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Former miners’ leader Arthur Scargill says prosperity could return to the South Wales Valleys if Britain decided to exploit the 1,000-year coal reserves that lay underground.

Mr Scargill, who leads the Socialist Labour Party, also told us his claim at the time of the 1984-85 miners’ strike that the Conservative Government of the day had a politically motivated desire to shut down the coal industry had been vindicated by official documents released under the 30-year rule.

'Reopen the mines that were closed'

He said: “I think the only way you can bring economic prosperity and a decent standard of living not only to the Valleys in South Wales, but also to areas like Yorkshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire is to reopen mines that were closed with 1,000 years of coal reserves beneath our feet, ensure that the steel industry is regenerated and that the plants that have been closed are reopened and that Tata and other companies are taken into public ownership. If you do that, you begin to regenerate your system.”

Arthur Scargill on the South Wales Valleys:

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Giving his take on the general election, Mr Scargill said: “All the mainstream parties have got the same type of policies with different timescales. For example, take the position of Nicola Sturgeon: a lot of what she says seems to make sense, but the weakness and the problem she’s got is that whether they have got independence in Scotland or whether they stay in the UK, they would be members of the EU – as would all the other mainstream parties.

"And that means that they are not in a position to put into operation policies to support industries and services in the way that they say. They can’t give subsidies – except in the event that they’re going to close them.

"This is under a European directive, and it’s still applying to two pits in Yorkshire and one in Nottinghamshire, where they’ve said they can’t give them any money to keep them open, they can only advance money to close them this year. Now that’s the politics of the madhouse, quite frankly.”

'We turned the coal into liquid'

When it was suggested to the former miners’ leader that coal is now regarded as an unacceptable way to produce energy because of the carbon emissions generated, Mr Scargill said: “It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the United Nations, who are supposed to be greener than green, have just allowed permission for Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan, India and South Korea all to develop coal-fired power stations, and to use coal?

"Two other examples are Australia and Germany, where sensibly they have closed down nuclear power stations and they’re now returning to coal – 30% of their electricity is now produced by coal.”

Mr Scargill said carbon capture techniques to reduce emissions were developed at the Point of Ayr colliery in North Wales in the 1970s.

'A real breakthrough'

He said: “I know it was a success because I was part of the team that was overseeing the project. It takes out all the pollutants literally at source. We also had, in addition to that, a liquefaction plant at the Point of Ayr. We turned the coal into liquid, and from that liquid we were extracting oil gas, diesel, petroleum and all the petrochemicals that we use.

“That was a real breakthrough. And what did we do as a nation? In 1985 we closed it down. The stupidity and the hypocrisy of what was going on can be seen by examining the government papers. For years they have lied to the British people.

"They lied certainly to the Welsh people that they had no secret plan to close pits, and it wasn’t until January 2014 and January 2015 that the story emerged that they had a plan all the time as I explained they had to close pits and to put miners out of work. The object of the exercise was to destroy the National Union of Mineworkers. The way they set about it was, if we destroy the industry, we destroy the NUM.”

Mr Scargill said he always knew he was right about the pit closure programme because a crucial document was leaked to him at the time. He has promised not to release the name of the person who leaked it while they remain alive.