Coal Tips

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and the Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 2:44 pm on 20 October 2021.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 2:44, 20 October 2021

Can I thank you for that interesting supplementary question and statement? You've very selectively chosen from the Law Commission report, because there is far more detail about the issues of complexity, about the complexity of law and the confusion of law since the privatisation of the coal industry and all the consequences since then, from the National Coal Board to British Coal, through the 1994 Act and then through to the Coal Authority now. 

Perhaps in answer to that, I should take you back to your actual question, which was a question about the advice that's given with regard to responsibility for higher-risk coal tips. And, of course, the term 'responsibility' has a very broad understanding. There are various forms of responsibility, and I believe the UK Government has a responsibility—an ethical responsibility. I think it has a moral responsibility, and I believe it has a political and potentially a legal responsibility in the coal tips that exist. And I live in a constituency that has quite a number of these particular coal tips.

Can I say, I think it is an absolute disgrace that the UK Government continues not to accept that this issue of coal tip legacy is a pre-devolution issue aggravated by climate change? And I hear the sort of weasel words from the UK Government about this, and that you are repeating today, and I have to say to you, what message do you think you are giving to the people of the Valleys of south Wales, the people where these coal tips exist in those communities, with the total abrogation of any liability—ethical, moral or political—in respect of that? Now, the First Minister mentioned yesterday that this was one of key two issues that he raised with the Prime Minister. And I have to say, instead of this highly sensitive matter being a subject of contention, it ought to be a defining example of how the UK Government can work with us to develop effective benefits from inter-governmental working, particularly so in the context of the UK hosting COP26.

If the UK Government does not agree to a funding programme, we are going to have to find £600 million from budgets over the next 10 to 15 years—money that has come to us to build hospitals, to build roads, to build schools, and to do many other things. And I have to say to you, if there was ever an opportunity for a UK Government to be able to demonstrate to the people of Wales the dividend that comes with being in the United Kingdom, joint working with us on coal tips would surely be it. That is the test, I think, you should be taking back to your Government in Westminster, and, I think, the people of south Wales, the people who live in the communities where these coal tips are, will be listening very, very carefully to the response that comes from the UK Government on this moral, ethical and political issue.