Editing Michael Heseltine (section)

====Pit closures====
Heseltine's responsibilities also included Energy, as the [[Department of Energy (United Kingdom)|separate Energy ministry]] was abolished.<ref name=crick380-381/>

Electricity companies now decided on their own contracts, rather than being obligated by the government to choose British coal. With plans being made for the privatisation of [[British Coal]], on 13 October 1992 Heseltine and British Coal both separately announced that 31 of British Coal's 50 pits were to close, with the loss of 30,000 jobs. Most of the detailed work had been done by the Minister of State [[Tim Eggar]].<ref name=crick385-393>Crick 1997, pp. 385–93.</ref><ref>{{Cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/13/newsid_2532000/2532765.stm | work=BBC News | title=1992: Thousands of miners to lose their jobs | date=13 October 1992 | access-date=5 April 2010}}</ref> Many of the mines in Nottinghamshire that had continued working during the 1984–1985 strike were to close. Although this policy was seen by the Nottinghamshire miners as a betrayal, there was hardly any organised resistance to the programme. The government stated that since the pits were losing money they could be sustained only through unjustifiable government subsidies. Mine supporters pointed to the mines' high productivity rates and to the fact that their monetary losses were due to the large subsidies that other European nations were giving to their coal industries.

An early leak had seen little reaction but Heseltine was taken aback by the public anger. Over 100 pits had closed since the 1984–1985 strike. The closures were to be rushed because the Treasury, under pressure from Major, had agreed to make money for generous redundancy settlements available only in the 1992–1993 fiscal year. It looked terrible coming at the fag end of the recession, when the government had a tiny majority, and just after the fiasco of [[Black Wednesday]] and the scandal of [[David Mellor]]'s resignation. Heseltine was attacked by [[Marcus Fox]], [[Jim Pawsey]], [[Nicholas Winterton]], [[Bill Cash]], [[Rhodes Boyson]] and his former supporter David Evans who called openly for him to be sacked.<ref name=crick385-393/>

The High Court found that Heseltine and British Coal had acted "unlawfully and irrationally". Faced with likely defeat in the House of Commons, Heseltine was forced to agree to a moratorium, during which time he attempted, largely unsuccessfully, to seek new markets for British coal and to obtain government subsidies for pits.<ref>{{Cite news| url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE5DF163AF933A15753C1A964958260&n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2FSubjects%2FM%2FMines%20and%20Mining | work=The New York Times | title=British Prime Minister Retreats on Mine Closings | first=William E. | last=Schmidt | date=20 October 1992 | access-date=12 May 2010}}</ref><ref name=crick385-393/>

The band [[Chumbawamba]] released the critical song "Mr Heseltine meets the public" that portrayed Heseltine as an out-of-touch figure; the same group had once dedicated a song to the village of [[Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire]], which was reduced to a [[ghost village]] by the closure of the local coal pits.

In February 1993, Heseltine announced that unlike the Dutch and Belgian governments, Britain would not be contributing to any bailout of Anglo-Dutch [[DAF Trucks]] (which in the event went bankrupt in June). By early 1993 Heseltine's fortunes were at a low ebb, with his future as a minister being called into question.<ref>Crick 1997, p. 394.</ref>

A review into the pit closures appeared in March 1993. By this time, public anger had cooled. By the start of 1997, British Coal had been reduced to 28 pits.<ref name=crick385-393/>