I come from a very similar community to Steffan Lewis, not so far away, and as a representative of a former mining community, I welcome the chance to take part in this debate and welcome the issues that Steffan Lewis raised. I, too, was very disappointed when the UK Government announced that it would not proceed with a public inquiry in the battle of Orgreave, and reviewing the arrangements of the miners’ pension scheme gives us the opportunity to right another injustice towards the miners by giving them a fair deal on their pension and improving their livelihoods.

Many of us here today, particularly those of us who grew up in mining communities, will remember the way that our industry shaped our localities and continues to do so. Many of us will also remember the miners’ strike—and I do remember it—over 30 years ago and the effect that it had on the people who worked in the industry and their families. I’ll be 40 next year, but I remember—my father was a Rhymney valley district councillor, and I remember at the time feeling the incredible injustices of friends of mine in school on dinner tickets because their parents were on strike, and the difficulties and divisions that this caused in the school in which I grew up. I was fortunate my father didn’t pursue his career option to be a mining engineer and instead went into teaching, but that could just as easily have been me.

We cannot change the attitude that the Government at the time took towards coal mining, but we can do our bit to hold the present Government to account and make sure that they give our miners a fair deal. Many hardworking miners paid into their pension pot in good faith, in the expectation they would get a decent income in retirement, and the privatisation of the coal industry has put this in jeopardy, with the National Union of Mineworkers assisting many who are on benefits because of low pensions, and that can’t go on. There’s no need for the UK Government to carry on taking 50 per cent of the miners pension fund surplus now that deep mining has ended in the UK.

I fully support the Welsh Government and the NUM and, indeed, Steffan Lewis and his calls for a review of the pension arrangements while maintaining the UK Government guarantee. Our former miners worked hard for many years in potentially dangerous conditions. Many of them have developed associated long-term health problems and need support in their lives. I don’t feel that Paul Davies’s amendment adds anything to the substance of the motion, and therefore I’ll be supporting the motion only today. The least we can do is to support miners in getting a better deal and we can start by pushing the UK Government to review the pension arrangements to make sure there’s a fairer split between the Government and the miners.