Summer Adjournment — House of Commons, 2015-07-16
Topic: Education
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): Today we have an opportunity hopefully to bring some closure to issues that have been with us over the Parliament. It was announced during business questions that the Backbench Business Committee is about to restart. I hope that Members will take the opportunity when leaving the Chamber today to go down to Dining Room A, where, because of my interest in Parkinson’s, motor neurone and kidney disease, I have brought in a lobby group to talk about bladder and bowel problems, particularly continence issues. I would welcome Members coming along to find out how prevalent this is in all our constituencies. Hopefully they will support my application for a Back-Bench business debate on an important issue that affects all our constituents Today, having waited since July 2014, I received a response from the Home Office about an application from my excellent Bridgend college. In July 2014 it applied for a tier 4 general sponsor licence to allow it to take overseas students. It was promised that the application would be dealt with by October 2014. I have since been writing letters and asking parliamentary questions, but answers have come there none, until today. Today’s letter told me that I would have an update in two weeks. I do not want an update in two weeks; I want a decision Can we at least move things forward? We have heard a lot about the vital role that universities have played in bringing people to this place. I have an awful lot of young people in my constituency for whom further education colleges are the gateway to a change in their life and opportunities, and many people decide later in life that they want to extend their capabilities and skills. Granting the licence to Bridgend college would allow it to move into a different league of operation. I hope that the Home Office will give me a decision in two weeks, not an update In January 2015 I secured a Back-Bench business debate on open-cast mining—I know that you have a great in interest in this, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you oversaw the Backbench Business Committee’s decision to allow the debate. We talked about the great crisis we have across the United Kingdom with orphaned open-cast mines, where private companies have ripped up the landscape, made huge profits and then disappeared, leaving sites desperate for finance—often many millions of pounds are needed to restore them. The companies make themselves bankrupt and then disappear In that debate I asked for a meeting with the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), then a Minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. He said that he would meet me. I repeated the request in a Welsh affairs debate in March, during which I talked about the problems at the open-cast mine at Parc Slip in Cynfigg hill. I finally met the Minister on 18 March and was promised that during the recess work would be undertaken by the Department to look at how we can fund the restoration of such sites. I was also told that companies making themselves bankrupt did not mean that they did not have to face up to their financial responsibilities When I returned to the House after the general election, I started emailing the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who had taken over as Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise. I had meetings with her and was assured that something would move forward quickly. Then I received a note out of the blue informing me that responsibility for the matter had moved to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. I again started to ask for meetings. Today I received a promise that I will have a meeting on 3 September For the people of Cynfigg hill, and for the people of Cefn Cribwr in the Ogmore constituency and the people of the Aberavon constituency, this issue cannot keep being dragged out. We have a mile and a half-long scar on the countryside of south Wales, with a huge open-cast mine, and the company that owns it, Celtic Energy, has walked away from its responsibilities. It is a large void with severely steep sides that fills up with water. At the moment the water level is low, but that makes it even more dangerous because children still see it as somewhere fun to go and swim. Motorcyclists still see it as somewhere fun to drive their bikes. People have even said, "Ooh, wouldn’t it be great to have a boating lake there?" I am fearful that someone will decide to take an inflatable boat into that void. It is highly dangerous—deep and steep-sided. There is a fear of one of the walls collapsing and the water cascading into my community of Cynffig Hill. The water quality is highly suspect, and we need to tackle this Mining was started at Parc Slip in 1985 under British Coal, and privatised under the Coal Industry Act 1994. Celtic Energy bought 13 sites in Wales, including Parc Slip. When mining finished in 2008, the Serious Fraud Office attempted to prosecute Celtic Energy, the company that had responsibility for Parc Slip. Further planning permission to continue mining had been denied, and it was time for Celtic Energy to fulfil its obligation to restore the site. At the Serious Fraud Office hearing, Mr Justice Hickinbottom described how at this time some of Celtic Energy’s directors and executives came up with a plan called "the big picture" arranging for the creation of a series of companies and parent companies in the British Virgin Islands. The ultimate owners and financial beneficiaries of these companies were the men themselves. It was arranged to sell to one of them, Oak Regeneration, the land and the attached responsibilities for restoration. After the sale, many of the provisions for restoration that Celtic Energy had held in accounts—about £135 million —were released by the auditors. Six members involved in planning the transaction were awarded large bonuses. The sale to Oak Regeneration must have seemed strange to the auditors and non-executive members of Celtic Energy’s board. A fee of £10,000 was paid for legal advice from Stephen Davies, QC, who advised that it would not be a successful way of transferring the restoration responsibilities to another company. After another fee of £250,000 for further advice from Mr Davies, it was said that the sale would in fact be a successful way of transferring restoration responsibilities. The fund was reduced to £67 million, and Celtic Energy now claims that the money does not even exist. It says that the figures are "provisional" for liabilities on the balance sheet and do not represent any assets in any form, cash or otherwise. During the course of the Serious Fraud Office investigation, it was not clear whether the transactions were effective We need Government advice as to whether Celtic Energy remains responsible. One of the problems is that it claims that when it bought the land for £100 million, that gave it no responsibility for restoration. We were told that the question had been answered. The Minister told me at the meeting in March that responsibility for restoration still rested with Celtic Energy and was not removed by the bond-free period The people of Cynffig Hill deserve to know what is going on. The Serious Fraud Office case failed purely on a point of law; it had nothing to do with the case. Mr Justice Hickinbottom said that "conduct that some may regard as morally reprehensible is not open to be set aside, let alone be the possible subject of criminal sanctions, because Parliament has determined that those sanctions should not apply in those circumstances" It was a nit-picking point of law that prevented the people of my constituency and the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) from having justice. We need a decision Unfortunately, when my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon tabled a question asking what decision would be made, the answer was that the matter would not be within the purview of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. I am looking forward to the meeting in September. However, I need to be sure about this. I need to be able to go to my constituents and say that responsibilities rest with this Government in helping to make sure that the site is restored and justice is finally done, and that a company cannot use dubious legal and accounting practices to hide money and to take it away from restoration, while avoiding meeting its responsibilities for that restoration. This is a blot on the landscape that is dangerous to children and to people who, sadly, see it as a recreational opportunity but not as the dangerous site that it is.