Wales - Economy
11th November 2009
Dr. Hywel Francis (Aberavon) (Lab): Employment prospects in my constituency and throughout south Wales would be greatly enhanced if the Corus Margam new mine were to proceed. Will the Secretary of State undertake to ensure that the Wales Office, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Department of Energy and Climate Change work together to ensure that all the practical assistance that can be made available to Corus is made available, so that the 35 million tonnes of excellent coking coal in the Margam area is made available?
Mr. Hain: I will certainly do as my hon. Friend asks, and I commend him for his action in support of the workers there. The project is very exciting: the idea is to create a Margam deep mine that will produce the coking coal that Corus needs, creating 500 highly skilled and well-paid jobs in the process. We have set up a taskforce, together with the Welsh Assembly Government and other relevant Whitehall Departments, to try to take forward this exciting project for sustainable coal production and for the sustainability of Corus’s Port Talbot steelworks, which make such a massive contribution to the Welsh economy and the British economy as a whole.
