Newcastle North MP, Catherine McKinnell, has added her backing to the ‘Justice for Coalfields’ campaign launched by Labour today (29^th January), urging Conservative Ministers to begin to put right the wrongs with coalfield communities ahead of the 30^th anniversary of Orgreave on 18^th June 2014.

Earlier this month newly-released Cabinet papers revealed that the Thatcher Government had a secret plan to close 75 pits at the cost of some 65,000 jobs; that the Government did seek to influence police tactics to escalate the dispute; and that they actively considered declaring a state of emergency and deploying the Army to defeat the miners and unions.

Adding her support to the calls by the ‘Justice for Coalfields’ campaign, Catherine has written today to Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude. She has urged the Minister to:

• Make a formal apology for the actions of the Government during the time of the strike;
• Set out all details of the interactions between the Government and the police at the time; and
• Release all information about Government-police communications around Orgreave, with a proper investigation which might go a little way to rebuild public confidence

Catherine said:

‘The Cabinet papers released this month serve as a vivid reminder of what increasingly appears to have been deliberate strategy to undermine a significant number of hard-working and proud local communities across the country.  What we need is full transparency on this issue, and an apology ahead of the 30^th anniversary of Orgreave in June.’

Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Michael Dugher MP, who launched the campaign today said:

‘For those of us who lived through the strike and who saw the events and impact they had firsthand, what was revealed in the cabinet papers may not come as a surprise.  But it is no less shocking to consider that, far from being neutral as was claimed at the time, it is clear that the Government took a deliberately calculated political approach guided by a complete hostility to the coalfield communities.

‘That is why I am calling for justice for the coalfields. 

‘Ministers may want to sweep these events under the carpet, but the scars of the dispute and the subsequent closure programme remain on the memories, communities and landscapes of all coalfield communities. They must now apologise and deliver transparency to begin to foster reconciliation with the coalfield communities.’