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Tag: Speeches

  • David Triesman – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Triesman)

    David Triesman – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Triesman)

    The tribute made by David Triesman, Baron Triesman, in the House of Lords on 10 September 2022.

    My Lords, it is a real privilege to take part in this debate and to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, and his inspiring words, and also the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, not least because I so strongly share his feelings about the first couple of short speeches by King Charles and the sentiments that they involved.

    I do not think it would be to any purpose to repeat the many things that have been said about Her late Majesty’s graciousness, kindness and ability to respond to people in such a personal way—a pleasure which I enjoyed on a number of occasions. Those things have been said. It may well be that what we should remember are her comments when she described her first speeches as having been “green” but that none the less she was delighted to have made the commitments that she made and to have seen them through. I sometimes think that the best one can expect of one’s children is that after their long experience, we hope, of you as a parent they will say that they thought you a good parent and that you have contributed in a significant way to their lives. That is certainly the way I think with affection and humility about the late Queen.

    A number of us have inevitably reached for anecdotes because they are not just expressions of the good luck and good chance of having met Her Majesty—in my case, a number of times—but illustrate things about her which, if you had not gone through those experiences, you would not necessarily know. When I first went as a Lord in Waiting, I had the great good luck of her inviting me to have lunch, and we sat, just the two of us, at a small table. She said, “I always have a light lunch”—I think I am allowed to say something about what she said—“I have ordered a ham salad but I thought you would not want a ham salad, so I have ordered a smoked salmon salad for you”. I thought how nice and good to have thought that, as it was absolutely true that, for various religious reasons, I would not have been able to eat a ham salad. It was a most enjoyable discussion and a very enjoyable lunch.

    The noble Lord, Lord Jay—we do not sit on the same Benches, but I think of him as a very good friend, as many people in the Foreign Office become very close to the Diplomatic Service—was in Buckingham Palace at the time. As noble Lords probably saw yesterday, he is a very tall man and, wearing a hat with plumes which stuck up about another two feet, he looked like a basketball player on day release. He was introducing ambassadors, as he described. Her Majesty commented on the fact that there were more ambassadors arriving in London than she had ever seen in the course of her reign and that many of them were from countries she had had to look up. Bosnia-Herzegovina was one that day, and there were one or two others. It created in me a very strange memory. My father gave me stamp album—it did not have many stamps in it—when I was a small child, and I would looked through it and see all these countries, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, and wonder where on earth they were. There were all sorts of places. I kept that stamp album because it was such a strange moment in history. Her Majesty very graciously said that her grandfather had collected stamps and had some wonderful albums. She asked whether I would like to see them and said that perhaps they would compare with my stamp album. I thought that was extremely unlikely, but I was delighted to take up her offer.

    That was not the first time I met her. The first time was in the context of a football match. I have to say that I never thought of Her Majesty as being a very keen football person. There are no horses involved in the game and, try as we might to devise it, we could never find a way of involving horses in football. I had been told that she had a wonderful sense of humour and that she was at the match. She was indeed very gracious and, at the end, when I asked whether she thought anybody had played particularly well, she said, “The band of the Scots Guards”. I thought that was probably a pretty accurate reflection.

    Funnily enough, the Scots Guards come into another memory I have, of when President Lula of Brazil made his state visit. At the state banquet, one of the things that Her Majesty liked was to have the pipes of the Scots Guards walk round the outside of the banquet table playing, as only they can. This playing “as only they can” gave a profound shock to President Lula, who thought it was either a declaration of war or something which he had never come across before. He said, “Do you always do this?”, and before I could answer Her Majesty said, “Of course we always do it”.

    I have those memories and I couple them with affectionate memories of His Royal Highness Prince Philip, who was also so important on so many of those occasions and who also deserves great credit.

    It has been said in this House that, during the course of her long reign, a huge number of things changed. I want to focus briefly on one of them. The invention of atomic weapons took place earlier, and the first explosion of atomic weapons took place during the war. But when thinking about those 70-plus years it struck me that, in that time, we have created circumstances among humanity where we have a capability we did not have, and which was not really thought of when Her Majesty was in the forces, to destroy ourselves completely and wipe out everything we know about human existence. We have the capability not only to obliterate the whole of the past but to obliterate what would have been the accomplishments of the future. I think Her Majesty had a strong sense of the value of the accomplishments of the future as well as of the traditions of the past, and she was well able to talk about them and make you feel them. That is something that I feel at the moment.

    At the heart of it was a love of peace and democracy. She espoused both of those, though not in the sense that she would not wish to stand up to ruthless dictators who would try to interrupt peace or destroy democracy; quite the contrary, she would certainly always have wanted to do that, but in the cause of peace and democracy. I treasure having lived through a period in which a monarch felt so strongly about those things.

    Yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Polak, said a little about Jewish tradition at the end of a person’s life, and with great respect to those who are going to shelter my faith under their umbrella—although it does not always seem to me to happen, but none the less I am very keen that they should—I want to do one other thing which is also from Jewish tradition. Many noble Lords may well know it: we wish the family and the people closest to the person who has died long life. It is not just because we wish for them a long life—though we do, of course—but because it is in the lives of the people who survive that memories survive to the greatest extent. We carry the memories. God bless the King. May he have long life and cherish those memories.

  • Liz Truss – 2022 Keynote Article on the Future of Europe

    Liz Truss – 2022 Keynote Article on the Future of Europe

    The article written by Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, published in The Times on 6 October 2022 and released as a press release by 10 Downing Street.

    Security, energy and migration are three of the most urgent priorities for the British people, so they are top of my agenda too. That’s why I am travelling to Prague for today’s European leaders’ meeting.

    These vital issues affect the whole of our continent, so it is right that we find common cause with our European friends and allies. It’s also why we want to see a strong voice for non-EU countries like Ukraine, Norway and Switzerland.

    Today’s meeting is not an EU construct or an EU alternative. I am very clear about that. It brings together governments from across Europe, around a third of whom are outside the EU. A post-Brexit Britain, as an independent country outside the EU, should be involved in discussions that affect the entire continent and all of us here at home. We are taking part as an independent sovereign nation, and we will act as one.

    Brexit was never about the UK stepping away from our proud and historic role as a leading nation in the region and beyond. We always believed we would find new ways of working that reflected our shared values and interests.

    Our actions in Ukraine have shown this to be true. No European country has done more than the UK to arm the Ukrainians in their fight for freedom and to lead the imposition of economic sanctions on Russia. Yet our actions are all the stronger because of the way that we collaborated with our European friends.

    We have worked with the EU through the G7 and helped Sweden and Finland with their accession to Nato, which remains the bedrock of our collective defence. We have co-operated militarily with European allies through the Joint Expeditionary Force. We are training Ukrainian soldiers together. And we are strengthening partnerships with other European friends, including Norway on energy security and Switzerland on science and research.

    So I welcome the opportunity to work with leaders from across the continent in this new forum. But this must not cut across the G7 and Nato, and it must not be a talking shop. I want to see concrete action and delivery on three key priorities.

    First, we must ensure that Putin is defeated. His attempts at mobilisation and annexation are a show of weakness. Ukraine’s counter offensive is succeeding, and Russia’s will is fracturing. This is the moment to redouble our resolve. The UK is sending £2.3 billion of military support to Ukraine this year — and we will match or exceed that next year.

    I will urge my European friends to continue to work with us in providing more weapons, imposing more sanctions, and backing Ukraine in pushing Russian forces out.

    Second, we must end our addiction to Russian hydrocarbons. Yesterday at the Conservative Party conference, I set out our plan for growth and the vital importance of becoming less reliant on authoritarians for our energy. It is right that we talk with our European allies about how we do that collectively. Putin is hoping he can divide us in a scramble for energy supplies. We must show him that he is wrong.

    The UK sends and receives both gas and electricity through the undersea cables and pipelines that link us with neighbours like France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Today we must all commit to keeping those connections open this winter so we keep the lights on across the continent.

    The UK will also play a leading role in protecting critical energy infrastructure. This week the Royal Navy deployed HMS Enterprise and HMS Somerset to work with Norway and our allies in the North and Norwegian Seas.

    Together, we will deter any threat to underwater pipelines.

    We must also act now to make sure we are never in this position again. We must usher in a new era of European energy independence, dramatically accelerating our own energy production. Today I will be discussing deeper bilateral nuclear co-operation with President Macron, including progress on Sizewell C. We are ready to work with our European friends to develop next-generation interconnectors in the North Sea. And I hope to make progress towards new partnerships on offshore wind, all of which will help to make the UK a net energy exporter by 2040.

    Third, we must use the opportunity of this forum to focus on migration. We are proud of the way that we have opened our homes to 130,000 Ukrainian refugees. But we need a stronger response to the crime gangs that exploit desperate people. Today we will be deepening our joint working with France, the Netherlands and other countries along the migration route to step up our collective response to this trans-national tragedy.

    I believe that with authoritarian states undermining stability and security around the world, democratic nations need to be bolder and more innovative in how they collaborate to ensure that our shared values prevail.

    It is in this spirit that I will join my fellow European leaders today and ensure that this new forum delivers for the British people.

  • Ursula von der Leyen – 2022 Speech on Russia’s Escalation of its War of Aggression Against Ukraine

    Ursula von der Leyen – 2022 Speech on Russia’s Escalation of its War of Aggression Against Ukraine

    The speech made by Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, on 5 October 2022.

    Dear President Metsola, dear Roberta,

    Honourable Members,

    Since we last met to discuss the state of our Union, the Kremlin has escalated its aggression to a new level. Putin has launched Russia’s first mobilisation since World War II, treating hundreds of thousands of young Russians as cannon fodder. He uses sham referenda in an illegal attempt to change international borders by force. And since many months, he is using energy as a weapon. The Russian war causes economic and social hardship. It places a heavy burden on our citizens and on the economy in our Single Market. Rising energy costs in particular are leading to reduced purchasing power for citizens and loss of competitiveness for companies.

    Over the course of the last seven months, together with our Member States, we have already taken important steps. We have diminished our gas consumption by around 10%. Russian gas supplies have decreased from 40% to now down to 7.5% of pipeline gas. We have compensated this reduction by increased imports of LNG and pipeline gas, mainly from our reliable suppliers like the US and Norway. Gas storage in the EU is now at 90%. This is 15% higher than on the same day last year. In addition, three weeks ago in this hemicycle, I announced that we will skim the exceptional profits made by energy companies and use them to support vulnerable citizens and businesses. Last week, this has been enshrined in EU law. We achieved this in lightning speed, also thanks to the outstanding work of the Czech Presidency. And yesterday, the Council reached agreement on REPowerEU.

    So we have key instruments in place to make it through the winter – storage and savings; to jointly purchase gas – Platform; to get us out of the Russian grip ­­– agreement with US; to redistribute the windfall profits to support those in need – electricity emergency intervention; and to invest in the future – REPowerEU.

    The measures we have put in place provide us with a first buffer of protection. Thanks to these, we can and will now step up to the next level. I will lay out a roadmap in a letter to Leaders in view of our meeting in Prague later this week. It includes the following key components: We will step up our negotiations with trusted partners – for example with Norway – to dampen the price we pay for gas imports. As European Union, we have considerable market power. And many of our suppliers want to conclude deals with us, which are beneficial for both sides. We will also strengthen our Energy Platform. This is in our collective interest. We have to avoid a scenario where Member States are again outbidding each other on world markets and driving prices up for Europe.

    My next point is on gas prices. We use gas in three domains: industry, heating and electricity. Let me start with electricity. High gas prices are driving electricity prices. We have to limit this inflationary impact of gas on electricity – everywhere in Europe. This is why we are ready to discuss a cap on the price of gas that is used to generate electricity. This cap would also be a first step on the way to a structural reform of the electricity market.

    But we also have to look at gas prices beyond the electricity market. We will also work together with Member States to reduce gas prices and limit volatility and the impact of price manipulation by Russia. In March, we have already offered this as an option. We have said that it can give an important signal that the EU will not pay any price for gas. We qualified such a price cap as having an immediate impact on price levels. But that it entails drawbacks, in terms of security of supply of gas. The situation has critically evolved since then.

    Today, compared to March, more Member States are open for it and we are better prepared. Such a cap on gas prices must be designed properly to ensure security of supply. And it is a temporary solution to cater for the fact that the TTF – our main price benchmark – is no longer representative of our market that includes more LNG today. It is a temporary solution until a new EU price index ensuring a better functioning of the market is developed. The Commission has kick-started work on this.

    Honourable Members,

    These are far-reaching measures. I wholeheartedly agree with you when you say in the resolution you will adopt today that exceptional times require exceptional emergency measures, where the Union needs to act as jointly and united as ever. So, in pursuing our action, two things remain paramount: acting in unity and acting in solidarity. We need to protect the fundamentals of our economy, and in particular our Single Market. This is the strength of the European Union. That is where the wealth of the European Union comes from. Without a common European solution, we risk fragmentation. So it is paramount that we preserve a level playing field for all in the European Union.

    With REPowerEU, we have developed a crucial instrument to accelerate the transition to energy independence. It will allow to invest in infrastructure, like pipelines, interconnectors or renewables. And it allows to support businesses and households to invest in energy efficiency – like insulating houses or installing heat pumps. So I think we should further boost REPowerEU with additional funding. This way all European states can accelerate the necessary investments. We modernise the energy infrastructure. And we preserve the level playing field. And we secure our European competitiveness on global markets. And we have to do it as Europeans, together and jointly.

    Honourable Members,

    There is another pressing issue, which we have to address today. The acts of sabotage against Nord Stream pipelines have shown how vulnerable our energy infrastructure is. For the first time in recent history, it has become a target. Pipelines and underwater cables connect European citizens and companies to the world. They are the lifelines of data and energy. It is in the interest of all Europeans to better protect this critical infrastructure.

    For this, we will present a five-point plan. First, we must be better prepared. We have very recently agreed new legislation which will strengthen the resilience of critical EU entities. The responsible Parliament committee will be voting on it next week. And we can and should already now be working on this basis.

    Second, we need to stress test our infrastructure. We need to identify its weak points and prepare our reaction to sudden disruptions. We will work with Member States to ensure effective stress tests in the energy sector. This then should be followed by other high-risk sectors, such as offshore digital and electricity infrastructure.

    Third, we will increase our capacity to respond through our Union Civil Protection Mechanism already in place. With this, we can support Member States in addressing the disruption of critical infrastructure – for example, with fuel, generators or shelter capacity.

    Fourth, we will make best use of our satellite surveillance capacity to detect potential threats.

    And finally, we will strengthen cooperation with NATO and key partners like the US on this critical issue.

    Honourable Members,

    This war has entered a new phase. The Ukrainian army keeps reporting impressive successes in its fight against the aggressor. We all saw the images of deeply relieved people welcoming Ukrainian soldiers. And I could see with my own eyes, three weeks ago, that life has returned to Kyiv. Of course, it is the bravery of the Ukrainian people that made it possible. But Europe’s contribution has also made a huge difference. Our backing has helped Ukraine face down the invader. Only a strong and steadfast Europe will stop Putin. This is the moment to stay the course and support Ukraine as long as it takes.

    Long live Europe.

  • John Sentamu – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Sentamu)

    John Sentamu – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Sentamu)

    The tribute made by John Sentamu, the former Archbishop of York, in the House of Lords on 10 September 2022.

    My Lords, I was three years old when, in a little village in Uganda called Masooli, we all gathered round a very small transistor radio and listened to the broadcast from the abbey of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. From then on in every school in Uganda on Empire Day we sang “God save the Queen”. We continue to do it; some still do it now. I stand here as somebody who is quite surprised that this little boy out in Uganda would today be part of the Accession Council and the confirmation of King Charles III. I have mixed emotions.

    I want first to echo the words of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, because on Thursday, as soon as we heard the news that Her Majesty had died, I put on Twitter this message:

    “Today Churches Celebrate the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on this day is a great shock & Mary’s Magnificat should be our response: MY SOUL DOTH MAGNIFY THE LORD: & MY SPIRIT HATH REJOICED IN GOD MY SAVIOUR; REGARDED & MAGNIFIED HER”.

    I have stood, on a number of occasions, near Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth as she sang the Magnificat. She did not need the words; she knew them. In a real sense, that was her song too. She sang it from the heart because it expressed who she was. Her true greatness was her deep humility in knowing that the Lord in many ways “regarded” her “lowliness” and, by divine providence, made her Queen. For her, being Queen was an act of nobody but God.

    Humbleness was, for her, born out of having Jesus Christ at the centre of her living, her thinking and all her goals, her rejoicing and even in moments of sadness. She knew the holy scriptures well and sang many hymns without needing to look at the words. She really imbibed the whole tradition. Therefore, it was also comforting to hear our new King say the same thing about the services that shaped him.

    When in her presence, you were the person who mattered when you spoke to her. She never looked around. It was as if you were the only person in the room, and until that conversation ended her eyes were fixed on you and your smile.

    Forgive this testimony. I had an audience with her to ask for her permission to step down from my role after an extra year. Her response was, “The decision is yours and yours alone—not me, not anyone else. Give me the date and so it shall be.” I took that to be a command. There was a matter that was causing me great heartache. I told her, and I asked for her prayers. I knelt down and put my hands together. She put hers outside mine. There was this deep moment of silence. I think it lasted about two to three minutes. It was ended by Her Majesty saying, “Amen.” I got up and, friends, whatever burdens I had come with were lifted. It was as if I was with my grandmother, who had a similar effect on me. If you want to know more, you have to wait until my autobiography is published next year. You will get a bit more story because permission has been given to me to write some of those words down.

    Her hospitality was amazing. I stayed at Sandringham and at Windsor. I will tell your Lordships a bit about Windsor. At Windsor on her birthday, after dinner she and Prince Philip guided us to the library. They had already arranged with the archivist the section on Uganda. The books were opened and copies were made so that we could take some of this material with us. The thing that most surprised me was to see writing dictated by King Muteesa I requesting Queen Victoria to send missionaries to Uganda, and subsequently a request that Uganda became a protectorate. Those documents are there. I was speechless, really. We ended up in the restored chapel at Windsor. Again, there were silent prayers. I cannot remember how long.

    The death of Queen Elizabeth has left all of us with mixed emotions. I want to end with the experience of our eight year-old granddaughter, Abigail. When she saw the news that the Queen had died she cried, uncontrollably and inconsolably. When she calmed down, she said, “I will never see a queen in my lifetime”. She then said, “Long live the King”. Queen Elizabeth rests in glory. Long live King Charles III.

  • ASCL – 2022 Letter to Kit Malthouse Over “Hanging on to Mediocrity” Comments

    ASCL – 2022 Letter to Kit Malthouse Over “Hanging on to Mediocrity” Comments

    The letter sent by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) to Kit Malthouse, the Secretary of State for Education, on 5 October 2022.

    (in .pdf format)

  • Liz Truss – 2022 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    Liz Truss – 2022 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, in Birmingham on 5 October 2022.

    My friends, it’s great to be here with you in Birmingham.

    It’s fantastic to see the cranes across the skyline building new buildings…

    …the busy trams coursing down the streets…

    …and the bull standing proudly at the heart of Birmingham.

    My friends, this is what a city with a Tory Mayor looks like – it’s positive, it’s enterprising, it’s successful.

    And Andy Street is a human dynamo, delivering for the people of Birmingham.

    And our Teesside Mayor Ben Houchen is also delivering new jobs and investment.

    This is what modern Conservatism looks like.

    Let’s get Tory mayors elected in London, in Manchester, in West Yorkshire and right across the country.

    We gather at a vital time for the United Kingdom.

    These are stormy days.

    Together, we have mourned the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the rock on which modern Britain was built.

    We are now in a new era under King Charles III.

    We are dealing with the global economic crisis caused by Covid and by Putin’s appalling war in Ukraine.

    In these tough times, we need to step up.

    I am determined to get Britain moving, to get us through the tempest and put us on a stronger footing as a nation.

    I am driven in this mission by my firm belief in the British people.

    I believe that you know best how to spend your own money, to get on in life and realise your own ambitions.

    My friends that is what Conservatism is about.

    It is a belief in freedom, in fair play and the great potential of the British people.

    So, I’m not going to tell you what to do, or what to think or how to live your life.

    I’m not interested in how many two-for-one offers you buy at the supermarket, how you spend your spare time, or in virtue signalling.

    I’m not interested in just talking about things, but actually in doing things.

    What I’m interested in is your hopes and fears that you feel every day.

    Can you get a good job locally?

    Is it safe to walk down the high street late at night?

    Can you get a doctor’s appointment?

    I know how you feel because I have the same hopes and fears.

    I want what you want.

    I have fought to get where I am today.

    I have fought to get jobs, to get pay rises and get on the housing ladder.

    I have juggled my career with raising two wonderful daughters.

    I know how it feels to have your potential dismissed by those who think they know better.

    I remember as a young girl being presented on a plane with a “Junior Air Hostess” badge.

    Meanwhile, my brothers were given “Junior Pilot” badges.

    It wasn’t the only time in my life that I have been treated differently for being female or for not fitting in.

    It made me angry and it made me determined.

    Determined to change things so other people didn’t feel the same way.

    I remember growing up in Leeds, where I saw too many children being let down.

    Let down by low expectations.

    Let down by a Labour council who were more interested in political correctness than they were in school standards.

    But I was lucky to have been brought up in a family that cared about education.

    They taught me the value of hard work and enterprise.

    And I stand here today as the first Prime Minister of our country to have gone to a comprehensive school.

    That taught me two things.

    One is that we have huge talent across the country.

    And two, that we’re not making enough of it.

    This is a great country.

    I’m so proud of who we are and what we stand for.

    But I know that we can do better and I know that we must do better.

    And that’s why I entered politics.

    I want to live in a country where hard work is rewarded…

    …Where women can walk home safely at night.…

    …And where our children have a better future.

    To deliver this, we need to get Britain moving.

    We cannot have any more drift and delay at this vital time.

    Let’s remember where we were when I entered Downing Street.

    Average energy bills were predicted to soar above £6,000 a year.

    We faced the highest tax burden that our country had had for 70 years.

    And we were told that we could do nothing about it.

    I did not accept that things had to be this way.

    I knew that inaction would be unconscionable.

    Families would have been unable to heat their homes.

    Businesses would have gone bust.

    Jobs would have been lost.

    And we would have had worse public services, including the NHS.

    I could not allow this to happen.

    I refused to consign our great country to decline.

    That is why I promised on entering Downing Street to act.

    Now later on in my speech my friends I am going to talk about the anti-growth coalition.

    But I think they arrived in the hall a bit too early, they were meant to come later on.

    We will get onto them in a few minutes.

    But what we did is we acted.

    We made sure that the typical household energy bill shouldn’t be more than around £2,500 a year this winter and next.

    We followed up with immediate action to support businesses over the winter.

    We are determined to shield people from astronomically high bills.

    So much so, that we are doing more in this country to protect people from the energy crisis than any other country in Europe.

    Our response to the energy crisis was the biggest part of the mini-Budget.

    It was the biggest part for a good reason – because we had to do it.

    But it’s not the only challenge that we face.

    For too long, our economy has not grown as strongly as it should have done.

    I know what it is like to live somewhere that isn’t feeling the benefits of economic growth.

    I grew up in Paisley and in Leeds in the 80s and 90s.

    I have seen the boarded-up shops.

    I have seen people left with no hope turning to drugs.

    I have seen families struggling to put food on the table.

    Low growth isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet.

    Low growth means lower wages, fewer opportunities and less money to spend on the things that make life better.

    It means our country falling behind other countries, including those who threaten our way of life.

    And it means the parts of our country that I really care about falling even further behind.

    That is why we must level up our country in a Conservative way, ensuring that everywhere everyone can get on.

    Conference it is wrong to invest only in places which are thriving, as economic models often have it.

    We need to fund the furthest behind first.

    And for too long, the political debate has been dominated by the argument about how we distribute a limited economic pie.

    Instead, we need to grow the pie so that everyone gets a bigger slice.

    That is why I am determined to take a new approach and break us out of this high-tax, low-growth cycle.

    And that is what our plan is about: it is about getting the economy growing and rebuilding Britain through reform.

    The scale of this challenge is immense:

    War in Europe for the first time in a generation…

    …A more uncertain world in the aftermath of Covid…

    …And a global economic crisis.

    That is why in Britain we need to do things differently.

    We need to step up.

    As the last few weeks have shown, it will be difficult.

    Whenever there is change, there is disruption.

    And not everyone will be in favour of change.

    But everyone will benefit from the result – a growing economy and a better future.

    That is what we have a clear plan to deliver.

    I have three priorities for our economy: growth, growth and growth.

    Growth means more money in people’s pockets it means businesses creating jobs.

    Growth means people can feel secure and they can plan for their future.

    Fundamentally, growth helps people fulfil their hopes and their dreams.

    That is why our dynamic new Chancellor and I will be taking action in three areas.

    First of all, we will lower our tax burden.

    Over the summer, we had a robust debate.

    The Conservative party will always be the party of low taxes.

    Cutting taxes is the right thing to do morally and economically.

    Morally, because the state does not spend its own money. It spends the people’s money.

    Economically, because if people keep more of their own money, they are inspired to do more of what they do best.

    This is what grows the economy.

    When the government plays too big a role, people feel smaller.

    High taxes mean you feel it’s less worthwhile working that extra hour, going for a better job or setting up your own business.

    That, my friends, is why we are cutting taxes.

    We have already cut Stamp Duty, helping people on the housing ladder – especially first-time buyers.

    We are reversing the increase in National Insurance from next month.

    We are keeping corporation tax at 19%, the lowest in the G20.

    We are helping 31 million working people by cutting the basic rate of income tax.

    We need to be internationally competitive, with all our tax rates attracting the best talent.

    Cutting taxes helps us face this global economic crisis, putting up a sign that Britain is open for business.

    The fact is that the abolition of the 45p tax rate became a distraction from the major parts of our growth plan.

    That is why we are no longer proceeding with it.

    I get it and I have listened.

    Secondly, we will keep an iron grip on the nation’s finances.

    I believe in fiscal responsibility.

    I believe in getting value for the taxpayer.

    I believe in sound money and the lean state.

    I remember my shock opening my first paycheque to see how much money the taxman had taken out.

    I know this feeling is replicated across the country.

    And that’s why we must always be careful with taxpayers’ money.

    It is why this Government will always be fiscally responsible.

    We are in extraordinary times.

    It would have been wrong not to have proceeded rapidly with our energy and tax plan.

    I am clear we cannot pave the way to sustainable economic growth without fiscal responsibility.

    So we will bring down debt as a proportion of our national income.

    We are seeing rising interest rates worldwide in the wake of Putin’s war and Covid.

    The Federal Reserve has been hiking rates in America and has signalled more rises to come.

    Inflation is high across the world’s major economies.

    We will do what we can as a government to support home-owners, such as cutting stamp duty.

    But it is right that interest rates are independently set by the Bank of England and that politicians do not decide on this.

    The Chancellor and the Governor will keep closely co-ordinating our monetary and fiscal policy.

    The Chancellor and I are in lockstep on this.

    Thirdly, we will drive economic reforms to build our country for a new era.

    We are taking a new approach based on what has worked before.

    Previously, we faced barriers to growth like militant unions, nationalised industries and outdated City regulation.

    Now, we must breakdown the barriers to growth built up in our system over decades.

    Decisions take too long.

    Burdens on businesses are too high.

    Infrastructure projects get delayed for years, and years and years.

    As a result, we have seen economic growth choked off.

    Houses have not been built where they are needed and wanted.

    We have become averse as a nation to doing things differently.

    I love business.

    I love enterprise.

    I love people who take responsibility, start their own businesses and invest.

    They generate profits, they create new jobs and they power our success.

    I want to see more of that.

    That is why we will back businesses to the hilt.

    We are cutting taxes and simplifying red tape to help businesses realise their ambitions.

    This is what our new investment zones will do, helping us level up across the country.

    We will be inspired by the great hubs of industry like Bournville, here in the West Midlands.

    That is what zones in places like here and around the country will deliver.

    We want to create the zones in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    Now is the time to harness the power of free enterprise to transform our country and ensure our greatest days lie ahead.

    This is the United Kingdom at its best, working together and getting our economy growing.

    And we will face down the separatists who threaten to pull apart our precious union our family.

    Next year, we will host the Global Investment Summit.

    This will show the world’s top investors there is nowhere better to invest than the UK.

    And we are seizing the new-found freedoms outside the European Union.

    We are the party who got Brexit done and we will realise on the promise of Brexit.

    We are building an economy which makes the most of the huge opportunities Brexit offers.

    By the end of next year, all EU-inspired red tape will be history.

    Instead, we will ensure regulation is pro-business and pro-growth.

    Leaving the EU gives us the chance to do things differently.

    And we need more of that.

    That is why over the coming weeks, my team of ministers will set out more about what we are going to do to get Britain moving.

    We will make it easier to build homes, to afford childcare and to get superfast broadband.

    We will help you set up your own businesses and get a mobile phone signal wherever you are in the country.

    We are in tough times.

    But I want you to know that day in, day out, I’m thinking about how we get this country moving.

    I’m working flat out to make sure people can get through this crisis.

    So let me be clear, we have your back.

    That is why the Government took decisive action to tackle the energy crisis.

    It is why we are pushing ahead with our plan for growth.

    Economic growth makes life better and easier for everyone – and it will level up our country.

    I know that is what people want to see.

    Economic growth will mean we can afford great public services such as schools, the police and the NHS.

    Our fantastic Deputy Prime Minister and Health Secretary will deliver for patients so they can expect a GP appointment within two weeks.

    She will ensure that those who need urgent care will be seen on the same day.

    And she will get ambulances out there faster and she will improve A&E.

    And she will bust the Covid backlog.

    That is not all and she will bolster social care so that everyone gets the care they need.

    We are working to put this country on the path to long-term success.

    That means ensuring we are safe and secure.

    One of the reasons we are facing this global crisis is because collectively the West did not do enough.

    We became complacent.

    We did not spend enough on defence.

    We became too dependent on authoritarian regimes for cheap goods and energy.

    And we did not stand up to Russia early enough.

    We will make sure this never happens again.

    So we are taking decisive action to reinforce our energy security.

    We are opening more gas fields in the North Sea and delivering more renewables and nuclear energy.

    That is how we will protect the great British environment, deliver on our commitment to net zero and tackle climate change.

    We are also taking decisive action by strengthening our borders by beefing up our Border Force and expanding the Rwanda scheme.

    Our brilliant new Home Secretary will be bringing forward legislation to make sure that no European judge can overrule us.

    And while she is acting meanwhile, the Labour Party has absolutely no plan to tackle illegal migration.

    But my friends we cannot have security at home without security abroad.

    That is why our tough Foreign and Defence Secretaries are updating the Integrated Review to make sure we can face down these threats.

    It is why we are increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of the decade.

    This will ensure that our Armed Forces are ready to tackle new and emerging threats.

    We are working with our friends and allies to support Ukraine in the face of Putin’s brutal war.

    The brave Ukrainian people aren’t just fighting for their security but for all our security.

    This is a fight for freedom and democracy around the world.

    Putin’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory is just the latest act in his campaign to subvert democracy and violate international law.

    We should not give in to those who want a deal which trades away Ukrainian land.

    They are proposing to pay in Ukrainian lives for the illusion of peace.

    We will stand with our Ukrainian friends however long it takes.

    Ukraine can win, Ukraine must win, and Ukraine will win.

    I know that President Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine will welcome our solidarity with them at this very very difficult time.

    To take on Russia and other authoritarian regimes, free democracies need strong economies.

    Economic growth makes us strong at home and strong abroad.

    We need an economically sound and secure United Kingdom.

    And that will mean challenging those who try to stop growth.

    I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back.

    Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP…

    …The militant unions, the vested interests dressed up as think-tanks…

    …The talking heads, the Brexit deniers and Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we had in the hall earlier.

    The fact is they prefer protesting to doing.

    They prefer talking on Twitter to taking tough decisions.

    They taxi from North London townhouses to the BBC studio to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo.

    From broadcast to podcast, they peddle the same old answers.

    It’s always more taxes, more regulation and more meddling.

    Wrong, wrong, wrong.

    We see the anti-growth coalition at work across the country.

    Keir Starmer wants to put extra taxes on the companies we need to invest in our energy security.

    And his sticking plaster solution will only last six months.

    He has no long-term plan and no vision for Britain.

    Mark Drakeford in Wales is cancelling road-building projects and refusing to build the M4 relief road.

    Nicola Sturgeon won’t build new nuclear power stations in Scotland to solve the energy crisis in Scotland.

    Have these people ever seen a tax rise they don’t like?

    Or an industry they don’t want to control?

    They don’t understand the British people.

    They don’t understand aspiration.

    They are prepared to leave our towns and cities facing decline.

    My friends, does this anti-growth coalition have any idea who pays their wages?

    It’s the people who make things in factories across our country.

    It’s the people who get up at the crack of dawn to go to work.

    It’s the commuters who get trains into towns and cities across our country.

    I’m thinking of the white van drivers, the hairdressers, the plumbers, the accountants, the IT workers and millions of others up and down the UK.

    The anti-growth coalition just doesn’t get it.

    This is because they don’t face the same challenges as normal working people.

    These enemies of enterprise don’t know the frustration you feel to see your road blocked by protesters, or the trains off due to a strike.

    In fact, their friends on the hard Left tend to be the ones behind the disruption.

    The anti-growth coalition think the people who stick themselves to trains, roads and buildings are heroes.

    I say the real heroes are those who go to work, take responsibility and aspire to a better life for themselves and their family.

    And I am on their side.

    We will build roads, rail, energy and broadband quicker.

    We will be proudly pro-growth, pro-aspiration and pro-enterprise.

    That is how we will forge ahead on our long-term path to national success.

    In this new era, we are taking a new approach.

    My friends, we are focused on boosting growth and opportunity across our country.

    This mission will be difficult but it is necessary.

    We have no alternative if we want to get our economy moving again.

    I am ready to make hard choices.

    You can trust me to do what it takes.

    The status quo is not an option.

    That is why we cannot give in to the voices of decline.

    We cannot give in to those who say Britain can’t grow faster.

    We cannot give in to those who say we can’t do better.

    We must stay the course.

    We are the only party with a clear plan to get Britain moving.

    We are the only party with the determination to deliver.

    Together, we can unleash the full potential of our great country.

    That is how we will build a new Britain for a new era.

  • Claude Lancaster – 1967 Speech on Aberfan Inquiry

    Claude Lancaster – 1967 Speech on Aberfan Inquiry

    The speech made by Claude Lancaster, the then Conservative MP for South Fylde, in the House of Commons on 26 October 1967.

    I do not intend to comment on the speech of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) because I have a number of things to say and I know that many other hon. Members wish to speak. A fortnight ago the Annual Report on accidents at mines was published. It is a very encouraging Report. Last year, deaths from accidents totalled 160—the lowest figure ever. But Mr. Stephenson, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, said that in view of advances in engineering technique applied in recent years, we should not be complacent about that.
    The Aberfan disaster was not reportable under the Mines and Quarries Act, 1954. Nevertheless, Mr. Stephenson says that the disaster will have a world-wide impact. I was abroad when it occurred, visiting the Trucial States. Immediately on my return, I happened to have a conversation in the Lobby with the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch), who has given me permission to refer to it.

    The hon. Gentleman asked me what I thought and I said that I knew no more about it than what I had read in the newspapers abroad. He inquired what my opinion was of the possible cause of the disaster and I replied, “I fancy that you will find that it was a trickle of water”. I shall refer to that later.

    In its first-class Report, the Tribunal puts the cause of the disaster on a breakdown in communications both horizontal and vertical. I suggest another dimension —the psychological. It was endemic in the formation of the National Coal Board, which was hurriedly put together in 1947, that it should take on an over-centralised aspect. I am certain that if the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) were here he would be the first to say that, with the passage of time, it needs seriously overhauling.

    Unfortunately, the only important inquiry, the Fleck inquiry, did nothing to bring about any decentralisation. Indeed, the Board solidified something which was already too over centralised. The result has been that, progressively, all decisions have come to be made at Hobart House.

    Hobart House is responsible for every aspect of mining, including the administration of coal production. Thus, there has arisen a tendency for the men in the regions to look to Hobart House for decisions in all sorts of directions, be they the shape of shafts or the use of props at the coal face. There was, there-for a tendency not to give the soil tips the attention that the problem deserved.

    It is true that there were no regulations about coal tips before Nationalisation, but in the East Midlands there was a common practice, which I believe was fairly general throughout the coal industry—I do not think that we were any more enlightened than anybody elsewhere the control of tips was a regular feature of the day’s work. Soil tips are a necessary evil. For every ton brought out of a pit almost a quarter of that weight goes on to the coal tip. It is the difference between the run of mine coal and saleable output. It was necessary to take considerable precautions to settle on a piece of land which was not unduly soft or broken ground and had no previous encroachments and to have very careful regard to the type of debris being tipped.

    As an example, a change-over from dry slag to effluent, or what is now called tailings, could have a definite effect on the angle of repose. Therefore, the matter had to be watched very carefully and, above all, it was against all tradition to site a tip either on a spring or in the vicinity of a stream.

    There was normally a gang of men working on the tip and they were responsible for whatever mechanical devices were being employed. Over that gang was a man called a chargehand and among his various duties were two very important ones. One was to report any unusual movement of the tip, and certainly he had to report any signs of water emerging from the base of the tip. He made his report either to the surface manager or, in a smaller pit, to the surface foreman who in his turn reported it to the colliery manager. The colliery manager went up every three or four weeks and had a good look at the tip, decided where the tipping for the next period would occur, and drew the charge-hand’s attention to any aspect of the tip which was giving him cause for concern.

    These precautions were carried out in the East Midlands not because life was at stake—at least we hoped not—but because undue spreading of the tip involved compensation to farmers for destroyed buildings and the like in the vicinity.

    1933In South Wales, the need for precautions on the sides of hills with a 60 in. rainfall is all the greater. It would be presumption on my part to talk about South Wales, but it so happens that a few years after nationalisation two of my original staff went there. One was chairman of the South Wales district and the other was the chief mechanical officer. I used to go down and talk to them, so, although I never talked about tips, I have some familiarity with what went on down there.

    That is all I have to say about tips in general. As has been said, it is essential that we take a fresh look at these matters and do everything possible to rectify this appalling situation, more particularly in South Wales.

    I come now to Lord Robens’ part. Lord Robens has been a very distinguished Chairman of the National Coal Board. He has been there since 1961 and has proved himself a supreme salesman and a doughty fighter on behalf of the coal mining industry. I think that his greatest contribution was restoring the morale of the industry after the setback from a seller’s to a buyer’s market after the year 1958. He restored confidence to the industry. Moreover, as regards pits being closed and redundancy, he has acted with a great sense of imagination and charity.

    I have had a number of discussions with Lord Robens and I have accompanied him up and down the coalfields visiting pits and the like. He is a friend of mine. Therefore, what I have to say is the more invidious.

    I consider, first, that his public image has been immensely spoiled by this tragedy. He should have gone down there on the first day. Years ago, when I was first learning something about coal mining—I had no executive position—I went away on a Saturday and the colliery manager rang me that night and said that there had been an over-wind in the shaft, two men had been killed, and I must come back straight away. He was a wise old man. He said. “You must be here because you are the boss class.”Today, Lord Robens and the people around him are the boss class, and they should have been there if for no other purpose than showing their sympathy at that moment with the bereaved.

    The second thing I must say about him is that he was most unwise to make any comment about the cause or otherwise of the tragedy. He is wholly untechnical. He was bound to make mistakes, and he did so. He would have been much wiser to have said nothing about it.

    Thirdly, and most important, he should have gone to the Tribunal when it was set up and should have said not only, “I will put all the resources of my organisation at the disposal of the Tribunal”, but,” I have two or possibly three men I would like to nominate whose evidence you should take. It is up to you, the Tribunal, to call whom you wish, but I have two or three men I would like particularly that you should call. I think that they can give you great help.”The Tribunal, in its early days, said, and said rightly, that it wanted no delay in its proceedings, it wanted no evidence which in any way would mislead it, and it wanted a ready acknowledgement of mistakes that there had been.

    There are three men I have in mind. One has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt), Mr. Kellett, the Chairman of the South-West District. I have met him. He is a man of high reputation and very well respected. Many chairmen happen to be administrative men, but he is a technical man. He was the man responsible for that district and he should have been one of the men to give evidence.

    The second man who I suggest should have been called at the earliest moment is Mr. Harry Collins, who was the Director of Production and a Board Member. Mr. Sheppard, who was called, was not a Board member. Mr. Harry Collins is a man of great experience who has held a number of very high posts. If the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) were here he would confirm that when Mr. Collins was in charge of our coal production in Germany after the war he gained the confidence of the German coal mining industry, which is not an easy thing to do. He gained it because he was a man of great competence himself and they responded to him. I went to Essen on two occasions to spend some little while with him and I also was most impressed with the reputation that he gained for himself.

    If an additional witness was required the Deputy Chairman of the Coal Board, Sir Humphrey Brown, could have been called. He gained his reputation originally in the old Manchester collieries as a planner. He made a good name for himself when he was Chairman of the West Midlands Division and he is the foremost technician on the Coal Board.

    What, in fact, happened? Mr. Sheppard became the spokesman for the Coal Board. It is not for me to question Mr. Sheppard’s competence, but I cannot feel that he can look back on his evidence with any feeling of satisfaction whatever. After all, the Chief Inspector of Mines in the South-West Area said of his evidence that it was “astonishing”. Additionally to that, the Tribunal said that nothing it had heard in evidence at Aberfan in any way confirmed a single syllable of the minute of the statement of the Coal Board committee set up by Mr. Sheppard.

    None of the stipulations which the tribunal made—that there should be no delay, that there should be no attempt to confuse the issue and that there should be a ready acceptance of responsibility—was met either by Mr. Sheppard or, I am sorry to say, by Lord Robens in his evidence. Indeed, as we have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford, counsel for the Coal Board had to ask the Tribunal to ignore Lord Roben’s contribution to the Tribunal’s considerations as being of no value.

    Can anybody imagine that either Mr. Kellett or Mr. Collins would agree to that approach? The Coal Board put forward a statement denying blame for what had occurred at any level. These two men would not have lent their names to such a statement. These two men would not have delayed proceedings or mystified the Tribunal, and these two men would have been the first to acknowledge what had gone wrong, because they would have been only too clear about what had gone wrong.

    It has been suggested that this was a very complex geological problem; it was not. Tips are not complex geological problems and advice about the movement of earth and the science of soil mechanics was available from any private engineering firm. If any hon. Member would like to see something comparable to Aberfan he can do so within five miles of Parliament at Dawson Hill, in South-East Camberwell, where very much the same thing has happened. The corporation had been tipping rubbish for a generation; there was water and about 40 houses were swept away, luckily with no loss of life, and three streets have been at risk at the bottom of the hill. In the light of what had happened at Aberfan, Southwark Council very sensibly called in a geological concern—and I must declare an interest, because I have worked with that concern for the last 20 years—and the council has put the matter right in a reasonably short time.

    However, in the Press and elsewhere it has been suggested that there were imponderables and the like about the tip at Aberfan. There are not such things about tips, which do not represent a complicated geological problem. They represent a problem which the average colliery manager can perfectly well handle and in which he is perfectly well versed.

    I join with my hon. Friend in saying that we must ask the Minister to give us the reasons why Mr. Kellett and Mr. Collins were not called. I am sure that the Minister has read the typescript of the evidence and must be appalled by the evidence put forward by Mr. Sheppard and Lord Robens. I do not think that either wilfully set out to mislead the Tribunal and I am sure that they are both honourable men. It was because of the standard of their competence, because they were second-class men in the sense of their technical or general abilities. They went there on behalf of the Coal Board and yet the Tribunal had firmly put responsibility not on the lower or middle echelons of men whom eventually it condemned in its final report, but squarely on the Coal Board, and it was up to the Coal Board to give every assistance it could and to send its best men. It did not do so.

    I find myself in the position of not agreeing with my hon. Friend. Lord Robens has done a fine job. He has served the State in a number of distinguished positions. He did the honourable thing by resigning. I feel that the Minister should not have asked him to take back his resignation. I know that the right hon. Gentleman may produce all sorts of reasons, but the underlying position still remains that he ought not to have asked him to take back his resignation.

    Aberfan will not be quickly forgotten I can assure the Minister that the Tribunal’s Reports will have been read in Pennsylvania, in Lens, in Brussels, in the Ruhr and in the Donbas. In a strange way the mining world is quite small and follows what happens up and down the mining world very closely. Unless we do what I have suggested, it will be said that we have dropped our standards. For me this is a sad day, because my heart is in the coal industry, but this is something which we shall not forget for many a long day.

  • Stephen O Davies – 1967 Speech on Aberfan Inquiry

    Stephen O Davies – 1967 Speech on Aberfan Inquiry

    The speech made by Stephen O Davies, the then Labour MP for Merthyr Tydfil, in the House of Commons on 26 October 1967.

    The House will probably understand why the day of this debate has been my most unhappy day in the very long years I have been a Member. It is not merely because the disaster took place in my constituency; it took place among men, women and even children whom I knew and know.

    We hope that with the debate and the Report and recommendations of the Tribunal we shall put an end to disasters of the kind which occurred at Aberfan. It is not an easy job, but it must be done.

    It is not my intention to add to the sorrows of my neighbours. A number of them are here today and they should leave the House with a conviction that their loss has not entirely been in vain, and that the House will take steps, as it can, to prevent such tragedies in the future. As an ex-miner, and a mining engineer, I have made a life-long study of mining. I have something to say about the potential dangers of similar tragedies that still exist, particularly in the South Wales coal field. On the whole, the coal seams are far below the surface and the physical topography of the Wales coal field adds immensely to the dangers of the tipping that has been going on. The National Coal Board inherited the practices of the long years before it had responsibility for the mines of this country.

    When I was a young coal miner, working in a colliery immediately to the west of where this disaster occurred, I came up from the coal shaft one Monday afternoon—and Monday was a short day in the collieries—to the beautiful sunshine, and I saw on the mountainside, which must have been beautiful, too, at one time, rubbish and debris being tipped from the coal mine. Standing near me on my left was the general manager, a man for whom I had great respect. Indeed, he started many of us as students of mining and of science in coal mining. I turned to him—his name, like mine, was Davies—and I asked, “Mr. Davies, is not that an absolute scandal, bringing all this rubbish from underground and tipping it on the hillside, instead of scientifically stowing it underground and thus perhaps preventing in the future widespread subsidence in the coal field?” He was a great mining engineer. His answer was typical of those days. He said, “Stephen, let me tell you, confidentially, that I have to bring it out because it is cheaper to haul it up the shaft and tip it on the hillside”. Needless to say, I never reported that story while that first-class man held a responsibility under the old dispensation. He was extremely kind to the youngsters in the industry.

    The Coal Board has inherited a beastly and unscientific tradition. It accepted what had been done in the old days. May I deal with the fact that Members of the House have no power to question anything done by the Coal Board which we feel ought to be questioned? I made that point while the Bill nationalising the industry was being passed through the House. In general I supported it, but there was one part of it which I did not like, and that was that we were lifting the industry out of the control of the House and vesting it in a number of unelected and unrepresentative men. I used that expression at the time, and I also pointed out that if a disaster happened in any of the collieries in my constituency and hundreds of lives were lost, neither I nor any other hon. Member would have the right to put a Question to the Minister, except by the grace of Mr. Speaker or his Deputy. We should have no such right unless it were conceded to us—and I say that with no disrespect to the Chair.

    Some of us have spoken a lot about tipping during our days. I have mentioned the topography of these valleys in South Wales and the dangers of subsidence. Time is passing and subsidence is getting a bigger danger than ever. How are we to obviate that danger? We must get these tips cleared. There is no alternative.

    We must be under no illusion that the Aberfan tips have been made safe by today. They have not been made safe. There are two tips right at the top of the old tip, to be seen glaring at us every day, full of threat. They might come down and cover some part of the village again. The Aberfan people insist —and I insist with them—that what is left of those tips must be removed. I hope that the Minister and the Secretary of State for Wales will be with us on this matter.

    Mr. Marsh My hon. Friend has made an incredibly serious statement. As far as I am concerned, there is no foundation whatsoever for his suggestion that the tip at Aberfan still represents a danger to the village. Before I wind up the debate I will make further inquiries, but I thought that this was such a serious statement that I should intervene. I will make further inquiries and if what my hon. Friend says is not the case, I hope that he will be prepared to withdraw it.

    Mr. Davies I hope that my right hon. Friend will take it from coal miners, from those of us who live there, and I have lived there for nearly 50 years, and whose industrial preoccupation is still coal mining, that it is a danger. I should not like this to boomerang on my right hon. Friend after the statement which he has made. I repeat that it is a danger, an obvious danger. I am not panicking over this, although I can forgive certain people who may get a little panicky about it. My right hon. Friend must abandon his opinion, because we had assurances of that kind over and over again before the disaster happened. We were told, “Everything is all right and perfectly safe”. I remind my right hon. Friend of those two tips at the very top, almost on the ridge of the hill between us in the valley and the west. I will tell him that if there is subsidence in that valley and that hillside, and if a creep or tremor runs up that hillside and sets those tips moving again, there could be very serious danger. My right hon. Friend must take advice on this from those who know something about coal mining and not be as ready to accept the advice of those who have misled from the very beginning.

    I feel that it was rather unfortunate that at the very beginning of this great trouble the Attorney-General said that no prosecution would be engaged in whoever might be found responsible. That was a most unfortunate expression on his part. People have been found blameworthy and we say, consequently, guilty. The only thing that might mitigate that blame in the least is what I have already said—that they inherited traditions from the past when nothing but profit mattered. They carried on that tradition and, as a result, this disaster happened and others might again happen.

    The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt) referred to the actions of the Press. I must say that, on the whole, the Press has been pretty good, bur there have been exceptions—cold-blooded, cheap, journalese exceptions, some in this country and some abroad. I shall not reproduce the horrible statements made in certain organs of the British Press, statements wholly unrelated to the feelings and expressions of those who suffered and are still suffering from the disaster. But I will quote to the House the filthiest classic of all. I have a photostat copy of the article. It is headed Aftermath of Aberfan Tragedy. It declares: Jealous parents”— can anyone here imagine anything more cruelly vicious and untruthful? Jealous parents of 116 dead kids”— that is not my word— vow to kill a child because he is alive. A whole page is given to this. It goes even further. It gives the name of a young woman of Aberfan and the name of her son. I know this family extremely well. With this write-up, the paper presented what was supposed to be a picture of mother and son. But in the picture the mother looks at least between 12 and 14 stone. The lady referred to, however, is hardly more than half that weight. I shall not upset the House by going into further detail but I think that this article has reached the limit of unscrupulous, conscienceless and cruel journalism.

    I am pleased at least to say that that article was not printed in this country. It is from a greatly advertised American periodical called Midnight.

    I have referred to the statement made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. That statement has not been accepted kindly by the people of Aberfan, and I can quite understand why. It is very difficult for any person to see why those adjudged guilty should not be made to make some amends for what they have been accused of doing. My right hon. and learned Friend’s statement at the outset was a mistake. It should be left to the courts to decide whether the Coal Board merely accepted the inherited traditions of the past without question. We in this House were not given the right to question anything that the Coal Board did. This House should nevertheless hold the Coal Board responsible and make it face the consequences of what it has done.

    I know that I have been wandering in my speech but I am sure that I need not apologise to the House. This is the most unhappy time in my long service in this House. I hope that, in any case, the House will agree with me that these tips must be removed and that those still left in Aberfan must be removed at once.

    The Aberfan tips are still a danger. I shall accept no statement to the contrary. I have lived in these valleys all my life and I know something about the effects of subsidence and the springs of water oozing from our hillsides We should not hesitate to finish the job at Atierfan and carry on with the job elsewhere, particularly, as I have said, in South Wales, where the physical topography adds to the dangers which already exist.

  • David Gibson-Watt – 1967 Speech on Aberfan Inquiry

    David Gibson-Watt – 1967 Speech on Aberfan Inquiry

    The speech made by David Gibson-Watt, the then Conservative MP for Hereford, in the House of Commons on 26 October 1967.

    I am sure that the House will be grateful to the Secretary of State for the very sympathetic way in which he has dealt with this very difficult subject, for 21st October, 1966, will certainly rank as one of the grimmest days in Welsh history. It is not the first time that a mining community has suffered, for mining is a hard and dangerous calling, but it is the first time in the long history of the mining industry that the young have had to suffer.

    Anyone who knows the valleys of Wales will agree that they have a special character. They are close communities. The valley which contains the two villages of Aberfan and Merthyr Vale has a community that is especially close, for a great proportion of the men employed there are employed in the Merthyr Vale Colliery. Mining, with all its hazards, creates a particular fraternity among those men, and this closeness was certainly never shown to better advantage than in the awful moments that followed the fatal disaster in October last year.

    Whatever we say today in this debate, we should bear in mind that our main objective is to heal and to give strength to these people, and we should honour those who have suffered and not add to their suffering.

    We would all wish to pay tribute to the many who helped after the disaster—the many volunteers spearheaded, of course, by the miners themselves; to the police, the Civil Defence, the ambulance and nursing services and other public bodies, the many voluntary services and organisations and, indeed, to the troops who came in later. Nor should the Welsh Office be without its share of credit, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said in the House some days after the disaster.

    The administrative job, as the Secretary of State has said, was complicated by two factors: first, Aberfan falls under two authorities—Glamorgan and Merthyr Tydvil; secondly, the vast number of people who flocked to Aberfan on that day, some to gaze helplessly but many more to dig and to work. I myself, like other Members of the House, saw dozens of young volunteers going in their cars with equipment, only to be turned away, so great was the crush within the valley. Considering these two problems—the duplication of administration and the crowds who flocked there—the rescue and the clearance work was certainly very well done.

    I would ask the Minister whether the aftermath of this disaster has perhaps changed some of the thinking in the Home Office on this matter. I also ask this question: on such an occasion, who should be in charge—a Minister, a mayor, a policeman or a Civil Defence officer. I think perhaps more guidance might be given on this point from the Home Office in case of any trouble in the future.

    The Tribunal set up by the Secretary of State for Wales was, as the right hon. Gentleman said, composed of three well-known men, and was under the chairmanship of Sir Edmund Davies, a Lord Justice of Appeal, a popular man who was born and bred in the valleys. It is clear that they carried out their unpleasant and difficult task with sympathy and competence, and, indeed patience, for this Tribunal went on for an unnecessarily long time.

    The Tribunal’s Report is clear. It is detailed and it makes recommendations to help the avoidance of future such disasters. On page 131 is the summary of its findings. The first finding is: Blame for the disaster rests upon the National Coal Board. The reasons for its findings are detailed in the Report, and the men whom the Tribunal describe as not being without blame have been named. I do not intend to pursue this. It is a heavy punishment indeed to be named by a tribunal of this sort.

    But what a tale this Tribunal unfolded. It is a sombre catalogue of incompetence, subterfuge and failure, of warnings disregarded, a complete exposure of the lack of communication within the National Coal Board. It must seem incredible to anybody who reads this Report that Tip No. 7 on Merthyr Mountain should ever have been chosen and that it should have been tipped on for so long, when the water problems was abundantly clear, when the tailings problem was admitted and when there were so many complaints about Tip No. 7.

    Complaints came from several organisations, including the Merthyr Corporation, many individuals and, in particular, Councillor Mrs. Williams, whose strong complaint in the Merthyr Planning Committee was reported in the Merthyr Express in 1964. She said: If the tip moved it could threaten the whole school. The complaints were frequent.

    Let me quote but two from the Merthyr Corporation. They started in July, 1959, as we are told on page 52 of the Report. Letters from the Borough Engineer, Mr. Jones, in 1963, referred to apprehensions about the movement of slurry to the danger and detriment of people and property adjoining the site of the tips. The Deputy Borough Engineer, Mr. Bradley, in 1963, wrote a number of letters which were headed Danger from coal slurry being tipped at the rear of the Pantglas Schools. To all these complaints the National Coal Board turned a deaf ear. It went on tipping. I cannot entertain the suggestion that the Merthyr Corporation can be held responsible in any way, nor, indeed could the Tribunal. As Mr. Alun Davies, Q.C., said at the Tribunal: …perhaps the natural mistake made by the Merthyr Corporation was that it accepted the opinions of the experts of this organisation at their own valuation. Little did the Corporation realise how empty were the assurances given by their experts, but in my submission this cannot be blameworthy conduct as between responsible men. To the several complaints from the Merthyr Corporation the answer was given by the National Coal Board that experts were being used. In 1950, the Coal Board wrote to the borough engineer saying that the Board was constantly checking the position of all these tips. In fact, it blinded them with science.

    Alderman Tudor, himself an important witness, who gave considerable warnings to the Coal Board, said to the Tribunal: Remember, I was a layman with limited knowledge of tips. I had raised the matter of tips in the Consultative Committee and I was compelled to accept what Mr. Wynne told me, recognising that he had far more ability than had. And I thought that he was capable enough of making a decision. If he was not capable enough of making a decision, well then, he should have called someone else in. As a layman I could not argue with him, because he could have blinded me, because he knew more of the pits and he knew more of the pit work than I did. The Coal Board blinded them all. It was deaf to all warnings, written and vocal. It was blind, also, to the visual warnings. There has been tip slips on Mynydd Merthyr, which could all have been seen by those in charge. In 1944 a rotational slip on tip 4 was followed by a flow slide; between 1947 and 1951 a rotational slip on Tip No. 5; in 1963 a rotational slide on Tip No. 7 followed by a flow slide. Between 1964 and October, 1966 there were further slipping movements on Tip No. 7. There were also the other tip slides at Tymawr and Cilfynydd, from the neighbouring valleys.

    Yet something stopped these men taking action. Something stopped them concentrating on this tip about which they were constantly warned. What was it? Was it just a combination of ignorance and failure to take responsibility? Was it the pressure of other work at the pit itself and in the rest of the area? Was it the fear that, if they stopped tipping on Tip No. 7, there was very little other land to tip on and the pit itself might be in danger of closure?

    The evidence of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) reflects this question, but the Tribunal, in investigating it, did not find sufficient evidence to support it. Or was it the same attitude which any of us could have taken, an attitude which exists in the minds of those who live below a volcano and which may be epitomised in just a few words—”It will never happen”?

    The Tribunal just blames the National Coal Board and says that there was an absence of tipping policy and no legislation dealing with tip safety. Although the Tribunal found blame for the disaster to rest with the Coal Board, it took a long time for the Coal Board to admit it. At the beginning, its statement gave no hint of acceptance at any level of any degree of blame for the disaster. Indeed, the Board’s counsel said: The Board’s view is that the disaster was due to a coincidence of a set of geological factors, each of which in itself is not exceptional but which collectively created a particularly critical geological environment”. Those words were later shown to be false, for, on the 65th day of the hearing, the Tribunal heard Mr. Piggott, the Board’s expert, say that the only exceptional feature about Merthyr Mountain lay in the fact that it had been used as a tipping site at all. Mr. Sheppard, the Director-General of Production of the National Coal Board, said in answer to Mr. Wien, the Board’s counsel, All the geological features could have been previously appreciated”. There was, in fact, a definite and continued attempt, in the view of the Tribunal, by the Coal Board to avoid responsibility.

    Lord Robens’ original statement and his evidence did not make things any easier. After he had been to Aberfan, Lord Robens told a reporter: It was impossible to know that there was a spring in the heart of this tip which was turning the centre of the mountain into sludge”. Clearly, this was inaccurate, and it was said without technical advice. The evidence which Lord Robens gave to the Tribunal later was self-contradictory and inconsistent, so much so that counsel for the N.C.B., in his closing address, said that it had not assisted the Tribunal and asked that it be disregarded.

    Lord Robens was in a difficulty. He must, like anyone connected with this matter, have been in a state of mental turmoil. He made his inaccurate statement to the television reporter before he had been able to get proper advice. But, surely, he must afterwards have known what the Coal Board’s line was to be before the Tribunal, after that statement and before the Tribunal had met.

    Lord Robens said in his evidence—this is recorded on page 91 of the Report —that by the time the inquiry started on 29th November he was satisfied that the causes were reasonably foreseeable. If that was so, why did the Coal Board persist in its attitude until day 65, when Mr. Piggott, the Board’s expert, finally said: All the geological features could have been previously appreciated”? This is not easy to understand. It is easy, as the Tribunal said, for anyone to be guilty of hindsight. It is easy for us to criticise and to accuse with the Report before us. But it is not easy to understand Lord Robens’ attitude from the time of the disaster to the end of the Tribunal. Blame for the disaster rests with the Coal Board. That is the Tribunal’s first finding, and, as the Secretary of State said, certain officials of the Coal Board have been moved within the Board’s organisation.

    Lord Robens offered his resignation to the Minister. It was certainly the honourable thing for him to do, as head of this vast industrial empire which was blamed for the disaster by the Tribunal. The Minister has refused to accept his resignation. I ask the Minister today to say a little more about his reasons for not accepting it. The only point in the Secretary of State’s speech in which I did not fully concur was when he said that the Minister had given his reasons. The copies of the letters passing between the chairman of the National Coal Board and the Minister do not give us the reasons.

    In his letter to Lord Robens rejecting his resignation, the right hon. Gentleman said: Nor do I consider that the conclusions of the Tribunal are of a kind which call for your resignation. The conclusions of the Tribunal were that the Coal Board was totally responsible for the disaster. The evidence of Lord Robens was not only late, but it was found to be useless by the Coal Board’s counsel, so much so that, as I have said, he asked for it to be disregarded. I cannot help saying to the Minister that I am sure he has further reasons for refusing Lord Robens’ resignation, and from our side we should very much like to hear them. I repeat that we are not asking that Lord Robens should resign. We want only to be told more about the Minister’s reasons.

    The right hon. Gentleman may say that Lord Robens’ leadership is essential to the Coal Board in the difficulties which the industry faces, and with this we could agree. It is a complicated industry. In Wales alone, just under 60,000 men are still employed in just over 70 collieries. Lord Robens has done much to restore morale within the mining industry.

    I put these questions to the Minister. How much does this huge industry decentralise? How much more will it decentralise now, since the study which, we are told, has taken place? How much responsibility did the divisions take in the past? I ask this question because, in all the evidence which was brought before the Tribunal, there was one person who was not called by counsel for the Coal Board. I find it curious that Mr. Kellett, the Chairman of the South-Western Division, was not called to give evidence regarding a pit disaster which occurred within his division. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer that tonight.

    The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Marsh) May I be clear on the question about Mr. Kellett which the hon. Gentleman asks? Is he asking me why no one —including the Tribunal itself—called Mr. Kellett, or merely why the Coal Board’s counsel did not call him? The Tribunal could have called anyone it wished. It did not call him.

    Mr. Gibson-Watt The point of my question is that one would have expected counsel for the Coal Board to call the chairman of the division. I do not understand it. If there is a reason, I am very ready to accept what the Minister may say. I should like him to give us an answer on the point.

    The Coal Board, like other nationalised industries, enjoys immunity from Parliamentary control. No Member of Parliament may ask Questions in the House about the administrative matters of nationalised industries. This gives the industries, as it were, an impregnability which I am not always sure is in their own interests. In this case, it was not possible for the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil to come to the House and ask the Minister concerned about the tip menace. The general public cannot understand this prohibition on Parliamentary probing. Some changes could be made. After all, Mr. Aneurin Bevan did not make that mistake with the National Health Service when he introduced it. Would it not be possible for this matter to be considered by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries?

    Many hon. Members wish to speak in the debate, and, therefore, I want only shortly to say a word about the repair work which has taken place on the Aberfan complex in draining, terracing and reseeding Tip No. 7. As far as one can judge, this has been well done, and when one goes up the valley one, sees the freshly seeded grass. The Under-Secretary of State spoke the other day of the £1 million which is to be spent by the Coal Board in reshaping the tips on Merthyr Mountain, with reseeding and planting of fair-sized trees. It remains to be seen whether this will be adequate. Fair-sized trees do not grow easily, particularly in coal tips, and the job should be done by experts.

    I have no doubt that it will be, but it is not clear that Tips Nos. 4 and 5 are to be included in the landscaping. The Minister has the advantage of me, for he has seen the model and I have not. But we cannot accept any excuse that Tip No. 5 is still burning and, therefore, cannot be removed. That should be made very plain to those who are clearing up that part of Merthyr Mountain. It was stated in the Tribunal, by one of the Coal Board experts, that One may conclude that No. 5 has been standing and is standing at a very low factor of safety. Therefore, we shall need a good deal of convincing that adequate work is being done.

    As the right hon. Gentleman said, there has been a good deal of Press and television coverage of the whole affair. Whatever people’s reactions to some of it may have been, it should at least remind every one of us of the debt the country as a whole owes to the mining communities and the country’s responsibility to see that the existing tips are safe, and that the lives of those living in the valleys shall not only be safer but shall be made less drab by reshaping, reseeding and re-afforestation.

    It is only when one lives there or goes there that one realises that in South Wales there are not hundreds but thousands of coal tips. The real difficulty here, unlike other coal-mining areas, is that there is practically nowhere to put the tips except on the slope at the side of the valley. It is immaterial whether the slipping tip is now the property of the Coal Board or not. A number of small though potentially dangerous slips have taken place in the past few months, and throughout periods of heavy rain, such as we had recently, there is a great deal of anxiety about them.

    The Secretary of State has announced that grants of between 85 and 95 per cent. will be available to local authorities under the 1966 Industrial Development Act. I do not believe that that goes quite far enough. Any local authority which is tackling a scheme of any size—say, of £250,000—and which is asked to provide 10 per cent. of the money to do the repairing and reshaping will have to find a large amount from the local ratepayers. It will probably be dealing with a coal tip that was put there some years ago and in many cases might be just a relic of a bygone economic age. Therefore, I hope that the Government will reconsider this and perhaps be even more generous to the local authorities than they have been so far.

    I have no doubt that the disaster at Aberfan has taught a terrible lesson to the Coal Board, and no doubt it has made certain reorganisations. But the disaster has also brought home to us the lesson that there are many tips that need remedial action in order to relieve anxiety.

    I do not wish to say anything in detail about the disaster fund. When he winds up, will the Minister tell us how the fund, totalling nearly £2 million, has been administered, and what is the up-to-date position?

    I have put a number of questions to the Minister. First, will he give us the reasons why he did not accept Lord Roben’s resignation? Second, will he say why the Chairman of the South Western Division did not give evidence at the Tribunal? Third, will he consult his colleagues about changing the rules which prevent hon. Members from asking Questions about nationalised industries in the House? Fourth, will he ensure that the Coal Board adequately reshapes the tips at Aberfan? Fifth, will the Government be more generous to local authorities? Finally, will he tell us more about the disaster fund?

    Having put those questions to the Minister, I conclude by saying to all who have suffered at Aberfan. “We wish you strength and faith to overcome your grief.”

  • Cledwyn Hughes – 1967 Statement on Aberfan Inquiry

    Cledwyn Hughes – 1967 Statement on Aberfan Inquiry

    The statement made by Cledwyn Hughes, the then Secretary of State for Wales, in the House of Commons on 26 October 1967.

    I beg to move, That this House takes note of the Report of the Tribunal appointed under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 to inquire into the disaster at Aberfan (House of Commons Paper No. 553). Just over a year ago this House and the whole world was shocked to learn of the dreadful tragedy which had occurred at Aberfan, a small mining village near Merthyr Tydfil. Hundreds of thousands of tons of colliery waste suddenly moved down the steep mountainside and overwhelmed a large part of the junior school and a number of houses in the vicinity. Desperate efforts at rescue were made by those nearby, who were joined by others who poured into Aberfan from all over South Wales and beyond, but no one was taken out of the ruins alive later than two hours after the first movement of the tip, and a hundred and forty four persons, the majority of them young children, lost their lives.

    As soon as news of the tragedy reached me I went immediately to Aberfan to see whether I could be of use. After seeing the site my first concern was to clarify the division of responsibility for the work that was going on. The Chief Constable of Merthyr had been placed in overall operational charge, and I confirmed this. The National Coal Board was asked to concentrate on the stabilisation of the tip, and the local authority was asked to take full responsibility for all the rescue work. The other local authorities, who had so readily and promptly come to help, willingly accepted my invitation to put their resources temporarily under the control of the officials of the Merthyr Tydfil Borough Council.

    Later that evening I was joined by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who made it clear that the whole of the resources of the Government were at my disposal for the rescue operation. Other colleagues in the Government also came to the site.

    I have already in this House thanked all those who took part in the rescue operation for the splendid work which they performed in the most harrowing circumstances.

    No time was lost in setting up a Tribunal of Inquiry into all the circumstances of the disaster and we were fortunate to secure the services as Chairman of Lord Justice Edmund Davies, a Welshman born and bred in a neighbouring valley and renowned for his distinction as a lawyer and for his humanitarian sympathy, and as members of the Tribunal with him, Mr. Harold Harding, the eminent civil engineer, and Mr. Vernon Lawrence, the greatly respected former Clerk to the Monmouthshire County Council.

    Lord Justice Edmund Davies promptly visited the scene of the disaster and arrangements were quickly made for the Tribunal to sit at Merthyr Tydfil and a preliminary meeting was held on 8th November. The proceedings were opened on 29th November by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, and so began what was to prove the longest inquiry of its kind in British legal history.

    Written statements were taken by the Treasury Solicitor from all who wished to give evidence, about 250 witnesses in all, and of these 136 gave oral evidence also, being examined and cross-examined by counsel and questioned by members of the Tribunal. Including the preliminary meeting the Tribunal sat in public for 77 days, first at Merthyr Tydfil and later at Cardiff, and commanded, I believe, universal admiration for their patience and thoroughness in elucidating the facts. The Tribunal finally rose at the end of April and the members then addressed themselves to the massive task of sifting the evidence and drawing up their report and recommendations.

    As the House knows, the Chairman placed a copy of the Tribunal’s Report in my hands in the latter half of July and it was printed by order of the House and published on 3rd August. It is not my intention to go through the Report, but I am sure that it would be the wish of the House that I should express our admiration for the high sense of duty with which the Tribunal applied itself to its most onerous task and our gratitude for its findings and for its recommendations on the measures needed to prevent a recurrence of such a disaster. These findings and recommendations, as has been made clear already, have commanded general acceptance by Her Majesty’s Government. We are all much indebted to Lord Justice Edmund Davies and his colleagues who have performed a great public service.

    Before I come to action taken on receipt of the Report, I should like to say a word or two about action taken during, and even before, the sittings of the Tribunal. Immediately after the disaster the National Coal Board ordered an inspection of all tips, active or disused, in the Board’s ownership and my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Housing and Local Government and I invited local authorities in England and Wales, invoking the assistance of the National Coal Board as necessary, to arrange for an inspection of all tips in private ownership. These measures disclosed potential instability in several tips and appropriate precautions were taken and remedial action put in hand at once.

    The incidents which occurred during the heavy rains of last week, however, although relatively minor in character, demonstrated that some tips can still present problems and that much remains to be done. As hon. Members will hear from my right hon. Friend who hopes to wind up this debate, the efforts of the National Coal Board, the Government, and all concerned, are being directed to ensure that all problems, both large and small, can be foreseen and promptly dealt with.

    One of the results of the disaster at Aberfan was to give a new stimulus also to the effort to clear up the land left derelict by industrial processes of the past, a problem of which everyone has long been uncomfortably aware, especially in the mining valleys of South Wales. The objective of this effort is not only to reclaim land now useless so that it may be available for industry or housing or other beneficial use, but also to make these areas more attractive to incoming industry and for those who live in them. To pursue this objective more effectively, shortly after the disaster I set up in the Welsh Office in Cardiff a Derelict Land Unit to work closely with the local authorities in preparing schemes of rehabilitation and getting them carried out.

    With the co-operation of the Board of Trade, progress has already been made to an extent which is, I think, most encouraging. So far, the unit has had discussions with 60 local authorities and has visited 115 derelict sites, covering approximately 2,650 acres, in 42 of these local authority areas. The unit has been asked to help by preparing outline proposals for 48 sites, covering about 1,000 acres, and has prepared such proposals for 10 of these sites and is at present engaged on preparing them for others.

    The first stage of one large tip scheme has been completed and work on others is well under way—for example, work on the huge Lewis Merthyr tip in the Rhondda, being done in conjunction with a coal recovery operation. Achievement of the objective inevitably takes a very long time. One cannot heal in a day the scars of great wounds made over generations. It is a task of great magnitude. But during this past year much more work has been done or started than in the whole of the preceding five years—and the way has been prepared for a much accelerated rate of progress in the future.

    The National Coal Board has also changed its basic structure and now has three levels of authority instead of the former five. This change, which was in hand before Aberfan for other reasons, should go a long way to reducing the difficulties of communication to which the Tribunal drew attention. This reorganisation took effect from the beginning of April this year. The Board’s civil engineering organisation has also been strengthened and a post of area civil engineer has been created in each area. The many detailed measures which the Board has taken to improve its organisation and avoid blurring of responsibilities are summarised in a note which has been made available in the Vote Office by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power.

    Now to return to the Report. The oral evidence tendered to the Tribunal was recorded in a daily transcript which was made available to all the parties appearing before the Tribunal, and of course, to the Tribunal members. Copies of the written evidence received a similar circulation so far as the number of copies available permitted. The Tribunal, in its Report, quotes freely from both the oral and the written evidence and the Report promised the publication of the papers recording the results of the investigations carried out, in view of their scientific interest and importance.

    Arrangements for the publication of this material are well forward, but I must tell the House that the volume is unlikely to appear before next Easter. The reason for this is that it is necessary to redraw, so as to render them suitable for printing, the large number of maps, diagrams and drawings which accompany the text. To publish the text alone would be simpler, but useless, as much of it is a commentary on the illustrations drawings and diagrams. The work is going ahead with all speed and I am told that those who are familiar with the processes of printing scientific documents will be well satisfied if the date I have mentioned can in fact be met.

    Now I come to the Tribunal’s lessons and recommendations and the action which is being taken, or has already been taken, to implement them. Some, as the Tribunal pointed out, require legislation and this is being prepared with a view to its being introduced next Session.

    One of the Questions to be considered is what should be done about the remaining tips at Aberfan. I say “remaining tips” because, during the course of the very extensive work which has been done by the National Coal Board since the disaster, to ensure safety, the rest of the disaster tip has virtually disappeared, and the area of hillside over which it slipped has been cleaned up and covered with a new growth of grass.

    In the spring of this year, the National Coal Board commissioned a landscape consultant, who has lived 20 years in Wales, to prepare a scheme taking into account all the considerations. This scheme, illustrated by a large scale model, was explained to representatives of the Aberfan Parents and Residents’ Association, accompanied by their expert advisers, and to representatives and officials of the Merthyr Tydfil Corporation, at a meeting in the Welsh Office a week ago, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. The model is now on display in the village of Aberfan.

    This scheme incorporates all the further safety measures proposed by all the expert advisers who gave evidence before the Tribunal. Apart from these further safety measures, the proposals involve reducing the height of the tips, smoothing the contours, and sowing and planting the whole area below the area of burning tip material with grass, gorse, broom and a variety of trees, including some fairly large transplanted trees.

    I understand that the preliminary civil engineering works—that is to say, the further drainage measures, the removal and redisposition of substantial quantities of tip material, and the terracing—can be completed in about a year. If a beginning is made soon, perhaps all and certainly the greatest part of the sowing and planting can then be done in the planting season of the winter of 1968–69; and, by the spring of 1969, not only would the whole of the tips complex be greatly altered in outline, but also the whole of the area below the burning tips would be green.

    Most of the Tribunal’s recommendations are of general application. First of all, the Tribunal stated that tips should all be regarded as potentially dangerous, although the Tribunal recognises that the dangers mainly arise with active working tips; secondly, tips should all be treated as engineering structures and, therefore, the procedures of preliminary site investigation and subsequent control customary in other branches of civil engineering should be applied. These two propositions are accepted by the National Coal Board and are already being acted on. I commend them to all who are in any way concerned with spoil heaps, whether connected with the coal industry or not.

    I have already mentioned the new structure of the National Coal Board, which will improve, among other things, the state of internal communications. The observations of the Tribunal upon this aspect are not, I am sure, unheeded by many—and I am not now referring only to the coal industry—who have had occasion to consider how their own conduct would have stood up to a similar searching inquiry. I am sure that all hon. Members would agree that there is a lesson here for us all, for everybody engaged in any enterprise where more than a handful of people are involved.

    My right hon. Friend the Minister of Power proposes to appoint a National Tip Safety Committee to advise him, and perhaps other Ministers, also, on problems affecting the stability of tips. Discussions are now going on as to the terms of reference such a Committee might have and I hope to see it constituted in the very near future. The Committee, when set up, will be asked as one of its first tasks to consider a standard code of practice.

    The Tribunal’s recommendations which require legislation fall mainly within the field of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power, who will be replying to this debate on behalf of the Government, though there is one matter affecting local authorities which is in the field of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and myself.

    My right hon. Friend the Minister of Power is preparing legislation to amend the Mines and Quarries Act, 1954, so as to give effect to those of the Tribunal’s recommendations which require new legislation. He will give the House details of his proposals and the House may take it that they will be comprehensive. Broadly speaking, the Ministry of Power and the Mines Inspectorate will be given the additional powers and duties recommended by the Tribunal and tips forming part of active mines and quarries will be regularly inspected by persons competent to judge their stability.

    I should like myself to say something about the powers and responsibilities of local authorities, although details will need to be worked out in consultation with local authority associations. If any local authority has any reason to fear that a working tip presents a hazard, it should at once inform the Ministry of Power or the local Inspector of Mines. The Ministry will immediately make an investigation and, if need be, require the owner to carry out tests or remedial work. If the local authority is still not satisfied, the matter can be referred to an independent arbiter, who will be empowered to order further work to be done.

    In the case of a disused tip which gives cause for anxiety, a local authority should also get in touch with the Ministry and obtain the advice of the Mines Inspectorate. In the light of this advice, the local authority could decide whether there was a prima facie case of instability. The authority would be empowered to require the owner to carry out specified tests and to furnish a report and also to carry out specified remedial work. The local authority would also have default powers to carry out tests or do the works themselves or appoint contractors to do so. If the owner objected to any test or remedial work, he could appeal to the Minister of Power.

    These proposed arrangements should go far to ensure that local authorities are fully empowered to protect the inhabitants of their area—a protection which, as the Tribunal pointed out, it is every citizen’s right to expect.

    Besides safety, there is the question of the general appearance of working tips. The local planning authorities are able to control this by imposing conditions when they grant planning permission. This applies both to tipping operations and also to the recovery of material from disused tips.

    I now turn to a subject on which the Tribunal very properly made no recommendation, though no small part of its Report was concerned with it, namely, the responsibility of individuals for the disaster and the strictures passed on other individuals whose conduct was censured by the Tribunal. This aspect of the Report has received long and anxious consideration by the Government, by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power and by the National Coal Board. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General came to the conclusion that the facts disclosed by the Report did not justify the institution of criminal proceedings. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Power did not accept the offered resignation of the Chairman of the National Coal Board and made known his reasons for asking Lord Robens to continue in office. Those individuals named in the Report who are still in the service of the National Coal Board have been moved to other work.

    In paragraph 210 of the Report the Tribunal referred to “the vastly disagreeable task of censure” which the sense of public duty of its members obliged it to carry out. In a moving passage in paragraph 207, the Tribunal expressed its belief that Whether or not named or adversely referred to in this Report, there must be many today with hearts made heavy and haunted by the thought that if only they had done this, that or the other the disaster might have been averted. Of these, some will blame themselves needlessly; others, while blameworthy in some degree, will condemn themselves with excessive harshness; yet others must carry the heavy burden of knowing that their neglect played an unmistakeable part in bringing about the tragedy. There, in my view, the matter ought now to be allowed to rest.

    Finally, I should like to speak of the village of Aberfan as it is today. A sad anniversary has just passed and renewed the poignancy of grief for those who lost loved ones. But life must go on, and Aberfan is bravely facing the task of physical reconstruction and its families the no less difficult task of restoring mental tranquillity. Thanks to the wonderfully generous response of the public to the appeal for the Aberfan Fund, the resources are not lacking. But if the inhabitants are to find peace, they need a period away from the glare of publicity to which they have been exposed for so long. I appeal to everyone to give them the quiet they need to bear their burden of grief and to rebuild their shattered lives.