We now move to a members’ business debate on motion S4M-08941, in the name of Iain Gray, on the anniversary of the miners’ strike 1984-85. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. Mr Gray, you have about seven minutes.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes that March 2014 marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the 1984-85 miners’ strike; further notes the strike’s devastating impact on coalfield communities throughout Scotland and the UK, including those in the Lothians; commends the many thousands of people in Scotland who showed solidarity with the striking miners in their local communities and across the UK; understands with regret that nearly 30 years after the strike ended, there are still men who were wrongly arrested or convicted during the dispute who have never received justice, and welcomes plans to commemorate the strike’s anniversary in East Lothian and in other communities around the UK.
12:35
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
It is a great privilege to represent a coalfield constituency such as East Lothian, to lead today’s debate on an important moment in this country’s relatively recent history and to welcome to the public gallery some of those who lived the reality of the miners’ strike of 1984-85. Why is it that we remember that strike in particular? After all, there have been many other important industrial struggles in the past and, after all, it was 30 years ago. Perhaps it is because it was a strike not just to save jobs, but to save a whole industry. The remains of mine workings that date back to the 11th century can be found in my constituency, so it was an industry with 1,000 years or more of history in Scotland.
In 1984 the miners believed that there was a plan to close down deep coal mining. Many pits had already closed and the miners believed that there was a secret hit list of 70 more. Now we know that they were wrong; the secret hit list had 75 pits on it. History has undoubtedly proven the fears that drove the strike to have been correct. In Lothian we saw Bilston close in 1989. Barony, the last pit in the Ayrshire coalfield, closed the same year. Monktonhall went in 1997, taking with it the savings of 130 miners who had given everything they had to keep it going as a co-operative. Then, in 2002, the last deep coal mine in Scotland, Longannet, was abandoned to the floodwaters.
Let us remember, too, that it was not just any job that the miners sought to save. There is something special about a job that requires you to burrow deep into the earth and bring out coal that has been 300 million years in creation, all to satisfy one of humanity’s most fundamental, primeval needs: for warmth. However, we should not be sentimental about the work. It was hard, unpleasant and dangerous. It often maimed and it sometimes killed, either shockingly suddenly or agonisingly slowly. I never met a miner who was not inordinately proud of what he did, but I met many who were relieved when their son did something else and did not have to go down the pit.
So how, then, did the miners find the strength to do the work? They found it from each other through extraordinary comradeship, self-sacrifice and solidarity, because there is no other way you can survive half a kilometre underground. That strength in solidarity imbued mining families and mining communities, too, so that mining was a way of life in our coalfields and much more than just a job. With so much at stake, it was no surprise, then, that when the dispute came, it was not just any strike. Like the work itself, it was always hard, often unpleasant and sometimes dangerous. It hurt, it wounded and it scarred. However, whole communities mobilised. In East Lothian, the Labour club was turned over to the strikers as their headquarters and soup kitchen. The Co-operative was generous to those who were its members as well as its customers. The Royal Musselburgh Golf Club felled its trees for fuel and the council set up a hardship fund.
The wider labour movement mobilised too, in practical ways, collecting food and money to keep the miners and their families going. Above all, everywhere, including in places such as Prestonpans, Tranent, Ormiston and Elphinstone, the women rose up too, with their husbands, their fathers and their sons, and organised. In the soup kitchens, on fundraising tours and trips at home and abroad and, yes, on the picket line itself, they did not support the strike but rather shared in the leading of it.
With so much at stake, it is not surprising that the forces that were ranged against the miners also mobilised without quarter. They tried to turn miner against police officer, coalfield against coalfield, family against family and even miner against miner, and they sometimes succeeded. And so, at the end of a long and bitter year, there was no victory for the miners, yet they marched back to work with heads held high, their pride undented and their dignity intact, although we must not forget the 200 victimised miners who did not go back to work and the 600 whose names, even now, should be cleared of unjust conviction.
The Tory Government of the time called the miners “the enemy within”. They may have been the Tories’ enemy, but to us, and to many, they were the strength within, the decency within and the hope within. Today, it is important to commemorate the miners’ struggle but not to memorialise or mourn it. Rather, in remembering, we should rededicate ourselves to the ideals with which they confronted the hardest of work and the bitterest of struggles—ideals that mean that mining communities such as those that I represent today still stand strong and proud although their mines are gone, and ideals of community, solidarity, justice and fairness—for thus it is that the men and women of this country’s coalfields will never really be defeated.
12:42
The words that follow are not mine but belong to a good friend who gave himself to the struggle 30 years ago.
“We’ve nae choice. They’ll no negotiate. McGahey and Clarke huv tried, we’ve tried—tried everythaen. Work tae rule, nae overtime—even the NACODS boys hae hud enough. McGregor, Thatcher—they waant a fight. We cannae jist row ower. It’s no aboot us. It’s the bairns, the veellage, a future. Whaur else kin we work? Cutting peats oan Airds Moss, eh?”
Those are the words of Andrew Leitch, a miner from Auchinleck, on the first weekend of the strike. He had worked at the Barony and the Killoch, as his father, his cousins, his school friends and his neighbours had. Some worked at the coal board engineering works or the transport and maintenance sections at Cumnock and Lugar. Where else could they work? They knew that, when the pit goes, the community goes.
The first couple of months were hard, but everybody, miner or not, stuck together—still cheery, still bantering, solid, holding together. The cafe gave tick, and the butcher’s too, but it would not last. Strike pay was cut and the gas and electric still had to be paid. At the turn of the third or fourth month, the women set up the food bank in the club. Donations came in and bags were prepared for each of the families. The retired men and the widows would arrange for their concession coal to be distributed, and we still saw the massed ranks of the slosh and the alleycat on the dance floor on a Saturday night.
Resolve was steady, but morale was being sapped. Stories circulated—“So and so is going back,” “They’re gonnae let the pit flood,” “Some have gone in at Bilston, or in Fife or somewhere.” Rumours took their toll, but it was statements that hit the hardest. The families could cope with the silence of their member of Parliament—they expected nothing more—but when Kinnock, the leader of their party, a Welshman of mining stock, told them to pack it in, go back to work and accept defeat and the coming closures, the sense of abandonment, betrayal and despair was tangible.
The folk in Auchinleck knew that they still had support beyond the mining community. The collections we made did not dwindle. The working people of Scotland still put their hands in their pockets, but as time went by we sensed that what had been given to aid the fight was now given in pity—but still in solidarity. Nine months in and some men had gone back. Tensions grew and families struggled to maintain dignity and cohesion, but they did.
Will the member take an intervention?
The member does not have time.
There was no more tick at the butcher’s, but a lurcher is faster than a rabbit and back in 1984-85 there were loads of rabbits on Airds Moss.
I was privileged to know those people and I was humbled by their courage. I was and am disgusted by the lies that have been told about them—that they were fools led by a madman; that they brought it upon themselves. They were not. They were people who knew that they had to take a stand for the future, for their children and for their community. What they could not have known was that they were facing the single-mindedness of the most brutal and pitiless British leader since Cromwell, allied with the cowardice and hypocrisy of the party that they believed was theirs.
12:46
As the son of a miner and a grandson of miners, I speak in the debate with great pride. I concur with the views that have been expressed on the strike and the sacrifice that was made. Thirty years on, we still want justice for those miners who were victimised during the strike and convicted unjustly. Neil Findlay will say more about that.
This morning I spoke to my great friend and comrade, councillor Willie Clarke, who has been a Fife councillor for more than 40 years and was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers national executive committee during the strike. I told him that I was going to speak in today’s debate and asked him what his view was, 30 years on. He said that the strike was about fighting for jobs, not terms and conditions or wages. That is the great emphasis that needs to be put on the strike: it was about jobs. He also talked about the role of miners’ wives and partners throughout the campaign. Most importantly, he stressed that the strike was about keeping mining communities together so that we would have a future.
Some 30 years on, some of those mining communities are still suffering the impact of the job losses. Take my constituency and, indeed, the ward that councillor Willie Clarke represents. Earlier today the First Minister talked about free school meals. The take-up of free school meals is a good indicator of poverty among children in primary 1 to 3. It would be great to see every child Scotland get a free school meal, but the reality is that in the former mining community of Ballingry, at the top of my constituency, more than 50 per cent of children qualify for a free school meal, based on poverty. In Aberdour, at the bottom of my constituency, the figure is 1 per cent. That shows the inequality that still exists.
Moving forward and remembering the miners’ strike, our duty is to rejuvenate the mining communities that still suffer, 30 years on. We must address the inequalities that still exist and the low wages. We talked about the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill earlier today and we need to force through the living wage. Low-paid women workers in those mining communities still suffer as a result of the consequences of the miners’ strike. Likewise we need training, skills and opportunities.
Whether the shipyard workers on the Clyde or the Jarrow marchers, throughout history people in the labour movement have marched and campaigned for jobs. They need to be our priority. A fitting memory to the massive, tremendous struggle of 30 years ago would be to tackle social inequality and deprivation, and to give people in the former mining communities jobs.
12:50
I commend Iain Gray for bringing this important motion to the Parliament. I congratulate him on his speech, reflecting the interests of his constituents. I agree with Iain Gray that there is no doubt that the miners’ strike of 1984 to 1985 was a defining moment in our recent history. No event demonstrates the pains of change in the Scottish economy more than that episode.
No Government is happy to see livelihoods lost, but we need to recognise that coal mining was an industry so uneconomical that, at that stage, it was losing nearly £14 on every tonne of coal produced in Scotland. Whatever Government had been in power at that time—
Will the member take an intervention?
Mr Findlay will get a chance to speak later—I only have four minutes.
Whatever Government had been in power during the 1980s, changes to the structure of the coal-mining industry were inevitable. Contrary to popular belief, the then Conservative Government did support Scottish mines. For example, between 1980 and 1983, the Polmaise mine in Stirlingshire was subject to more than £15 million of investment, which was designed to make it economically viable. Despite that, the UK taxpayer was subsidising the industry by more than £700 million per year—a situation that could not continue.
This year, the 100th anniversary of the first world war, we hear our troops being described as “lions led by donkeys”. That term could equally be used to describe the miners during the strike period. I have great sympathy for the miners, but they were misled by a demagogue who was committed to bringing down the elected Government of the day. Arthur Scargill was so committed to his ideological objective that he refused to negotiate on his demand that uneconomic pits should not close. That left the Government with little room for manoeuvre and, ultimately, contributed to the decline of the industry.
The way in which Scottish communities supported the miners is part of our history and culture, and it should be celebrated. However, there is no better barometer of public feeling than the views of the British public, who were almost united in their belief at the time that Arthur Scargill had gone too far. Polls taken in July 1984 showed that 79 per cent of the population disapproved of the methods used by the miners, and 78 per cent believed them to be irresponsible.
For any strike to be successful, it must carry the good will of the public. That ran out as a result of Scargill’s actions. Some might even call him a downright hypocrite, as he tried to use the Conservatives’ right-to-buy scheme to purchase a house using NUM money.
The motion makes reference to miners who believe that they were wrongly arrested or convicted during the strike. What I would say to those men is what I would say to any other person who believes that they have suffered a miscarriage of justice: they should seek the assistance of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Let me deal with some other myths that we hear about this period. The first myth is that Margaret Thatcher closed more mines than any other Government. That is simply not true. The Labour Governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan closed 172 pits when they were in office, compared with 154 under the Conservative Government.
The second myth is that Margaret Thatcher was ready to deploy the Army against the coal miners. Documents released under the 30-year rule show that the Government considered using the Army only to drive vehicles and, under extreme circumstances, to deliver vital provisions.
The third myth is that the Government drew up a hit list of 70 mines to be closed every year. Again, that is incorrect. There was a plan to close 75 mines, but over a three-year period, in line with the National Coal Board’s plans to close 20 mines per year.
The final myth is that the then Conservative Government decimated manufacturing. That is wrong again, as manufacturing output actually increased by more than 7 per cent during the Thatcher years in government. By 1997, manufacturing accounted for more than 20 per cent of the economy. After 10 years of new Labour, that share had dropped to 12.4 per cent, a fall far steeper than the decrease under Lady Thatcher.
The great irony of the miners’ strike is that we still have a coal industry in Scotland today—a coal industry that needs greater support. As we look back on the miners’ strike, we should also look to the future and to coal’s long-term role in Scotland.
12:54
I, too, thank Iain Gray for lodging the motion. It is apposite and correct that we mark an important moment in our country’s industrial history that had a devastating impact on many communities. I do not need to make that point to you, Presiding Officer, as someone who grew up in Fife.
As I have said in previous debates on this subject, I grew up in Glasgow, which, of course, is not a mining area. That, and the fact that I was young at the time, meant that the miners’ strike did not impact me directly. However, it must have had some impact because the strike took place in the wider context of an attack on the public sector and publicly owned industries by an ideologically driven Thatcher Government.
We saw other strikes, such as the teachers’ strike, and we saw attacks on the steel industry. We saw the Tory Government actively pursue a policy of industrial decline, which led to some 3 million unemployed across the United Kingdom in the early 1980s. In that regard, I must say to Murdo Fraser that he might want to consider just whose ideological drive was misdirected. All of that, of which the miners’ strike was absolutely part, contributed to my own sense, even at a young age, of a UK Government completely alien to the values of those around me and those that I hold now.
It is also important that I speak because I represent a former mining area. I should be clear that no pits in my area closed during the period that we are talking about; rather, they had closed many years before. However, there is great pride in the role that Kilsyth and Croy played in Scotland’s mining heritage. Of course, many local people paid a high price as part of that industry, with the Dumbreck pit disaster in 1938 and miners from Condorrat killed in the later Auchengeich disaster.
As Iain Gray’s motion says,
“many thousands of people in Scotland ... showed solidarity with the striking miners”.
That was absolutely the case in my area. Although, as I said, none of the pits closed at that time, people who lived there worked in pits that were affected directly.
The devastation caused by the pit closures process is almost universally accepted:
“Many of these communities were completely devastated, with people out of work turning to drugs and no real man’s work because all the jobs had gone. There is no doubt that this led to a breakdown in these communities with families breaking up and youths going out of control. The scale of the closures went too far. The damage done to those communities was enormous as a result of the strike.”
The surprising source of that quote was Norman Tebbit. If even he can show some mea culpa, one might have thought that Murdo Fraser could do so, too. If the man who would have been encouraging miners to get on to a cycle can see that truth, surely we can accept that the process was one of deindustrialisation too far, personifying the cruelty of an economic philosophy that values markets above people. That is a philosophy that we must continue to debunk to this day.
12:58
Presiding Officer, you will have to excuse me as I wipe the vomit from my chin having listened to Murdo Fraser’s rewriting of history.
The reality is that, 30 years ago, communities across the coalfields, from Stirlingshire to Kent and from Yorkshire to the valleys of south Wales, were under siege from a vindictive Tory Government determined to use every power in its armoury to take revenge on the miners for defeating the Heath Government a decade before.
Thatcher planned and executed that strike, helped by a cabal of shadowy figures, financed from very dubious sources and using every arm of the state available to crush the miners, but with a much greater ambition to destroy the trade union movement. Although none of my family was involved directly in the strike, many friends, neighbours and people in my village and the surrounding villages were because the Polkemmet mine was a major employer.
The strike was my political awakening. I followed every bit of it on the news and the media and every word of Arthur Scargill, Peter Heathfield, Mick McGahey, Eric Clarke and the rest. As a teenager, they were my political inspiration. They were clever and articulate working-class men leading the fight for jobs, working in partnership with principled, organised, intelligent and determined women who provided the campaign’s backbone, drive and energy.
It was not a strike about wages; it was a strike about communities, an industry and a way of life, and it was sustained by solidarity. Local people, businesses, trade unions and community groups donated money, food and Christmas presents for the kids. Foreign Governments, international unions and political parties sent donations and provided holidays and other such support, but all the time, the security services, the police, the judiciary and the Government conspired to bring down the industry and a movement and to achieve a victory, no matter what the cost.
In Scotland, we are repeatedly told that the policing here was different from that in England, that we had community policing, and that there was less friction and there were fewer arrests because people knew one another. That is an out-and-out lie that is perpetrated by those who want to rewrite history.
At Orgreave, where there was one of the main flashpoints of the strike, around 5,000 people were attacked by around 7,000 police officers. The result was that 95 people were arrested. All were acquitted and compensated because the police fabricated and duplicated evidence. Even the BBC footage was doctored.
After Orgreave, police action in Scotland at Hunterston and Ravenscraig resulted in mass arrests. There were 270 arrests at Ravenscraig in one day. So much for low-key community policing.
At the end of the dispute, more than 1,400 miners had been arrested in Scotland, and across the UK 900 had been sacked by the coal board. In Scotland, which had only 10 per cent of the UK mining workforce, there were more than 30 per cent of the overall dismissals, and not one person was reinstated.
I believe that many of those cases were miscarriages of justice and that they remain so. We know that South Yorkshire Police lied and duplicated statements. I firmly believe that that also happened in Scotland, to people such as Jim Tierney, who is now a schoolteacher. He was convicted and sacked because he was mistaken to have been in a group of people who threw stones at a bus in Fishcross. His pal was convicted and sacked at the same time, despite his being at home in his bed when the alleged incident occurred.
There is the case of John Shallow, who was a miner at Polkemmet. He fell over at Hunterston and was hauled up to his feet by a policeman and arrested for breach of the peace. He is absolutely adamant that he has never committed a crime in his life.
Alex Bennett from Bilston glen was targeted and grabbed by a snatch squad because he was an NUM official. There is also the case of John Mitchell from Fife. The list goes on and on.
All those men and many more have contacted me. They are victims of miscarriages of justice, but the Cabinet Secretary for Justice apparently does not want to know.
On the 30th anniversary of the strike, those men deserve justice. Time does not heal when a person has a conviction for something that they did not do. I appeal to the Scottish Government and the UK Government to hold a review of those convictions. Those men cannot wait, so that review should happen now. Will the minister agree to hold a review where her boss has so far refused to do so?
13:02
I congratulate Iain Gray on securing this timeous debate.
My interest in the matter stems not only from the memories of 30 years ago and the images of police on horseback charging into lines of demonstrating miners, but from having the mining museum of Scotland in my constituency, in Newtongrange. Newtongrange’s neat lines of miners’ cottages on First Street, Second Street, Third Street, Fourth Street and so on mean that the landscape and sense of community of Scotland’s mining past are literally never out of sight.
We can add to that my mother’s tales of her father, who was a Welsh miner. He died at a young age, having not fully recovered from a pit prop falling on him. That led to his family of 10 children being orphaned and split to various homes. My mother’s tales of the hardships of miners shared by a mining family from Derbyshire were therefore deeply embedded in me long before the strikes of the 1970s and 1980s.
We have to go back to the strikes of the 1970s to understand why Arthur Scargill tried to replicate the same strategy against the Thatcher Government 10 years later, with devastating consequences for miners, the mining industry, communities and trade unionism at large.
In the 1970s, the strike began in the early days of winter. On 9 January 1972, miners all over Britain came out on strike. By 9 February, the Heath Government declared a state of emergency, and we had the three-day working week. By 28 February, a deal had been agreed between the Government and the miners. That was a lesson that Margaret Thatcher and her Government took to heart, and she ensured that it would not be repeated.
From my perspective, Arthur Scargill walked right into a well-planned Tory trap. In the 1980s, the Thatcher Government had everything lined up to pave the way for privatisation and break the unions. The miners’ strike gave her the golden opportunity.
The strike was called at the height of summer, when coal stocks were at their highest. The National Coal Board had as its chair the hard man, Ian MacGregor. The touchpaper was lit when, in 1984, five pits were closed without proper process. The miners resisted an all-out national strike, unlike what happened in the 1970s. Divide and rule was added to the mix.
From my perspective, watching from the sidelines, the strike seemed doomed to fail from the outset, but Arthur Scargill pressed on. From using legal action to stop what was known as secondary picketing, the Tory Government moved to mass policing, often bringing in police from outside a local area, which made policing brutal. Working people against working people is a sight that I never want to see again on these islands.
During the strike, 11,291 people were arrested, more than 8,000 were charged and many were convicted, usually of breach of the peace or obstructing the police—convictions that, as has been said, stand to this day. By 1985, the miners returned to work having gained nothing but lost much. Eventually, the remaining small number of pits were privatised and trade unions and trade unionism would never be the same again.
The postscript is that Scargill was right—there was a hit list of pit closures—but he was the wrong man to lead the strike at the wrong time. If Mick McGahey had been given a greater role at the time, perhaps the history of the trade union movement and Tory privatisation would have been different. If he had led, with his better understanding of the strategy required and the essence of right timing, and being more personable, eloquent and persuasive to the public ear than Scargill, I do not think that the humiliation of the miners and the subsequent rampage of privatisation would have been so easily won.
I welcome the commemoration of the heroic fight of the miners, who deserved on all sides much better than they got.
13:06
I thank Iain Gray for securing today’s important debate on the miners’ strike. History is important, and that remarkable event had a lasting effect that is still seen in the community today and should not be allowed to be forgotten.
March 2014 marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the 1984-85 miners’ strike, which had a devastating impact on coalfield communities throughout Scotland and the United Kingdom. The strike began in Stirlingshire, and today, the strike’s legacy is evident across Britain, where of 170 operating coal pits dotted across the country in 1984, only three remain.
The strike was the largest strike of its time. It lasted more than a year and made life extremely difficult for the miners and their families. The strike was not about money—it was about jobs and industry survival. Many miners were forced to survive on welfare and on kind donations during the strike, and miners across Scotland and the UK sacrificed much to help one another in the fight against the National Coal Board. Women played a significant role in the strike, in mobilising support for the miners. Women set up and ran community kitchens to feed miners and their families who were dealing with the hardship of the strike. They held fundraising events and—for the first time—women joined men on the picket lines in the heat of the strike, where they were injured, just as men were, in the violent struggles that ensued on the front line.
There is still an on-going fight for the former coalfield communities. The Coalfields Regeneration Trust is fully committed to ensuring that former coalfield communities are sustainable and prosperous, and more than £21 million has been spent by the trust in the Scottish coalfields on creating jobs, helping people to find work, supporting new businesses and social enterprises, encouraging healthier lifestyles, and helping local groups at the heart of the communities to become self-sufficient and successful.
The miners’ strike is testimony to the courage, solidarity and determination of the trade union movement and it is a symbol of struggle and continuing resistance. It has an important lesson for us all, but it is vital that we not only learn lessons from it but find ways to ensure that justice is done and that people who did not do wrong are acquitted of their charges.
One good thing is that the Glasgow mines have left a valuable inheritance for Glasgow citizens—a renewable and green form of heating. Glasgow City Council is looking in to use of heat energy from water in abandoned mines under Glasgow to warm Glasgow homes. Results suggest that 40 per cent of the city’s heat requirements could be met in that way.
The sacrifice that people made should not be forgotten. Unions need to be assisted to continue to support workforces up and down the country. Most important, all the people who were accused of wrongdoing that they did not do should be cleared. I back the call for the Government to look in to how it can address that issue.
13:11
We have heard from a number of members who represent communities that were deeply affected by their experience of the miners’ strike, and from members who continue to be incredibly moved by what happened—from Iain Gray, whom I congratulate on obtaining the debate, and from Adam Ingram, Alex Rowley, Jamie Hepburn, Christine Grahame and Hanzala Malik.
It is 30 years since the strike began, but the many months of the strike and the closure of the coal mines in the 1980s have had a long-lasting impact on miners, their families and the communities in which they lived and worked. Events have already taken place—such as those in lain Gray’s constituency and at the Frances colliery in Dysart—to remember what happened 30 years ago. Given the strike’s impact on all the people in those communities, it is right that we think back.
The miners chose to exercise their democratic right to strike because of the significant job losses that were occurring. We should remember that, when the strike began, six pits had been closed since 1981 and it was clear that many more closures were to follow, as Iain Gray said.
The length of the strike was such that the miners and their families endured real hardship. We should not forget the support that was offered by many people across the country and from far outwith the mining communities. People raised money to support the striking miners and their families, and volunteered at soup kitchens to feed families whose income had dropped to absolutely nothing. I am old enough to have been out on strike in solidarity with the miners and to have collected money and food.
The closure of coal mines across Scotland has had a lasting impact on the communities that were affected, and it has left a toxic legacy of unemployment that we cannot ignore. Murdo Fraser’s speech was interesting, but it did not accord with any reality that I remember from throughout the 1980s in Scotland, when industry after industry was shut down, year after year.
However, it is also important that we look to the future, which Alex Rowley and Hanzala Malik touched on. The Scottish Government’s regeneration strategy places community-led regeneration at its heart, which will deliver what local people know will make a difference. The Scottish Government has provided funding to the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, which has invested more than £21 million in the Scottish coalfields to create jobs, help people into work, support new businesses and social enterprises, encourage healthier lifestyles and help groups at the heart of their communities to become successful and self-sustaining. By concentrating our regeneration efforts on the communities that need them most, and by working with people to deliver change, we can help to reverse the decline that former coalfield communities have felt.
A number of members—most notably Neil Findlay—expressed concerns about police conduct during the strike. Nobody should be in any doubt that the police do a difficult and demanding job, although I know that recent events in England have highlighted that it is vital that the police be held to account for their actions. There are clear and well-established procedures in place to consider and investigate complaints against the police, and any concerns about police conduct should in the first instance be raised with the chief constable. If an individual remains dissatisfied, the case can be referred to the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner.
Surely Roseanna Cunningham must acknowledge that the issue is not specific instances. It was a strategic approach to policing that was unique in our recent history, which is why the cases warrant a collective review of how those miners came to be victimised.
I will come to review. I thank Iain Gray for that intervention, because there are some confusing signals about what is expected of such a review. I go back now to the remarks that I was making and come back later to that point.
Where there is an inference of criminality, the allegation will be referred to the Crown Office, which is empowered to undertake independent investigations and to bring prosecutions, where appropriate. The motion refers to people who it is alleged were wrongly convicted of criminal offences during the strike. I think that Neil Findlay, when talking about Orgreave, said that many miners who went to court were acquitted. The courts recognised, at the time, that many of the cases were not solid.
The important thing is that it was established at that time that there was widespread malpractice by the police in South Yorkshire. The argument is that that happened in Scotland as well, so we need to think about what happened overall in Scotland; we need to look at the cases overall. The minister stood in solidarity with the miners and did collections and all the other good things that I would expect her to have done during that strike, so surely she agrees that we should go down that route in Scotland?
I will press on with my explanation of where we are.
Does she agree? Yes or no?
Mr Findlay.
Since 1999, we have had a Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. It operates entirely independently of our courts, the police, prosecutors and the Scottish Government and is responsible for investigating potential miscarriages of justice. If the commission investigates any case and comes to the view that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred with a person’s conviction, it has a special power to refer back to court for appeal cases that have exhausted the normal appeal process. Members have mentioned specific cases of what they consider to be false convictions; that is the correct route to take for those cases.
On the calls for the Scottish Government to inquire into the matter, members must be aware that only the courts can overturn criminal convictions. Therefore, I need to be clear about whether we are being asked, in effect, to bring about a situation in which members are happy to have a general review that does not tackle what they consider to have been miscarriages of justice. There is a way to tackle miscarriages of justice, but that does not seem to be what is being discussed.
Will Roseanna Cunningham give way?
I am in my last seconds.
Only courts can overturn criminal convictions—Governments cannot. We have in place robust procedures in our justice system as part of the checks and balances to protect against miscarriages of justice. I understood that that is what we were talking about. There are procedures in place to investigate complaints against the police and to review historical convictions when it is alleged that a miscarriage of justice took place, as has been alleged in the chamber today, so we should rely on those tried and tested independent processes to be used as needed.
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