AS ALWAYS the Durham Miners’ Gala weekend is a very special occasion as it stands testament to the principles and solidarity of mining communities.

This year will be the last year where the gala will take place with a producing deep coal mine in Britain.

Unless common sense prevails at the 11th hour, the deep coalmining industry will be no more.

The gala is a living example of how things used to be in the mining communities and at the pits, where looking after your workmates, families and communities was the norm, which sadly is no longer the case as society has moved on to adopt a more capitalist slant where greed and selfishness are the dominant feature of everyday life.

Hatfield Colliery in South Yorkshire ceased production on June 30 with the loss of 344 jobs.

The men were given no notice and were told when they turned up for the night shift that the mine had closed.

Yesterday saw production cease at Thoresby Colliery, the last remaining pit in Nottingham, leaving Kellingley Colliery in Yorkshire as the final deep coalmine, scheduled to close in December this year.

This will mark the end of not only an industry but a way of life.

The British deep coalmining industry has for decades been in decline due to the unfair burden placed on fossil fuels under the guise of protecting the environment.

Large subsidies have been given to renewable energy which is neither reliable nor cost effective, and billions of pounds has been committed to support a new nuclear power station at Hinckley Point — the first of up to 15 that will be required to replace the coal-fired stations that will be forced to close.

Carbon capture and storage which will be required for use with gas-fired power stations in order for Britain to meet its 2050 carbon reduction target of 80 per cent should have been developed for use on the coal-fired stations.

This would have ensured a secure and affordable supply of energy for Britain while addressing the environmental impact of fossil fuels, safeguarding the British deep-mined coal industry and miners’ jobs and skills as well as jobs in the coal-powered plants.

It is deplorable that the last two Conservative-controlled governments have refused to acknowledge not only the positive contribution to this nation of the coal industry in the past but the role that coal could have played in the future in providing the nation with a secure and affordable source of energy as part of a balanced energy policy.

The Conservatives refused, and put obstacles in the way of, state aid which could have prolonged the productive life of the last three remaining deep coalmines. They chose to support the closure of the industry.

Recent announcements by the government to reduce subsidies to the onshore wind sector should not have come as a surprise, as much of the subsidies were paid out of the fossil fuels levy and carbon tax imposed on coal.

It stands to reason that as you reduce the use of coal you reduce the amount of revenue available to give away as subsidies.

It is a classic example of how biased successive governments have been against coal — the fact that the coalmining industry has been taxed to subsidise other forms of energy that it was competing for survival against.

Contrary to the accusation of being out of date, coalmining has embraced change regarding how coal has been produced but remained loyal to the traditions of the past. Change is not always for the better.

The National Union of Mineworkers will continue to support our members past and present and gain justice for what happened during the 1984-85 miners’ strike.

We will continue to seek an end to the scandalous system imposed by the then Tory government whose privatisation in 1994 has seen over £6 billion handed to the exchequer since 1995 from the mineworkers’ pension scheme and British coal staff superannuation scheme.

Under the 50/50 surplus sharing arrangement British government is supposed to provide a guarantee for members’ basic pension earned up to privatisation with RPI inflation-linked increases.

The reality is that the government guarantee is nothing more than a guaranteed loan arrangement.

Any deficit identified in a triennial valuation is corrected by a transfer from one fund to another, the amount then becomes repayable with interest from subsequent surpluses.

A government report published on May 3 1996 concluded that as a result of the pension arrangement imposed on the mining industry at the time of privatisation, “projected payments to the government over the next 25 years will be in the region of £2bn in total from the two schemes.”

Given that, to date, the amount taken from the combined schemes is three times what was expected in 1996, it is time to bring an end to this arrangement and ensure that all of the current schemes’ assets and future surpluses are used to improve benefits to the schemes’ members.

I believe the country as a whole will suffer as a result of the short-term narrow-minded continuation of Thatcher’s legacy to close the deep-mined coal industry.

• Chris Kitchen is general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.