It's a pleasure to be speaking in support of the Member for Ogmore's legislative proposal today. He's a passionate champion of co-operative principles. I want to put on the record my membership of the Co-operative Party and also my role as chair of the cross-party group on co-operatives and mutuals.

In my contribution today, I want to briefly mention one very famous incident in my constituency that became the poster child for employee ownership. And, in many ways, the example I will mention is exceptional, but, in lots of others, it's emblematic of the transformational possibilities inherent in adopting a made-in-Wales Marcora law. And that example is Tower colliery. British Coal decided to close this last deep pit in south Wales in 1994, citing the dubious proposition that the mine was uneconomical. This led to a powerful backlash, a story that has been told elsewhere, perhaps most notably in the form of its own opera, but also in the MP for Cynon Valley Ann Clwyd's account of the struggle, including her famous sit-in deep underground. But British Coal was intent on closing Tower, callously putting people out of work, draining money from the local economy. However, within 10 days of the pit closing at the start of 1995, employees of Tower had put in place a bold and brilliant plan. Altogether, 239 miners, led by the National Union of Mineworkers and branch secretary Tyrone O'Sullivan, formed TEBO—Tower Employee Buy Out. Each contributed £8,000 from their own redundancies, enabling them to take over the colliery as a workers—