Colliery Closures And Market Testing

EDM number 2179 in 1992-93, proposed by Michael Clapham on 17/06/1993.

That this House is gravely concerned to learn that Rufford Colliery in Nottinghamshire, one of the 12 pits proposed in the DTI White Paper for market testing, prepared on 16th June to go into closure mode when the men were imposed upon by the British Coal Corporation to accept a ballot on closure under the threat of losing enhanced redundancy terms if the closure decision is not made before the end of this year; and calls on the President of the Board of Trade to abandon market testing and enact measures to substantially increase the market for British deep mined coal and to ensure a sustainable publicly-owned British deep coal mining industry in the interests of the nation's future energy needs.

This motion has been signed by a total of 89 MPs.