Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): I associate myself with the comments made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) about my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), to whom the whole House extends its deepest sympathy.
There needs to be acceptance in this debate that the people of this country do not want the lights to go out. They want to carry on watching their TVs, chilling their lager, freezing their pizzas and grilling their steaks. We have to ensure that our discussions do not result in a "holier than thou" solution that only ageing hippies such as me, or tree-huggers, will sign up to. We have to be hard-headed, practical and bold, if we are to square the circle between keeping the lights on and saving the planet. We must continue to develop the use of renewables and extend incentives to encourage more development and innovation, and ensure that the people of this country can access new technologies easily.
We have had experience of massive technical change - for example, the changeover to North sea gas - that has been carried out successfully with relatively little inconvenience. We should take a similar view of enabling people to maximise the use of solar and wind power and microgeneration. However, we must accept that there is a need to utilise present energy sources better, and nuclear power may have to be included, but it is no use using nuclear power to prevent global warming while risking the lives of ourselves and generations to come because we are unable to dispose of the radioactive waste produced safely. The industry must ensure, and we must verify, that any resurgence of nuclear energy is based on verifiable and safe disposal. Public acceptance of nuclear energy might be more probable now than in the days of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but we need proof that we are not swapping one evil for another.
We must not ignore the role that coal can play in delivering energy for the people of Britain. Despite my eternal optimism, I accept that there is unlikely to be a return to the days of king coal in this country, but we must not reject coal out of hand. There are massive coal reserves in the country, and we should encourage research and development into innovative ways of claiming that very precious resource. Even if we do not have the nous, the bottle or the will to pursue a return to the deep-mining, indigenous coal industry in this country, we must still develop ways of burning coal in an efficient and environmentally sound way.
Mr. Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con): The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. In the Science and Technology Committee we have been doing a lot of work on carbon sequestration, which will play an important part in keeping a sustainable coal industry in this country in an environmentally friendly way, and I hope that the Government will consider that.
Mr. Anderson: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I agree entirely, and he has mentioned one of the things that I want to come to.
It is sad to reflect that in the Conservative party's drive to destroy the coal industry 20 years ago, as a way to destroy organised labour in this country, we also destroyed what was then the best and most modern clean-coal technology anywhere in the world. Thankfully, people are now starting to realise that that is something that we must grasp. We must develop the technology if we are to continue to have a decent energy supply. There is now a real acceptance that the reduction of CO 2 must be the key determinant in future coal-fired power stations.
Using well-placed investment, we can improve the performance of existing and new plants. Co-firing - blending coal with renewable biomass - is emerging as a credible way forward. As an extra, it will help the development of the UK energy crop market, enabling farmers to produce renewable energy crops that will help to reduce carbon emissions and provide employment in agriculture. Developments in boiler technology, using pre-heaters and fitting advanced supercritical boilers can increase thermal efficiency. If we introduce them properly, those measures could bring UK coal plants into line with the performance of today's gas plants. With the ongoing research, as has been said, we can promote carbon capture and storage, and coal can make a real contribution to our energy needs once again, but there is more to be done in terms of trade.
Mr. Mohammad Sarwar (Glasgow, Central) (Lab): My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have huge coal reserves in this country; unfortunately, they are high in sulphur, but equipment can be placed in coal-burning stations to capture carbon dioxide and sulphur. Does he agree that the Government should underwrite the cost of that equipment to promote such energy production?
Mr. Anderson: I certainly accept that the Government should play a major role, but I am not too sure whether they would underwrite it. I would like them to underwrite it totally and return to a nationalised coal industry, but even I am not hopeful about that happening in the next few years. The new technology could be used to tap into the reserves that people are refusing to use in open-cast sites. People in my area are adamantly against open-cast sites, which would destroy the environment, but if the mining could be done in a way that is not harmful to the environment, surely we could look into that.
I now come back to trade. Whether we use indigenous coal or coal from abroad, there is a clear message - we need to get it right; we need to get it clean - but we cannot allow cheap coal from China to dominate our markets while, at least officially, 9,000 miners are killed in incidents in their mines, most of which are avoidable. It is believed that at least as many again are killed in privately owned, unregulated mines. Let us just think about it. Every day - yesterday, today, tomorrow - more people are killed at work there than we lost in the 7 July tragedy last year. We cannot accept that cost. The world will not accept dirty coal, and the world should not accept coal that is covered in blood.
We in this country showed that deaths in coal mines are not inevitable. We moved from a position in the 1930s where a miner was killed every six hours in this country to a point, 50 years later, where that figure was down to one a month - one too many, but that is still a massive change. That change did not just happen by accident; it happened because the people of this country insisted on safety as a prerequisite in coal mining. We developed quality machinery and safer working practices, and we engaged with the men who actually put their lives on the line, day in, day out, on the real coal face of life. The world should accept that form of protectionism. I make no apology for saying that, because it is real protectionism: it protects the environment, it protects the economic interest of all trading nations, and it protects some of the most exploited workers on the planet.
I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) the very best with the Bill. I am sorry that he is not here today. I hope that we, as a country, take up the challenge that could deliver a cleaner world for our kids, and also a rebirth of the engineering and entrepreneurial skills for which this country is rightly famous.
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