Coal loan collapse demands urgent government attention, says TUC
12 Jun 2014 10:37 AM
Unions have called for an urgent
meeting with Energy Minister Michael Fallon to discuss the future of Thoresby
and Kellingley pits – two of the UK’s last three remaining deep
coal mines – following the collapse yesterday (Wednesday) of the loan
deal brokered by government to oversee their managed closure next
year.
The TUC and its three unions
with members employed in what remains of the UK’s coal industry –
BACM-TEAM, NACODS and the NUM – say that time is running out for the
1,300 miners at both pits and the hundreds more jobs they support in both the
East Midlands and North Yorkshire.
The TUC’s Assistant
General Secretary Paul Nowak has written to Michael Fallon calling for urgent
talks to save the mines and the UK’s coal industry while there is still
time.
The unions want the government
to ask the EU for permission to spend public funds which would not only throw
both pits a last-minute lifeline but would also help secure the future of the
UK coal industry for at least another four years.
A report recently commissioned
by the TUC and the NUM showed that using taxpayers’ money to keep the two
mines open until 2018 could actually be cheaper in the long run than letting
them close now, with substantially increased tax revenue and unemployment
benefit savings to be made.
The cost of state aid –
estimated to be around £63-£74m – could be covered by the
£86m in profits from future coal sales that would come from keeping the
mines open for longer, says the joint report.
TUC Assistant General
Secretary Paul Nowak said: “Hargreaves’
decision to withdraw from the commercial loan arrangement yesterday means that
the jobs at both mines could be lost altogether.
“But it doesn’t have
to be this way. The government should overcome its reluctance to ask Brussels
for permission to use state aid and act now to save these highly skilled jobs
and the local communities in which the miners live and work.
“Using taxpayers’
money to keep the pits open for longer would also end up saving money in the
long run. It seems crazy to allow the closure of British mines when Germany and
Spain are both using public funds to bolster their own domestic coal
supply.
“Not only would at least
2,000 jobs be secured, it would also mean that less public money is spent on
redundancy and benefits payments.”
NOTES TO EDITORS:
- Under the commercial loan agreement that Hargreaves has withdrawn from
Thoresby and Kellingley would close at the end of next year.
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