Blyth and Ashington MP calls for inquiry into policing of miners' strike

Blyth and Ashington MP Ian Lavery, who was a 21-year-old apprentice at Ellington Colliery when he joined the picket line in 1984, urged Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday to back an inquiry.

Mr Lavery has previously described the strike as a ‘war’ and slammed the ‘devastation’ to North East pit communities after the mines were closed.

The Prime Minister said he had met with campaigners, adding that miners and their families were “entitled to the truth” and that he would look carefully at the issue.

Speaking in Westminster, Mr Lavery said: “Is it not time to seek the truth with regards to the policing during the miners’ strike? Would the Prime Minister commit to an early and full inquiry into the policing during the strike?”

Mr Lavery added that the Conservatives had failed to look into the issue ‘for generations’.

Mr Starmer responded: “As I think he knows, I have met some of the Orgreave campaigners and listened very carefully to what they have had to say. They are entitled to the truth and we are thinking very carefully about what the next steps should be in order to deliver that for them.”

The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) was set up in order to “get justice for striking miners picketing the Orgreave coking plant” who, campaigners allege, were subject to police violence on June 18, 1984 during the miners’ strike. More than 100 picketers and police officers were injured at the coking plant near Rotherham.

Mr Lavery also praised the Prime Minister for the Government’s work on miners’ pensions. In October, the Government said a historic injustice was reversed when 112,000 former coalminers finally had £1.5 billion from their pension scheme transferred to them, boosting their pension by 32%.

He said: “Within weeks of the Labour Government, this Government delivered for the mine workers and the mine workers pension scheme. It was so well received and it was justice done.”

Mr Starmer said: “That pledge on the mine workers pension scheme reversed the historic injustice and I was pleased that we were able to do that in the budget.”