Proactive Investors - Government ministers have moved to block a ban on the development of new coal mines in the UK, as the Energy Bill passes through Parliament after a series of delays last year.
House of Lords’ peers had added the prospective ban to the bill in April by a tight three-vote majority, but a government spokesperson told the BBC the plan would be dropped.
Climate Activists have lashed out at the government over the news, including Friends of the Earth which argued ministers were “stuck in the past” and that “coal belongs in the history books”.
Under the move, government ministers would remove the amendment at the committee stage, before MPs were able to vote on the plan in the House of Commons.
A ban would have seen new mines completely banned from opening in the UK, even though local authorities are largely able to block plans already.
Companies have to go through several stages when attempting to get a coal mine approved in the UK, including obtaining a conditional license from the government’s Coal Authority and local planning permission.
Health and safety experts then need to be notified before a completed application is submitted to the Coal Authority, which finally determines whether the project can go ahead.
Though local planning authorities can grant or deny planning permission for a mine, decisions can be appealed either way, with the secretary of state also able to have the final say, according to lobby group Coal Action Network (LON:NETW).
This happened in the case of the Whitehaven mine in Cumbria, which was given the go-ahead by the county council but left up to levelling up secretary Michael Gove after over 100,000 people signed a Coal Action Network petition calling on the government to be involved in the decision.
Gove ultimately approved the new mine in December, making it the first to be given the green light in the UK in 30 years.
Lord Teverson, who introduced the amendment in the House of Lords against new coal mines, said the approval of the Whitehaven mine had changed his mind on a prospective ban.
He had previously believed a ban was unnecessary since it was "totally and absolutely obvious" that building a new coal mine "would be a really stupid thing for a country to do".
However, by blocking the proposed ban, government ministers would retain the right to overrule local authorities when approving or denying new mines in the UK.
"If that [Whitehaven] happens once, it can happen again - that is why this amendment is so important," Teverson added.