Coal talks collapse

Press, 2 November 1984, Page 6

Coal talks collapse

NZPA-Reuter London Talks on ending Britain’s marathon coal strike broke down yesterday, making it virtually certain that the eight-month stoppage will drag on into the northern winter.

The deputy chairman of the State-run National Coal Board, James Cowan, said “Talks have broken down. No further talks have been arranged.” Government Ministers had said that the peace talks were a last-ditch effort to make 130,000 striking miners drop their attitude that no pit should be closed unless its coal was exhausted.

The Coal Board’s chairman, lan MacGregor, said the industry was still running 45 out of 174 pits with 60,000 out of 180,000 miners working.

“We can operate at this level indefinitely,” he said.

The president of the

National Union of Mineworks’ Arthur Scargill, said, “The N.U.M. is absolutely determined to win this fight.”

Mr Scargill released a board “hit list” of a further 11 pits to be closed in the north-east in the next 15 years. He also asserted he had details of a similar plan for pit closings in Scotland. During angry exchanges during question time in the House of Commons yesterday the Junior Scottish Minister, Mr Allan Stewart, said he could not comment “on matters which are the responsibility of the N.C.B. management in Scotland”. In the Lords, the Scottish Minister of State, Lord Gray of Contin, refused to comment on the internal Coal Board document which Mr Scargill had unveiled. In the Commons, Labour members of Parliament called for assurances that there was no similar “hit

list” for Scottish pits. The shadow Scottish Secretary, Mr Donald Dewar, warned that “distrust” caused by the N.C.B.’s handling of the coal dispute was a “barrier to the settlement.”

Libyan unions have denounced British politicians for criticising a visit to Tripoli by the N.U.M. chief executive, Roger Windsor, to seek hardship funds for striking miners. A Libyan statement said that Libya’s Trade Union Vocational Conferences denounced “the way in which British politicians, including the leader of the British Labour Party, have attacked Libya.”' ..

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Nigel Lawson, told Parliament that the stoppage, in which striking miners have clashed repeatedly with police, would cost the country £1.5 billion ($3.7 billion) by the end of the year.