A CASH pot of about £15million collected by the UK Government from the Scottish coal industry should be "put to good and proper use" to help restore old opencast mines, Holyrood's Energy Minister said.

Fergus Ewing has pressed the UK Energy Minister Michael Fallon for the money, raised from coal levies, to be reinvested north of the border.

But he said he had not yet received a "substantive reply" from his UK Government counterpart, accusing him of showing a "disrespect to the people of Scotland".

Mr Ewing raised the issue as the Scottish Open Cast Mining Taskforce - which was set up last year in the wake of the closure of Scottish Coal - met for the sixth time. Scottish Coal collapsed last April, resulting in about 600 people losing their job, and has since been criticised for failing to restore several mines.

But since then progress has been made on restoring sites in Fife, East Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway and South Ayrshire.

Mr Ewing said this had been achieved after the taskforce, which includes the UK and Scottish governments, the Coal Authority, local councils, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, unions and others, had "worked hard collectively to foster the positive action and engagement that has led to the creation of so many new jobs".