Chamber and committees

We regularly consider the extent to which introducing legislation is appropriate or possible. We continue to engage with the Ministry of Defence as it seeks, for example, to further embed the Armed Forces Covenant into legislation through the Armed Forces Act 2021, which received royal assent on 15 December 2021.

We worked closely with the MOD in advance of the legislation being introduced to ensure that the 2021 act would be fit for purpose in Scotland, and we continue to work with the MOD as it develops the statutory guidance. We are satisfied that the covenant provisions in the act do not fall within this Parliament’s legislative competence.

Jamie Greene completely disregards the point that I made about the reduction in homicides to their lowest level since 1976 and the reduction that we have seen since 2006-07. There have been huge reductions that have been substantially higher than those in England and Wales, such that people in Scotland are much less likely, and feel themselves to be much less likely, to become victims of violent crime. However, as I have acknowledged, violent crime is a serious issue. We have dealt with it, and we continue to deal with it through, for example, the No Knives, Better Lives initiative, which has been deemed to have been extremely successful and is now copied in other parts of the United Kingdom, including London, where people have engaged with it.

The annual crime statistics, which are the most accurate records, show that recorded crime remains at one of the lowest levels since 1974. Non-sexual crimes of violence fell by 4 per cent between 2019-20 and 2020-21. The most recent years have, of course, been affected by the pandemic, as they have been in all jurisdictions, and the falls in the levels of some crimes that we saw during the lockdown period have been followed by increases. We are very conscious of that, and we are taking forward a number of initiatives in relation to crimes of sexual violence and violent crimes more generally, such as No Knives, Better Lives, which I mentioned.

Of course, Jamie Greene misses the fact that it was the Conservatives who brought in automatic early release and voted in the Parliament against ending automatic early release. We will therefore take no lessons from the Tories in relation to that.

We will, of course, look seriously at the issues that the Conservatives have raised. Jamie Greene has quite rightly raised the issue of remand and our prisons. That is what the initiatives that we are taking forward, which are subject to consultation, seek to address. I would have hoped that we would have received some support from the Conservatives—if not support for what we intend to do, at least some ideas from them about what they would do in relation to remand.

We have seen massive reductions in homicides and in the handling of offensive weapons. It is important to mention that the number of emergency admissions to hospitals due to assaults with a sharp object has fallen by 51 per cent from 2006-07 until now. It is also important that, as I mentioned previously, people in Scotland feel that they are less likely to be a victim of crime. We can bandy around the figures from here to eternity and mention different years or monthly statistics versus annual statistics, but the simple fact is that there is less crime in Scotland than there was when the Government came in, there is less crime in Scotland than there is in other parts of the UK and individuals feel that that is the case, there are more police officers who are better paid, and we have a very good track record on tackling crime across Scotland over the past 15 years.

Audrey Nicoll is, of course, right that Jamie Greene’s question raised only a very small and partial part of the picture. Crimes of dishonesty and vandalism decreased in the latest year to their lowest levels since the 1970s. Jamie Greene did not mention that, of course.

We are continuing to back that and other reductions in crime with our investment in front-line policing. We have increased police funding year on year since 2016-17, and we will invest £1.4 billion in 2022-23. Our investment amounts to more than £10 billion since the creation of Police Scotland in 2013 and has helped to ensure that officer numbers are 5.4 per cent higher than they were in 2007.

Of course, despite the weeks and months that we have had of the Tories saying that there should be massive increases to the police and justice budgets, when it came to it they offered no amendment to the budget that this Government proposed.

Since 2006-07, violent crime in Scotland has fallen significantly, including a 15 per cent fall in homicide in 2020-21, to its lowest level since 1976. Surveys of the population show that adults in Scotland were less likely to experience crime in 2019-20 than those living in England and Wales.

Although that progress is encouraging, the stability in violent crime levels over recent years highlights that more needs to be done. The Scottish Government is clear that any act of violence is one too many, and in 2022-23 we are providing additional funding of 14 per cent to the violence reduction unit to support increased violence prevention activities. We continue to work with Police Scotland and other partners to prevent violent crime, including through the work of Medics Against Violence and delivery of the hospital navigator service.

We will listen to any representations that are made. We have had substantial consultation with interested parties, mining communities, trade unions and others. As you say, there have been calls for other offences to be included. Some of those will fall under the Conspiracy, and Protection of Property Act 1875, which I am sure that we are all familiar with, which covers a wide spectrum of behaviours relating to attempting, without legal authority, to compel another person to support a strike or not go to work, which relates to your point about miners who continued to work during that time. Convictions under the 1875 act could cover the use of violence to intimidate another person or their family or damage their property; behaviour such as persistently following another person from place to place or following, along with others in a disorderly manner, another person on or through any street or road; or things such as watching, or what the 1875 act calls “besetting”, a house.

The lack of any surviving police or court records is a problem, and makes it very difficult to confirm the exact circumstances of the offences that were committed during the strike. We could not confirm, for example, the degree of violence or malice that was involved or where they actually occurred. It is also very difficult to determine the motivation behind such conduct. In some cases that have been reported, previous disputes between people were the basis for some of the things that happened during the strike.

We have extended the independent review group’s recommended criteria—for example, we are not introducing a constraint that says that someone is disqualified if they have had a previous or subsequent offence—but we do not think that it would be right to extend the pardon to those other potential offences when we cannot ascertain their details. We have tried to make the pardon applicable exclusively to miners and incidents that took place in the specified locations, or when travelling through a community to them. That is why we followed the views of the independent review group and have those qualifying criteria, although we have extended them slightly.

I do not think that the bill is the vehicle for doing that. The bill’s legacy will be the impact that the pardon has on communities. I reiterate that that will be significant. The bill is us—not the state that was in control at the time but the Scottish Government that is now established—saying that we understand the pressures that obtained at the time of the dispute and that led people into the situations that we are talking about, and that, as a society, we want to pardon that.

We have made the bill simple and straightforward for those reasons. However, you are right that other work must continue. Work started straight away. I used to work for Stirling District Council and, in its various different political guises, that council worked right from the strike to support communities such as those in Fallin and Plean. That was true throughout Scotland, so such work is not new. However, because of the time that has elapsed, the help for regeneration finds different routes. The main route that the Scottish Government takes is to support the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. We intend to commit to that.

There is no question but that it was something that impacted on communities. I note that we launched and publicised the bill at the Polmaise Murray outdoor mining museum in Fallin, which I have been familiar with for many years.

As you said, even if the miners were 100 per cent out, if there was a heavy police presence and arrests emerged from that, those people will be pardoned. Whether people were at a demonstration, on a picket line or wherever something took place in the community, those things should be captured by the qualifying criteria that we have. I am genuinely not aware of any instance of someone in Fallin being convicted for reasons that are outwith the qualifying criteria for the pardon.

I have given the reasons why we think that we should restrict the pardon in the way that we have. Our approach also makes the pardon more meaningful for the people to whom it will apply. As you will know, quite a lot of secondary picketing went on. People from one community would go to another to support it. However, the approach is legitimate and it has been taken for the best of reasons. The pardon is restricted to miners and to the qualifying offences, which will include being on a picket line or at a demonstration in the community in Fallin.

There are some categories—but I will perhaps get the officials to come back on that. We are saying that there have been calls for those kinds of offences to be included within the scope of the bill, although it is worth pointing out that the independent review group did not make that specific recommendation. A conviction under the 1875 act could cover a wide spectrum of behaviour relating to attempting, without legal authority, to compel another person to support the strike or not go to work. The use of violence to intimidate another person or their family will not be covered, for instance. It could also cover behaviour such as persistently following someone else from place to place, as we have discussed previously. We are not looking to cover that. As I have said, it could also cover the “watching” or “besetting” of a house.

The lack of surviving police and court records makes it difficult to confirm the exact circumstances that gave rise to any offences under the 1875 act that were committed during the strike, such as the degree of violence or the malice attached. That is why we have taken the position that we have taken.

I do not know whether Elaine Hamilton wants to come in to say anything in addition to that.

As I said previously, the bill does not exclude women—we have no evidence of any females being convicted, certainly not under the qualifying criteria, and I do not think that we have much evidence beyond that. I think that the figure is 5 per cent for all the convictions that we are aware of in relation to those who would not fall under the qualifying criteria. Perhaps Elaine Hamilton can comment on that.

I have looked at the matter quite closely, and I think that there is a danger that the more we widen the scope of the bill to cover areas in which we are able to get less supporting evidence, the less value the pardon itself will have. That is my thinking, and I imagine that the independent review group, which included people such as John Scott and Dennis Canavan, would have had the same rationale.

Elaine Hamilton may want to come in with the figures, if she has them. I am sure that I saw somewhere that 5 per cent of convictions were for offences that do not qualify under the criteria in the bill, but perhaps not. We can provide the committee with that evidence in due course. That is the thinking behind the bill.