MPs demand pit strike inquiry and urge Cameron to apologise

Bassetlaw MP John Mann is among 23 MPs to have signed a motion calling for a full independent inquiry in the wake of newly-released Cabinet papers which reveal senior Ministers – including former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – micro-managed the Government’s response and misled the public over the number of intended pit closures.

Mr Mann, a veteran Labour left-winger, claimed this week that his phone was tapped during the 1984 strike when he was raising money on behalf of the miners’ families.

“I picked up the phone to hear myself speaking from a recording of an earlier phone call,” Mr Mann wrote in an online blog.

“In those days, there was no digital technology; somebody was eavesdropping on my calls.”

The explosive documents – released earlier this month under the 30-year rule – outlined how the National Coal Board had intended to close more than 70 collieries, despite publicly claiming the number to close would only be 20.

National Union of Mineworkers President Arthur Scargill always claimed the Government had kept a secret hit list of pits targeted for closure.

Mr Mann said: “There are occasions to do with national security when Prime Ministers cannot afford to be candid.

“But in 1984 and 1985, the state overrode democracy to mislead the British people.

“The reality all along was that the pits were to be closed and, rather than a long-term planned closure programme, they were shut hastily, leaving mining communities as desolate wastelands of despair and unemployment.”

The Cabinet papers also revealed how the Government was ready to draft in the armed forces in order to secure victory in the dispute, with a covert plan to commandeer trucks carrying food and fuel in order to keep supplies moving.

Speaking in the Commons, Dennis Skinner, the Labour MP for Bolsover and a former coalminer, questioned the motives of the Ministers involved and called on David Cameron to apologise on behalf of the 1980s Conservative government.

Mr Skinner said: “It was pretty clear, according to the papers that have been released, that many things said by Ministers were based on something that was not correct.

“It therefore gets to the heart of Parliament when we realise that those statements made over a year-long period were shaping the views of all people, including the judiciary, which learned what it wanted to know about the nature of the strike based on Ministerial statements on a continuing basis.

“That is why this issue is so important retrospectively.

“(We) have several times heard the Prime Minister apologise for some incidents involving Governments from way back.

“That applies to previous Prime Ministers as well as this one.”

Mr Cameron has shown himself prepared to atone for the errors of previous administrations on a number of occasions during his tenure as Prime Minister.

He did this most notably in September 2012 when he apologised for the handling and subsequent cover-up of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Skinner said it was now the “duty” of Commons Speaker John Bercow to intervene.

Mr Bercow said he would consider the matter carefully and admitted there may be a case for a Parliamentary inquiry.

“I would like to reflect on what (Mr Skinner) said,” he told the Commons.

“I will consider the matter and if I think it necessary to revert to the House, I shall do so.”

Last week Bradford West MP George Galloway called on Labour leader Ed Miliband to pledge a public inquiry into the issue should he win the next General Election.

Mr Galloway accused the Thatcher Government of lying about the programme of pit closures,