EMMA LEWELL-BUCK MP: The Miners' Strike – 40 years on

Forty years on we remember the coming together of different working-class groups, communities, organisers and activists to support each other and resist the destruction of their livelihoods and their communities.

We remember the solidarity of the trade union movement and the rejection of trickle-down economics that have proven such a driver of inequalities in our region; we are reminded every day of the deep and enduring scars the Thatcher Government left on our community.

The weaponization of the state against ordinary men and women fighting for their livelihoods during the strikes draws worrying parallels with today’s anti-strike legislation and why we need a public inquiry into Orgreave.

The challenges facing former coalfields communities are not consigned to the history books but have deepened alongside regional inequalities.

In South Shields, the Government’s levelling up rhetoric rings hollow. Child poverty is the North East is the highest in the country, at 38%, rising to 42% in South Shields.

The economic gap between coalfield areas and the rest of the UK has doubled between 2004 and 2020.

In former coalfields, there are just 55 employee jobs for every 100 residents of working age, compared to 84 for every 100 in the main regional cities.

Average earnings for men are eight per cent below the national average, and 10 per cent below for women. This is the legacy of deindustrialisation.

The privatisation of once nationalised industries that followed our pit closures has done nothing but deepened inequality, delivering profits to shareholders and decimating the services that we rely on.

A future Labour Government will be rooted in our community, with the publicly-owned GB Energy company at our heart and improved workers rights as the cornerstone of our mission.

We know all too well in South Shields that if you close a pit, you kill a community. Our proud mining heritage will always remain.

The past we inherit – the future we build.