Coal Industry Act 1990

The Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, make grants to the British Coal Corporation out of money provided by Parliament of amounts not exceeding in aggregate any accumulated group deficit at the end of the financial year of the Corporation ending in March 1990.

For the purposes of this section, the Secretary of State shall give a direction under section 8(1) of the Coal Industry Act 1971 requiring the Corporation to prepare consolidated accounts for that financial year in such form as to identify any accumulated group deficit at the end of that year, disregarding any grant which may at any time be paid under this section; and in this section “accumulated group deficit” means the amount so identified.

Grants under subsection (1)—

Section 3 of the Coal Industry Act 1987 (which enables grants to be made to the British Coal Corporation towards expenditure on workforce redeployment and reduction etc. in respect of costs falling to be charged to certain accounts in respect of relevant financial years) shall have effect subject to the following amendments.

In subsection (4)(a) (which defines “relevant financial year" as any financial year ending not later than March 1992) for “1992" there shall be substituted “ 1993" ”.

In subsection (6) (which imposes a limit of £300 million on the aggregate amount of the grants, subject to increase by order up to £750 million) for “£300" and “£750" there shall be substituted respectively “ £1,250" ” and “ £1,500" ”.

In subsection (2) of section 36 of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 (licensing by the British Coal Corporation of the working and getting by other persons of certain descriptions of coal)—

After subsection (2) of that section there shall be inserted—.

In subsection (3) of that section (which contains further provisions about the grant of licences under subsection (2) and the conditions which may be specified in them)—

In section 1(2)(a) of that Act (functions of the Corporation to include searching and boring for coal in Great Britain to the exclusion of any other person) after the word “exclusion” there shall be inserted “(save as in this Act provided)”.

In paragraph 3(1) of the Table in section 1 of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act 1966 (which enables the court to confer on the British Coal Corporation a right to search and bore for coal) after the word “Corporation” there shall be inserted “(exercisable either by the Corporation or by any person to whom they grant a licence under section 36(2A) of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 to search and bore for the coal) or on any person who holds such a licence”.

This Act may be cited as the Coal Industry Act 1990, and the Coal Industry Acts 1946 to 1985, the Coal Industry Act 1987 and this Act may be cited together as the Coal Industry Acts 1946 to 1990.

Section 4 shall come into force at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.

This Act does not extend to Northern Ireland.