May I commend Steffan Lewis for bringing this debate to the house and for bringing the motion, which I support? I support the Welsh Government’s position and the calls of the NUM over many years for a review of the surplus sharing arrangement.

Parts of my constituency were built on the mining industry. Many, many people still claim under the pension as beneficiaries—people who’ve paid in for decades and whose hard work built the communities that I serve now in this place. They are people who deserve a fair pension settlement.

We welcome the guarantee. In these turbulent times in terms of pension valuations, clearly, the existence of the guarantee is a good thing. The question is: what price is paid for that guarantee? We’ve heard from the speakers already today about how small the cost of that is, in effect, to the UK Government. What we can’t have, or what is not defensible, is a formula that gives the UK Government a windfall on the back of miners’ pension contributions over decades. The arrangements should be sufficient to cover any cost to the Government, but no more than that.

So, it is time for a review. As Hefin David mentioned, there’s been no deep mining industry in the last 25 years; it’s a quarter of a century almost since the arrangements were agreed. There have been profound changes even since then in the mining industry. There will be no more calls for support and for subsidy for that industry. There was a time when the House of Commons debated subsidy to the mining industry as a matter of course, and I note the comments that Neil Hamilton made, which are at odds, really, with the approach he took at that time when he described support for the industry as the most expensive pit prop in history. So, I’m glad to hear that his thoughts have moved on since that time.

It certainly isn’t for miners to subsidise the UK Government, so it is time for review. May I just say, as I hope we get to a position where we do review those arrangements, those of us who attend miners’ welfare events and Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation events will note that, nowadays, the majority of attendees are women rather than the miners themselves? I think we would do them a great service if, in the course of this review, we could look at the arrangements that we have in place to support the widows of miners who’ve given their lives to build our communities.