Coalfield Communities

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), who has been a steadfast and diligent champion of former miners and coalfield communities up and down our United Kingdom. It has been a pleasure working with him, and with Sophie Jackson in his office—and with my team, since my election to this place—on getting justice for members of the mineworkers pension scheme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) mentioned. I thank the Prime Minister and all those on the Front Bench for the leadership that they have shown. I want to acknowledge Professor Steve Fothergill and Chris Whitwood for the excellent work that they do supporting the Labour group of coalfield MPs—a group on which I lead for the west midlands.

Some 5.7 million people live in Britain’s coalfields—one in 10 people in England and Scotland, and one in four people in Wales—but almost half of coalfield communities are among the 30% most deprived communities in the United Kingdom. Yesterday, I had a very helpful discussion with Tash and Roshni from the Local Trust. We talked through the figures in my community—in Cross Heath, Knutton and Silverdale, where the challenge of tackling injustice and inequality is most serious for us locally, just as it is serious in places across the country. I would be grateful if the Minister touched on the community wealth fund, and how we can ensure that money from it is directed at supporting disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Where will the money go, and how will it be allocated?

Education has such an important role to play. I was at St Thomas Boughey school in Halmer End last week, and I heard about the challenges that it faces when it comes to funding, staff recruitment and retention, and ensuring that the smart young people who go to the school can work and live in, and contribute to, the community in which they were raised. I look forward to welcoming some of those young people to Parliament later this month. My community has a university, Keele University. How do we build a bridge between the funding that universities can attract and young people who want to study in the community that they live in?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East said, we need justice for the British Coal staff superannuation scheme members, and I have told the Prime Minister this directly. The BCSSS has more than 40,000 members who formerly worked in the mining industry, including a number of my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and I have promised that I will fight their corner. I urge Ministers to speed up efforts to transfer the £2.3 billion investment reserve in the BCSSS to the members who earned it, deserve it and need it, as more and more former miners die each year. That is important, because a significant number of BCSSS members were required to transfer to the BCSSS, as we have heard. If they had not been forced to move, they would have had access to their own money when this new Labour Government made the right call on the MPS. They deserve it, and this Government, although they have been in power for only a few short months, must now get on with it. I will do whatever I can to help. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield said, we want real action, not empty words; we want a proper commitment, not hollow promises; and we want our communities properly invested in, not forgotten. A new Government with a majority of this size presents us with an opportunity to finally get the settlement we need, the focus my constituents deserve, and the future my constituents have earned.

A consequence of the shortfall in local job opportunities is a reliance on commuting to neighbouring areas and further afield. Net out-commuting from the former coalfields —the balance between flows in each direction—accounts for about 350,000 people. The jobs available in former coalfields also tend to be less well paid, with 53% of employed residents working in manual jobs compared with a GB average of 46%, and just 36% here in the capital. It is important to note that the average hourly earnings of coalfield residents are around 6% lower than the national average, as we have heard. We have serious work to do. My challenge to those on the Front Bench is this: we need stronger policies focused on growing the local economy in former coalfields, including by tackling high levels of economic inactivity.