the oil and gas industry who powered the country for 60 years. Recognising the incredibly important role that they played in powering our country is important, but it is equally important to recognise that we have made progress since those days. We should recognise with pride the role that they played, and recognise with pride how good it is that we have moved away from having to put people down coalmines to power our country. I thank hon. Members for that recognition.
The debate had two key themes that I will try to focus on: first, disused coal tips and the funding for them, on which I will reflect, and secondly, the future extraction of coal. The disused coal tips right across Wales are the enduring legacy that people see and experience. Coal tip disasters have left deep scars on many Welsh communities. As many hon. Members have said in this debate, the risks—particularly of climate change and worsening weather conditions leading to incidents in future—are significant. That is partly why we should redouble our efforts to tackle climate change, and there is broad consensus on that, although not from everywhere. It is also why we should do everything that we possibly can to maintain the safety of those coal tips.
We take the situation very seriously. That is why just a few months ago, the Chancellor and the First Minister of Wales visited a coal tip site on the banks of the River Afan near Port Talbot in the historic industrial heart of Wales to see the work that is being done to stabilise a former coal tip. The UK Government and the Welsh Government are working together in partnership to secure coal tip sites, including by providing the funding to which hon. Members have referred.
In the spending review, we announced £118 million of funding to protect Welsh communities, in addition to the £25 million from last year’s autumn Budget. Combined with funding from the Welsh Government, that figure of £143 million increases to £220 million. Some points were made about whether more funding is necessary. We will obviously keep those questions under review, but the suggestion does not always follow that a figure is the way to deliver the necessary work. Yes, we want to be ambitious about we can achieve with this programme. The funding that we have put in place—the £220 million—is what can actually deliver work on the ground at the moment. If there is future ambition in that programme, of course we will look at that. But giving a bigger figure that the Welsh Government, who are on the ground dealing with this, have not asked for, because they do not have capacity to move any quicker on some of these projects, is not an answer to the question. The £220 million has been given to deal with the issue at hand and to move forward with a programme in the fastest way possible, in partnership with others. We will, of course, continue to look at these questions in future.