This month, the University of Staffordshire published a report entitled “Still digging deeper: the impact of austerity on inequalities and deprivation in the coalfield areas”, by Professor David Etherington, Professor Mia Gray and Professor Lisa Buckner, respectively of Stafford, Cambridge and Leeds universities. Be warned, whilst remaining ‘serious’ and thoroughly peer reviewed, this report is unusually feisty for an academic paper.
It has been written with a passion arising from the conviction that severe economic injustice has been perpetrated in our former coalfield areas. A strong sense of social purpose is evident and the page almost crackles as the authors’ evidence moves from one example of ill treatment of coalfield communities to the next.
Much of the detail of the report is contained in case studies of five ex-coalfields in England, Scotland and Wales. However, there is a high degree of commonality of experience – or rather, of suffering. The broad outline of this is captured in the executive summary that “…shows how the economic ‘vandalism’ of neoliberal Austerity policies, by deregulating labour markets, downgrading employment rights and the erosion of the welfare state, have undermined the economic recovery of the Coalfield areas”.
The legacy of Thatcher
Thatcher deliberately set out to close a number of coalfields, and at the same time confront and ‘see off’ the National Union of Mineworkers, as led by Arthur Scargill. She dubbed the latter “the enemy within”. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that between 1984 and 1994, 200,000 miners lost their jobs, constituting a 90% cut in the workforce. Etherington, Gray and Buckner label this action “economic vandalism” and “institutional violence”.
The government connived at a change in policing methods and turned a blind eye to the highly aggressive police tactics that went “beyond a traditional method of policing”. The battle at the Orgreave coking plant is a particular case in point. Note that in 1984/5 there were 11,000 arrests of miners.
In passing, we may note that these were the years when the UK was enjoying the bonanza of North Sea Oil. Whereas Norway put its oilfield receipts into a sovereign wealth fund that has benefited Norwegians ever since, the Thatcher government used the funds (to which were added the revenues from the government’s privatisation programme) to create cut taxes skewed towards higher earners.
In The Tyranny of Nostalgia, Russell Jones explained that the UK’s Gini coefficient (the standard measure of income inequality) rose from.24 to.34 during this period: a significant increase in inequality.
A lack of new, worthwhile employment
Unsurprisingly, too little was done by the government to attract new employment into coalfields where thousands were now on the dole. The government’s commitment to neoliberal economics meant that too much was left to the private sector.
Prior to Thatcher, the mining industry had not only provided well paid jobs but also a welfare structure (e.g. think colliery bands and the film Brassed Off). This was now ripped out of the community, and any replacement jobs tended to be poorly paid and, for example, in warehousing and care. The authors describe this as an exercise in “cutting edge innovations in exploitation and financialisation”.
The Shirebrook Colliery in North Derbyshire provides a case in point. Here Sports Direct (now Fraser Group) established its company HQ and distribution centre. The firm soon became infamous for the insecurity of its employment, low pay and poor working conditions. The company featured in a parliamentary investigation that reported back that Sports Direct treated employees “without respect or dignity”. There was heavy surveillance of workers and instant dismissal for innocuous offences.
It has been calculated that, by the millennium, former miners’ incomes were 20% to 30% lower than would have been the case if the mines had been kept working.
Local government decline
In this situation, local government might have been expected to step in and provide the safety net that had been lost with mine closure. But local government, too, was under attack with funding cuts. Its services became patchy and overstretched. Teenagers in the former mining districts no longer had the prospect of a secure job and, in the interim, faced hollowed-out Youth Services.
With no jobs in mining, some men took on jobs that previously had been undertaken by women. In consequence women found it more difficult than before to find work. The report features a whole section on how women have been adversely affected by these changes.
Governments post-Thatcher
The 40 years 1984 to 2024 have seen two periods of Conservative governments (1979-1997 and 2010-2024) and one of Labour (1997-2010). Whilst the Conservatives in office have been responsible for the worst damage in the mining areas, New Labour is seen by our three authors not to have done a great deal better.
Simon Jenkins’ book Thatcher and Sons argues persuasively that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown followed to a fair extent in Thatcher’s footsteps. A case in point: rather than invest government capital in the UK infrastructure, Brown made use of the private finance initiative (PFI), which made use of more expensive private capital rather than using cheaper public capital – all to keep costs off the nation’s books. There has been a surprising continuity of policy, and the authors are clearly nervous that the present Labour government under Starmer will fall into the same trap of pursuing yesterday’s failed policies.
During Labour years, the House of Commons public accounts committee ran an enquiry into government policy towards the former mining areas. Its reports were scathing: “Labour’s approach to regeneration smacked of ‘trickledown economics’ with little systematic link and integration of physical regeneration to social outcomes”.
Austerity policies
What of the coalition years (2010–15) and the subsequent Tory majority governments (2015–24)? By 2010, much of the damage in the former coalfields had already been done. Austerity policies (and the same neoliberal mindset) meant that Osborne, in particular, only added to the pain. Local government in the UK found itself hit by swingeing budget cuts and hence less well-placed to support struggling families in former mining areas.
Etherington, Gray and Buckner’s report cites local government having its funding cut by 18% (if we factor in price changes and population growth) as a key factor in the decline of such areas. Not all councils have been hit equally. Those councils serving the least well off (including our coalfields) have suffered a 26% cut compared with an 11% for those authorities serving the wealthiest areas.
The Tories also need to take the blame for the impact of Brexit. The UK leaving the EU has resulted in the loss of a European funding that was so essential to the coalfields. EU regional funding to the ex-coalfields would have been £1.104bn for 2021-25. True, the government has set up replacement funding, but this is coming in at a level about one third of the previous funding from Brussels.
Lessons From Germany
The report authors go on to cite the methods by which the German government went about ‘levelling up’ once the former (and poorer) East Germany was joined to West Germany. It is an example of an active government succeeding.
In Germany, and in Italy, the per capita income of the poorest sub-region compared to the wealthiest is in a ratio of 1:3.
In the UK, the wealthiest sub-region (Inner London West: think Kensington and Chelsea) has a per capita income eight times higher than England’s poorest sub-region (Tees Valley and Durham).
From this we can conclude that one of the most urgent needs in the UK is an effective regional policy – from which the former coalfields would benefit.
