Environment secretary George Eustice ‘backs’ new coal mine in Cumbria

The environment secretary’s remarks come after Boris Johnson appeared to hint last month that he supported the project

Demonstrators outside the proposed Woodhouse Colliery, south of Whitehaven. (Owen Humphreys/PA) (PA Archive)

The environment secretary has given his backing to a new coal mine in Cumbria the day before the government is due to decide whether to greenlight the controversial project.

George Eustice toldThe Timesnewspaper that the alternative was “outsourcing pollution” to countries where standards would be lower.

“If we do need this coal in order to have a viable steel industry, then we might as well use our own coal and use our own gas rather than be reliant on other countries,” he told the newspaper.

His remarks come after Boris Johnson appeared to hint last month that he supported the project.

“It makes no sense to be importing coal… when we have our own domestic resources,” he told parliament.

If the coal mine, near Whitehaven, gets the go ahead from the government it will be the first new deep coal mine since the 1980s and will extract coking coal from beneath the Irish Sea, 85 per cent of which will be exported.

The coking coal will be used by the steel industry, but critics have said it is unnecessary now that hydrogen and electricity-based technologies can be used to make steel.

The chairman of the independent Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben, last week said that building a new coal mine in Cumbria would be “totally wrong.”

“There is no need for it, it doesn’t help,” he said, after the committee published a blistering assessment of the government’s net zero strategy in which it found “scant evidence” that climate targets could be delivered.

“What’s more economically it will not help the investor, because we’re not going to be able to use the coal in the steel industry after the mid 2030s,” Lord Deben added about the mine.

Michael Gove, the levelling-up, communities and housing secretary, is due to make a decision on the project by Thursday but it is a self-imposed deadline so it could theoretically slip.

Friends of the Earth energy campaigner, Tony Bosworth, has previously said: “The evidence against this mine is overwhelming.”

“It would increase carbon emissions and its market is already starting to decline as the steel industry accelerates its move to making steel without coal-powered blast furnaces,” he said. “Nor will it replace Russian imports – industry body UK Steel says steel plants in this country no longer use Russian metallurgical coal.”

Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, Rebecca Newsom, said: “The mine would be an absolute disaster for the climate and one of the most important people in government who should be absolutely clear on this is the man tasked with protecting the environment.”

“The arguments the Environment Secretary is attempting to make in favour of this mine are completely flawed,” she said. “He claims without it we’d be ‘outsourcing pollution’ to other nations, well with it we’re simply selling pollution, since 85 per cent of the coal that’ll be mined will be sold off in Europe. Even if it was destined for domestic use, it would still require imports since UK steelmakers use a blend of coal rather than just one source.”

In The Times interview, Mr Eustice also addressed the issue of fracking about which he said there was a “weaker” argument than mining for coal because the quality of the gas that it yields was “much lower” than natural gas.

Earlier this year, the government announced a review on fracking.

The government asked the British Geological Survey to review the evidence and report back by June “on the geological science of shale gas fracking and the modelling of seismic activity in shale rocks in the UK”.

The Independent has contacted the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for comment.

The Department for Levelling Up said a decision on the mine will be issued “shortly.”