Coal Industry Act 1965

3 Grants in connection with pit closures

(1) With the object of accelerating the redeployment of the manpower resources of the Board and the elimination of uneconomic colliery capacity, the Minister may, with the consent of the Treasury and subject to subsection (2) of this section, make to the Board out of moneys provided by Parliament such grants towards any relevant increase of expenditure for any of the five years ending with 27th March 1971 as it appears to him will assist in the attaining of that object.

(2) Any grants made by the Minister under this section—

(a) shall not exceed in the aggregate £30,000,000; and

(b) in respect of any one year, shall not exceed in the aggregate an amount equal to half the relevant increase of expenditure for that year.

(3) In this section—

(a) the expression " relevant increase of expenditure ", in relation to any year, means the amount by which the aggregate of the Board's relevant expenditure for that year, as certified by the Board's auditors, exceeds £3,800,000 (being the estimated aggregate of the Board's relevant expenditure for the year ending with 27th March 1965);

(b) the expression " relevant expenditure " means expenditure, determined in such manner as may, with the approval of the Treasury, be agreed between the Minister and the Board, on any of the following, namely—

(i) payments under the [1965 c. 62.] Redundancy Payments Act 1965, so far as those payments exceed any sums received by the Board in consequence thereof under that Act, and payments under any scheme for comparable purposes made under section 37 of the Act of 1946;

(ii) payments in respect of loss of superannuation and employment prospects;

(iii) payments by way of contributions to superannuation funds maintained by virtue of the said section 37 in respect of any increase in the cost of retirement benefits paid before normal retiring age;

(iv) payments to persons in the employment of the Board whose place of employment is changed, and who in consequence change their place of residence, in connection with the removal and resettlement of those persons with or without their dependants;

(v) the provision of housing for such persons as are mentioned in sub-paragraph (iv) of this paragraph;

(vi) the provision of travelling allowances or transport services for persons employed by the Board whose place of employment is changed;

(vii) the temporary supplementation of the earnings of persons employed by the Board whose work or place of employment is changed in consequence of the closure of, or of part of, a pit;

(viii) the maintenance of existing social welfare activities within the meaning of the [1952 c. 23.] Miners' Welfare Act 1952, or of existing arrangements for the provision of benefits in kind, in areas where the number of persons employed by the Board has fallen since the end of March 1965 as the consequence of the closure of collieries;

(c) the expression " year " means a financial year of the Board;

(d) references to expenditure for any year shall be construed as references to expenditure actually incurred in that year, except that the Minister and the Board may, with the approval of the Treasury, agree—

(i) that expenditure to be incurred in pursuance of obligations undertaken by the Board in any year to make payments over periods extending beyond that year shall, to such extent as may be so agreed, be treated for the purposes of this section as expenditure in that year of an amount greater than that actually incurred determined in such manner as may be so agreed; and

(ii) that, in lieu of any expenditure incurred in connection with the provision of housing by the Coal Industry Housing Association, the Board shall be deemed to have incurred such obligations involving such expenditure as it may be so agreed would have been incurred by the Board if that housing had been provided by a local authority.