39MPs write to Government to support Kellingley miners

MPs from across the country representing coal mining communities have rallied together to ask the Government to ensure miners at Kellingley in North Yorkshire get an enhanced pay-out.

The miners are expected to get statutory redundancy pay after they finish their last shift - a financial pay-out worse than miners got under Margaret Thatcher’s premiership in the 1980s, Labour MP Yvette Cooper has said.

In a letter penned to Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and Sajid Javid, Business Secretary, the MPs are asking for the Government to work ‘urgently’ with UK Coal to make give a fair deal to ‘the last British miners’.

UK Coal has said it will give severance pay, however there is uncertainty around the coal concessionary deal that the National Union of Miners had expected would help staff aged under 50-years-old, or those getting temporary work.

The deal ensures a free delivery of coal for ex-pit workers, or cash instead.

The letter said: “We are calling on the Government to work urgently with UK Coal to give a fair deal to the last British miners - including enhanced redundancy pay, full severance pay, an extension of concessionary fuel and a commitment to more skills and training support and regeneration in the coalfield communities.

“The Kellingley miners have done their bit to save the Government money, and stayed loyal to the coal industry and their communities to the very end. The very least you can do now is show them the respect they and the coalfields deserve and give them a fair deal now.”

The MPs represent coal communities from Wales, the Midlands, Merseyside, the North East as well as Yorkshire.

When Kellingley pit at Beal closes on Friday it will be the end of deep pit mining in Britain.

The MPs aruge that the miners did everything they could to try and save the pit from closure, and shouldn’t be out of pocket.

The letter said: “When UK Coal was at risk of imminent collapse the miners pulled out all the stops and increased production and were even willing to risk their own money in order to keep it open with a workforce buyout. When UK Coal nearly went bust they were ready to accept changes to their pensions and working arrangements to keep the pit open.

“If the workforce hadn’t stayed with the industry, the Government would have lost the millions in tax that UK Coal owed, and would have been landed with the bill for closing Kellingley pit—so the Government is saving tens of millions of pounds.”

“Yet despite often decades of service keeping our lights on, powering our factories and fuelling the nation, the last British coal miners are being offered the worst deal of any of the hundreds of thousands of miners who have left the industry over many decades.”

Miners who were made redundant under Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s and in almost all the pit closures since that time, have had enhanced redundancy pay as recognition of the long years they worked, the difficult and skilled job they have done, and the limited alternative skilled work available.

The signatories include Labour MPs Yvette Cooper, MP for Normanton, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, Jon Trickett, MP for Hemsworth,

Mary Creagh, MP for Wakefield, Caroline Flint, MP for Don Valley, Rosie Winterton, MP for Doncaster Central, Sir Kevin Barron, MP for Rother Valley, Dan Jarvis, MP for Barnsley Central, Jo Cox, Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen

John Healey, MP for Wentworth and Dearne, Angela Smith, MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, Anna Turley, MP for Redcar, Michael Dugher, MP for Barnsley East and Nic Dakin, MP for Scunthorpe.