LABOUR MPs have called on the Government to release in full all documents about the bitter 1984 Miners’ Strike.

The call was led by North-East MP Ian Lavery, who is president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Dennis Skinner, the former miner who represents Bolsover in Derbyshire and regularly speaks at the annual Durham Miners’ Gala.

Official papers released last year under the 30-year rule revealed that the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher lied about the extent of its pit closure plans.

The NUM and its supporters have long claimed that the forces of the state were put against them during the year-long dispute to ensure that the strikers did not win.

Mr Lavery, MP for Wansbeck in Northumberland, today (Wednesday, January 7) asked Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude: "What's the Government got to hide with regard to the miners' strike?

"Can you say when the documents that haven't been released will be released and will they be released un-redacted?"

Some files recently published by the National Archives reveal that the Government tapped NUM members' phones.

Mr Skinner said: "Isn't the whole subject of these papers embarrassing to the Government and to the minister?

"Because at the beginning we argued there were 75 pits (due to be closed). The Thatcher government at the time said there were only 20. “They lied continually in the House of Commons, repeating that figure, and then the Cabinet papers reveal that it was 75 after all and the miners were right.

"Your embarrassment about revealing other papers is simply because they decided to attack the NUM, the manufacturing base of Britain, and it's carried on by the Tories ever since."

But Mr Maude replied: "The documents, other than sensitive or personal papers, were released in the usual way under the law that was passed by the previous government.”