On 9 December 2024, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs, Huw Irranca-Davies MS, introduced the Disused Mine and Quarry Tips (Wales) Bill to the Senedd. The stated aim of the Bill is to:
…protect human welfare by introducing a consistent and robust system of assessment, registration, management, monitoring and oversight of disused tips in Wales.
The Bill was referred to the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee (the Committee) for Stage 1 scrutiny. The Committee reported in April 2024. The Bill was also considered by the Finance Committee and Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee.
Why is the Bill needed?
Wales is home to around 2573 disused coal tips. Of these, 360 are in the most serious categories (D and C).
Following a landslide at a disused coal tip in Tylorstown, Rhondda Cynon Taf, in February 2020, the Welsh Government established a Coal Tip Safety Taskforce to deliver a programme of works, including reviewing the safety of coal tips across Wales, and inspections and maintenance of tips with the potential to impact public safety.
On 24 November 2024, heavy rainfall during Storm Bert contributed to a coal tip slip in Cwmtillery, Blaenau Gwent. 40 houses were evacuated due to deep slurry and debris running down the hillside. These two recent landslides serve as a stark reminder of the risks posed by Wales’ mining heritage, and highlight the urgent need to better protect communities from such risks.
The current legislative framework for the safety and stability of mining waste in the UK is the Mines and Quarries Tips Act 1969. Part 2 of the Act enables local authorities to ensure that the instability of disused tips do not constitute a danger to the public. In its March 2022 report on regulating coal tip safety in Wales, the Law Commission stated the 1969 Act “no longer provides an effective management framework for disused coal tips in the 21st century”.
What the Bill does (and doesn’t) do
Detail about the Bill can be found on our Senedd Research resource page, where you can find an interactive Bill infographic, Bill summary and bilingual glossary. Some key features of the Bill considered by the Committee are outlined below.
The Bill establishes the Disused Tips Authority for Wales, with the main objective to “ensure that disused tips do not threaten human welfare by reason of their instability”. In pursuing this objective it must promote high standards in relation to the management of disused tips and threats to their stability. The Authority will be operational from 1 April 2027. It will be responsible for compiling and maintaining a register of disused tips, and the Bill sets out the criteria for registration and the content of the register. It will also have a duty to monitor tips, but the Bill doesn’t contain any detail about the frequency or nature of this monitoring.
The register will be underpinned by a system of preliminary and full assessments. The detail of these assessments is not included in the Bill, and instead will be covered by guidance to be issued by the Welsh Government. All disused tips that are entered onto the register will be given a category (1 to 4) by the Authority, based on the degree of concern they present.
The Bill is focused on preventing disused tips from threatening human welfare by reason of their instability. It doesn’t include provisions to address environmental harm from disused tips, with the Cabinet Secretary asserting that existing environmental legislation and systems are in place to prevent and tackle such harm.
A recurring theme in evidence to the Committee was the lack of detail in the Bill on key elements of the new regime, in particular assessments, monitoring and inspections. The Committee concluded this stems, at least in part, from the Welsh Government’s decision to leave much of the detail to guidance. Whilst the Welsh Government did share summary guidance in a number of areas with the Committee in February 2025, this was too late for it to be considered as part of the Stage 1 scrutiny process.
The Committee said the approach of leaving detail to guidance presents a risk of a future Welsh Government adopting a different approach to guidance to the one envisioned by the current government. It also stated the lack of detail in the Bill itself means the Welsh Government’s policy intentions are not clearly shown in the provisions of the Bill, inhibiting the scrutiny process. It argued that leaving the policy detail to guidance means significant changes can be made in future, without consultation or Senedd scrutiny, which could in turn impact on the effectiveness of the new regime. The Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee raised similar concerns in its report on the Bill.
Under the current proposals, the register of disused tips will not be comprehensive. It will only contain those tips which in the Authority’s view are a threat, or a potential threat, to human welfare by reason of instability. The Committee called for the register to also include those disused tips that have been assessed but not categorised.
Despite the Law Commission’s report recommending the new regime should include statutory management plans, and the Cabinet Secretary stating that such plans are “absolutely crucial to the new system”, the Bill makes no mention of management plans. The intention is for these to be covered in guidance.
However, the Cabinet Secretary did state “we do recognise that there may be a case for having some clarity on the Bill about what should be in those management plans”. The Committee emphasised the absence of management plans as a key weakness of the Bill, leaving a “significant and undesirable gap in the legislative framework for the management of disused tips”.
In evidence to the Committee, some stakeholders expressed concern that the Bill could inadvertently stimulate re-mining of disused coal tips – particularly if land owners, including local authorities, were faced with open-ended financial liabilities to make their tips safe. There was concern that private remediation companies may bring forward proposals to remediate tips, at no cost to the owner, in return for selling the extracted “waste coal”. The Cabinet Secretary said he did not agree with the concerns raised, saying he didn’t believe they were “well founded” and asserting the Welsh Government’s policy on the extraction of coal was “very, very clear”. The Committee called for further assurance from the Welsh Government that existing planning legislation and policies are sufficiently robust to ensure that proposals to remediate a disused tip involving coal extraction would not be permissible unless they were for the purpose of ensuring public safety. Furthermore it sought assurance that any coal extracted during remediation would not be sold for burning.
The Senedd will debate the general principles of the Bill on Tuesday 29 April.
Article by Chloe Corbyn, Senedd Research, Welsh Parliament
