Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan (Labour). It was answered on Monday, 19 June 2006.

Energy: Coal Production

Question: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one of the most important points is the absence of miners? It is now 20 years since the end of the miners' strike, when the heart was ripped out of mining communities. There is little stomach in mining communities for young men to go down the pit any more. Unless we are talking about deep mining on a massive scale, we will not get the supplies that the optimists around us seem to envisage. It will either be Polish coal or Polish miners working in British mines, digging British coal.

Answer: My Lords, I agree that there are real difficulties with increasing substantially the supply of indigenous coal. That includes the fact that, in a lot of cases, surface mining would be the most attractive method, but there are real problems with getting planning permission for that, given the environmental impact.

Secondary information