Later in the same article Professor Thomas says:The Government development area policy has been of immense value in enabling Wales to weather This Structural Crisis.

The document says that the Structural Crisis facing the industry is being made worse by escalating Government aid to the steel industry.

It said: With the exception of a certain potential in the United Kingdom, the possibility of a Community coal industry which can compete commercially on the international markets can be definitively ruled out… While state aid can offer an adequate means of coping with economic crises, the state aid given to coal production in the EU has not been capable of providing an answer in economic terms to the Structural Crisis facing the European coal industry…The strategy of lowering production costs through the use of more advanced technology has proved ineffective.

He went straight into a discussion of current operations and the success of the urgent operational requirement programme, but avoided discussing the Serious Structural Crisis at the heart of the Ministry of Defence, which is what this debate should be about.

The Real Structural Crisis that needs to be addressed is not caused by the Government's support for the banking system, as they like to imply.