Thanks to Steffan Lewis for raising this very important issue and for bringing the motion to us today, which I fully support, and I also fully support the comments of the majority of colleagues who have spoken already in this debate.

As Steffan said, the issue does date back to 1994 when the John Major Conservative Government put in place the new arrangements that would underwrite the future loss, and we’ve already talked about that. In addition to the fact that the UK Government has already taken the estimated £8 billion out of the fund since its inception, pensioner miners will also remind us that the National Coal Board took pensions holidays for three years in 1987. They took further pensions holidays in 1991 and 1994, which delivered another £5 million on top of that for the Government.

What we can’t escape is the fact that this arrangement is part of an agreement that was concluded back in 1994. We’re not discussing the legality of such an arrangement, just whether it’s morally right for the Government to continue taking such huge sums out of the pension fund, when the fund has performed much better than anyone could have envisaged in 1994. Surely, therefore, it is right that the mineworkers should be the beneficiaries of this rather than the Government.

In considering this issue, like other colleagues I’m thinking about the contribution that coal miners and their families—many of whom were from my constituency—have made to the economy, the history and the heritage of Wales. They gave their all, many paying the ultimate price. ‘The hardest work under heaven’, as Michael Pollard referred to in his book, ‘Life and Death of the British Coal Miner’. And, for what? To find themselves crushed in 1985 by Thatcher and her acolytes, one of whom I’m afraid was Neil Hamilton at the time. In a vendetta against their union, the National Union of Mineworkers, or ‘the enemy within’ as the Tory Government of the time, including Neil Hamilton, preferred to call them.

As Hefin David said, the sacrifice of those who worked in the coal industry goes on for many miners whose health has suffered irreversibly as a result of working in an industry that was the lifeblood of many of our communities across the length and breadth of Wales. There were all too many that, as a result of the injuries suffered while mining our coal, have never benefited to any significant degree or even at all from the miners’ pension scheme. So, I am particularly pleased that we’re now considering this here in the Assembly as I know that the NUM in Wales has campaigned over many years, going back even to the pre-privatisation days, for a fairer distribution of the surpluses arising out of the scheme. They’ve lobbied consistently for a review of the 50/50 arrangement, and I would say that in this they have been ably supported by the MPS-elected trustee for the region, Mr Anthony Jones, a former miner at Betws colliery in Hefin’s constituency, and who has the wholehearted support of the south Wales NUM in this role.

Deputy Presiding Officer, an argument has been used by successive Westminster Governments that the surplus they take was needed to assist and to subsidise the coal industry. I assume that no-one here in this Chamber needs any convincing on how unsustainable such an argument is today, now that the British coal industry is virtually a historic relic of our industrial past. I hope therefore that every Member will be able to support the call to maximise the benefits available to those who are still able to draw a pension from the scheme and will vote in favour of this motion calling for a review of the arrangements.