Across my region of South Wales West, there are more than 900 disused tips, with over 600 of them being within Neath Port Talbot, where I live. The overwhelming majority of these are deemed lower risk, but 39 are within the higher risk categories. It's important to remember that coal tips are not the only type of tip that must be made safe.

In Godre'r-graig, in the Swansea valley, for example, the threat from a quarry spoil tip has been a source of anxiety for many years. The quarry spoil tip has been assessed as posing a medium hazard risk to the community below, and the geology of the mountain on which it sits, which is prone to landslips, together with the springs and surrounding ground water, has created a situation that has caused upheaval and uncertainty. Homes are hard to insure, some families have been uprooted, and since 2019 the children of Godre’rgraig Primary School have been educated in portakabins in a school miles away from their village, often without the provision of hot meals, due to the council's assessment of the risk of the tip to their school. This left parents, governors and pupils absolutely distraught.

A report provided by the Earth Science Partnership—the experts commissioned by Neath Port Talbot Council to inspect the site—identified a medium-level risk from this quarry spoil tip near the school, which is affected by ground water. The investigation found that if the stream became blocked as a result of a severe weather event, there was a possibility that water levels and pressures in the tip could induce material to flow downhill. The cost of removal of this tip alone is estimated to be likely over £6 million.

Many communities across my region and others live under a similar shadow. They live in fear every time it rains, and action on this is long overdue. If these tips do indeed pose such a threat, then our communities must be safeguarded. We know the increased rainfall associated with climate change has the potential to further destabilise tips. Studies have suggested a 6 per cent increase during winters in south Wales by the 2050s, and this risk will only increase. Action is overdue. But this is not a simple safety issue, this is a matter of historical, social and climate justice.

It's therefore essential that action is taken immediately to identify and publish information relating to the tips that pose the highest risk, to engage with communities, and make the tips safe. The arguments for a publicly available register of tips are clear. Respondents to the Law Commission's consultation that were in favour of making a tip register publicly accessible relied most commonly on the need to promote public trust, accountability and transparency. As the Coal Action Network put it:

'We think it is vital that the tip register be made open-access and user-friendly for public trust and accountability—particularly for the communities that have suffered in the shadow of coal tips, with little recourse to action.'

So, I'd like to re-emphasise that our debate doesn't just focus on coal tips. Wales’s industrial base was far more diverse, and so is the waste that was left behind. Coal mining often included the extraction of other commercial minerals, for example, fire clay and brick clay, that would have contributed to the spoil.

The Law Commission's report provides information on types of tips, which are visually indistinguishable from tips from just coal mining, composed of predominantly shaley material, formed from widespread mining of ironstone nodules for early ironworks, and lesser workings of seatearth for brick making. Such tips are widespread across the south Wales coalfield. These tips must also be considered in any type of removal work or regeneration efforts.

There is, obviously, a cost to all this, but the cost of inaction would be far greater, and these tips and the potential risk they pose, such as the one in Godre'r-graig, which is already causing huge upheaval and disruption to communities, must be taken into account. Communities that have been the bedrock of Welsh industry, and have paid a high enough price for that through the generations, deserve to be safe and they deserve remedy, not the loss of their village school, the heart of their community. The UK Government must acknowledge their responsibility in this matter. I hope we can send a clear message today on behalf of our communities to that end.