Climate Change and SustainableEnergy Bill

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.