16:00 Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)

That leaves Her Majesty’s Government. Following my first two debates I met the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), who was then the Minister for Business and Enterprise and the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change. I know him to be an honourable man, and in a meeting literally days before Parliament was dissolved he told me that, over the general election period, civil servants would be putting together a plan to cover all the orphaned coal sites across the UK. He acknowledged that there was a major problem and said that it would be addressed by whatever Government, of whatever form, was formed following the election.

Sadly, the right hon. Gentleman moved, but we had a new Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise, the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I met her, and she promised to take an active interest. Sadly, the issue was then moved to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and it has taken me five months to secure this debate. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change has also generously agreed to meet me, and hopefully other Members present, after this debate so that together we can work out a solution for all our communities, which is how we need to move forward—through a joint approach.

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16:19 The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)

With the closure of Thoresby and Hatfield earlier this year, and impending closure of Kellingley later this year, surface-mined coal is now our major remaining source of indigenous supply. Production of surface-mined coal has been relatively static over the past four to five years, when it overtook deep mine production as the majority source. The future of the industry is closely linked to that of the power sector. Coal generation has been a critical element of our electricity generation mix for a long time. As hon. Members know, there will be no long-term role for unabated coal as we move to a low-carbon energy environment, and the Prime Minister has publicly pledged to end its use for power generation. As we move to decarbonise the power sector substantially, the role of unabated coal will diminish. Coal supplied 29% of our electricity in 2014, which is down from 40% in 2012. We expect that trend to continue.

Any longer-term role for coal will be dependent on the successful deployment of cost-competitive carbon capture and storage. The Government have put in place one of the most comprehensive programmes on CCS in the world; we have committed £1 billion to our CCS competition, plus operational support under contracts for difference. There could still be demand for coal in the UK power generation sector in future, but, unfortunately, continued demand for coal for power generation has not necessarily translated into opportunities for domestic production, as the hon. Gentleman points out. The industry as a whole is in decline, with indigenous production at less than 12 million tonnes in 2014—around 95% lower than the levels some 60 years ago.

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