Westminster should be paying to clear Wales’ coal tips

Delyth Jewell, MS

The coal tips that litter our mountains in Wales are wounds on our landscapes. They stand as daily reminders of the wrongs suffered by our communities – and Westminster should be paying to clear them.

That is why I’ve pushed amendments to try and improve the Welsh Government’s Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill (it’s worth noting that they couldn’t call it the Coal Tips Bill, since coal is, tellingly, reserved to Westminster).

One of the amendments I’d presented to the Senedd last week would have compelled the UK Government to pay more towards clearing the tips, on account of their historic liability – since the National Coal Board, previously under their jurisdiction, was responsible for creating these mounds of rubbish in the first place.

Frustratingly, that amendment was voted down by a majority of Senedd Members.

Provocative

It was a provocative amendment – and deliberately so.  Part of the Bill, as it’s drafted, lists the circumstances under which the landowner of coal tips could be held liable for them (and, crucially, liable for costs).

My amendment extended that window of liability back in time to the year 1800 – so as to cover the time when these tips were created.

It was the National Coal Board, and hence the UK government as its former owner, that created these coal tips.  It is my firm belief that they must carry responsibility for clearing them.

Indeed, and as I argued in the Senedd last week, the parents of Aberfan identified the National Coal Board as the bearers of responsibility for their children’s deaths.

I quoted a transcript from the Times newspaper, which my father remembers reading at the time (and which he’s since rediscovered, and shown to me).  The article was published on the 25^th of October 1966 – just four days after the disaster – and it recounts that, at a coroner’s inquest in a chapel vestry, there were shouts of “Mark the death certificates: “Buried alive by the National Coal Board”.

Aberfan

Aberfan, of course, was the moment that should have changed everything. No coal tip should have been allowed to remain on our hillsides after that darkest of days.

But nobody lost their job. No one was held responsible.

The amendment I presented was my attempt to make up for that pity from our past. Because surely, it’s about that that wrong were made right.

When those Members who voted against my amendment explained their reasoning, both Conservative and Labour MSs argued that extending the window of liability so far into the past would be too onerous.

They argued that too much time had elapsed, and too many practical barriers would be in the way. But that was to miss the point entirely.

As Jane Dodds had said during that debate, such an environmental (and indeed, moral and social) responsibility should carry no such sell-by-date. And yes, my amendment did cover a wide expanse of time – and it was only right that it did, because this is a Bill about time.

It’s about time we had it, yes, but it’s also a Bill centred on the effects of time past, time lost, and time yet to come.  The tips encapsulate and symbolise the passage of that lost time: the cost of what has happened, and what has not happened to our communities. They tell a story of our wounds.

It’s about time those wounds were healed.

New coal mines

Labour and the Conservatives also failed to back my other amendment that would have banned the practice of selling coal from coal tips for the purposes of burning – an amendment that would have helped ensure coal tips don’t become new coal mines, and turn our valleys into a mockery of mining once again.

The Welsh Government has signalled that they’ll be looking to tighten guidance on this matter, and many of the communities I represent will be eager to see the detail when it emerges. Without banning this practice, we risk insulting the sacrifices of our yesterdays, and threatening the health of our towns’ tomorrows.

We cannot allow a new industry of mining by stealth to emerge from these coal tips.

No, the tips should be cleared – and Westminster should be footing the bill. When the Bill reaches its final stages in the Senedd this week, my party will vote for it – because not to vote for a bill which centres on the safety of these tips would be unconscionable.

But what a wasted opportunity this has been to use the Bill as a means of righting historic wrongs, and protecting our communities from future harm. Our valleys, and towns across Wales, have lived beneath these coal tips far too long – it’s high time that their shadow were lifted.

Delyth Jewell is a Plaid Cymru MS for South Wales East