Is a gendered analysis taking place to review that work? That is one of the suggestions that has been made by JustRight Scotland, given the particular experience that we are aware of in terms of trafficking and of sexual abuse that people might have experienced in-country before they leave.

I have a follow-up question for Pat Togher about supporting people once they have arrived. Again, it is using the experience of previous refugees—in particular, people from Afghanistan and Syria whom I met recently. They still have challenges in accessing national health service support.

It is not just about post-traumatic stress disorder or trauma from the experience of having to become a refugee. In particular, some of the Ukrainian refugees are older people or people with underlying health conditions that they had before they became refugees, so there is an issue about how to provide support in the short term through access to medicines and the immediate and on-going medical support that somebody needs. They might not have had that support for four weeks. How do we then get them fitted into our NHS system, which is already under pressure? Are the processes clear for that? People have expressed concerns that it is difficult for people, linguistically, to work out what they are meant to do and how to get that support once they have arrived.

Pat Togher made the point that, initially, people might not say exactly what their circumstances are, so this is about how we connect with them afterwards and having translation capacity. Hazel, how are you moving ahead with that? I presume that it will be quite a challenge.

It has been really good hearing the answers to the questions thus far from members of the panel.

I will ask about support for people who have made it to Scotland. It is complicated for many people to arrive here. As one of the witnesses said, we have 18,000 expressions of interest from people who are prepared to host refugees from Ukraine. I am conscious that a lot of the people who have been in touch have already improved or decorated their housing and bought new furniture to be ready for people.

One of the witnesses said that there is an issue with what happens when the match is not right. I want to explore that. It will not be easy for everybody to do the work of hosting a family once they have arrived. What follow-up work is being done to check that matches have worked? If they do not work for whatever reason, the family or person does not automatically become homeless. I have spoken to Afghan and Syrian refugees recently, some of whom are still homeless years after arriving, particularly Syrian refugees.

I ask Gayle Findlay to pick up that question from an overall COSLA perspective first.

It is really useful to get feedback on that. It needs to happen because, as you say, it is not necessarily about people falling out. It is just a reality check. It could be about the food that is eaten if somebody is vegan, for example, and all the other things that cannot necessarily be predicted before people arrive.

The other issue that I wanted to ask about was safeguarding, not just for an initial matching process but for follow-ups. What support will be there for families? I am thinking particularly about people who have come from Ukraine having experienced sexual abuse, or who have had contact with traffickers because of the length of time that it has taken for them to get to safety. What follow-up work is being done to provide support—for example, mental health support—as well as making sure that there are not just checks carried out once by Disclosure Scotland but a follow-up process for people?

If you want to keep going on that one, Gayle Findlay—

I thank the minister for advance notice of his statement.

Although we do not know how long the invasion will last, Ukraine is being destroyed brick by brick and, in the future, we will need to help it to rebuild. For now, we should do everything that we can to help people who are fleeing Ukraine. I agree with the minister that the Conservative Government’s approach has been woeful, leaving people vulnerable, confused and in limbo, and it just got worse with the Rwanda proposals.

I have heard of families that have had to return to Ukraine because underlying health conditions were not being supported as they attempted to travel to safety and waited for visa clearance. I have also heard about women and children becoming victims of sexual violence by invading soldiers, or being put at risk of sexual abuse during their lengthy and uncertain journeys, while waiting for their visas to be approved.

What dedicated support will be available to traumatised refugees, particularly victims of sexual violence, to access rape crisis centres and mental health support from the day that they arrive? What dedicated digital support will be available so that refugees are not excluded from accessing online support and connectivity? Will the minister commit to updating the frequently asked questions advice, because the tour of the websites that he sent is not what we or our constituents urgently need right now?

I thank the committee and clerks for their work in bringing the report to the Parliament, and I thank all those who gave evidence.

As colleagues across the chamber have passionately said, for the miners, their families and the local communities whose jobs and incomes were devastated, the mine closures and strike have impacted on their lives and wellbeing ever since. I well remember, as a Labour student, supporting miners and their families, raising money to enable them to buy food and survive the strike. When the strike started, in March 1984, nearly 94 per cent of the just over 13,000 miners in Scotland went on strike, which was a huge response to what was happening.

When I met former miners last month in Danderhall, they were absolutely clear that they welcome the bill, but they said that it needs to be amended to ensure that the people who are pardoned, or their surviving relatives, are properly informed so that they know that they have been pardoned.

I welcome the committee’s recommendation that the Scottish Government consider extending the definition in section 4 to ensure that friends and families of people who were involved in supporting the strike are also pardoned, given the massive impact of the strike on people’s lives.

Pardons should be granted for all but the most serious offences, such as serious acts of physical violence towards another human. As other members have said, an injustice took place.

There should also be an extension to the circumstances of how or where an offence that led to conviction took place. Currently, the bill covers people who were taking part in or travelling to or from an official picket or demonstration, but there are people who were arrested and convicted for crimes in the community that were all about the miners strike, and they will not be pardoned. We need more than a symbolic pardon.

The report is really well put together. However, I was disappointed that, although the committee understood the powerful arguments for compensating miners, it did not support adding compensation to the bill, because it would be difficult and could delay the bill. I say to the committee that miners and their families have surely waited long enough. The strike was 37 years ago, and some of the people who would have received a pardon are no longer with us.

On the issue of expanding our global impact and the network, what is the Scottish Government doing to support Covid recovery and work with partner countries and to support them in addressing monopoly production and protections? Only 5 per cent of Malawians have been vaccinated and they do not have access to testing. I have just been to a meeting with Global Justice Now, at which that was a key issue. What can we do through our global network with our partner countries to help to tackle Covid?

No, thank you. I have only a short time.

Many of the miners got industrial injuries and diseases that they have had to live with. They all lost their jobs, and, for many, the impact of the strike meant that they could not get a job in their community. They lost out on redundancy payments and pension rights, and their prospects were prejudiced because they had a conviction. Even if someone was found by an industrial tribunal to have been dismissed unfairly, that did not lead to them getting their job back or the financial compensation that they deserved.

As the Law Society for Scotland says in its briefing, the strike

“has left divisive and long-lasting impacts upon individuals, their families and the communities involved. Since that time there have been questions raised about political interference, policing, fairness and how the courts dealt with miners who were accused of crimes resulting from the strikes.”

The strike was almost four decades ago. Let us make sure that the bill goes through. If there are powerful arguments for compensation or financial redress, as Annabelle Ewing said in the very effective point that she made earlier, then, as Richard Leonard said, if not now, when? Surely it is up to us to get it right. A pardon would be very much welcomed, but surely it must be backed up by action and compensation or financial redress and an inquiry to address the injustice that was meted out to people simply for standing up for their communities. Let us not kick the issue of compensation into touch.

Those families and their children and communities are still suffering now. Let us amend the bill so that it delivers the justice that our former mining communities deserve.