Chamber and committees

I do understand that. As I said, I followed what happened during the strike in some detail. In the places where I lived and worked, I was well aware of the impact not just on the miners, but on their families and entire communities. I am well aware of that.

Because of the way that the dismissals were carried out, there were quite a few reinstatements afterwards. There were probably more in Scotland because, proportionately, there were higher numbers of dismissals in the first place. However, they were dismissals by the employer—the National Coal Board—that applied across the UK, and they relate to employment law, which is reserved to the UK.

I am not quibbling with anything that has been said about the loss that was endured by people, which is sometimes very hard to quantify because it was so huge. However, if there is a case for compensation, that is for the state that was the authority at the time. It has the reserved powers to look at employment legislation and to look into wider issues about the policing and the extent of political involvement in the policing. We do not have those powers. If we tried to introduce some kind of compensation scheme, it could delay the pardon, as one or two members have mentioned, but it is also important to note that we have neither the legislative competence to deal with that and get all the facts around employment and so on, nor the ability to get all the necessary information.

I am not sure why somebody would want to oppose the idea that the UK Government should be held to account for this. It has the ability to look at it, to get such records as still exist and to question things such as whether there is any substance to the idea that the intelligence services were involved. The UK Government can do that, but we cannot. That is why I take the position that, if there is to be a compensation scheme, it will be for the UK Government to consider. I give my commitment that I will continue, on behalf of the Scottish Government, to call on the UK Government to hold a full public inquiry, which could cover the issues that you have mentioned.

It is really around the idea of being as relevant to what we are discussing as it is possible to be. That is why we are looking at the miners who were most directly affected. That is why we look at the offences that were related to the exceptional circumstances on the picket line when the person’s community, their job and the industry itself were under threat. We are trying to recognise those particular circumstances.

With other potential offences and convictions, we have much less ability to say what the motive and the circumstance behind them were. We do not have the records to do that. If we included those in the bill, we could be pardoning things that included serious assaults or intimidation of people. That might happen in very few cases, but it would be possible. That is why we think that the right way is for the bill to be about the miners who were most directly affected and what happened on the picket lines in defence of their jobs and communities.

We understand that what happened then was extremely unusual—it was extraordinary. I think that it was Alexander Stewart who made the point that it was probably the most divisive strike that any of us can remember, in terms of its longer-term consequences. We are trying to recognise that. For the bill to be wider would be very problematic for the reasons that I have mentioned. It is a judgment, as I have said before, and that is the judgment that we have made in relation to this.

Louise Miller is the expert on that.

You have made some good points. You spoke about how divisive the miners strikes were; however, there were other divisive disputes. If you remember the Wapping dispute, you will remember how divisive that was. As you said, the difference with the miners strikes was the communities. Whole communities were identified as mining communities—for example, the areas that you and I represent have a number of such communities, and there are others across Scotland. The geographical nature of those mining communities is such that the division has carried on for all these years.

On the issue of the pardon, it is important that the committee talks to former miners, as it has done. A number of them had never been in trouble with the law, and they felt a degree of shame about having a conviction. Others did not, because they felt that what they did was justified, which I acknowledge. The impact of a pardon on those who are still with us and know that feeling is quite substantial. Therefore, I think that the pardon will have a big effect.

You are right to say that we have a continuing obligation to the mining communities. On Friday, I attended an event for the Hawkhill community centre, which took place at the centre. Representatives of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust were there, and I spoke to them at length. They still hold activities such as football for youngsters in the communities in Tullibody. We support the work of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust in the former mining communities. The annual grant is £754,000 this year, which has helped to fund grass-roots activity that tackles issues associated with poverty in the communities.

You are right to say that we are still dealing with a long tail of consequences from the dispute and people having lost their jobs. I do not think that the rest of the United Kingdom—I am not sure about Wales—has continued support for the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, but we have done so and will continue to work with the trust so that the grant addresses the new challenges. If we can concentrate our efforts on regenerating the communities that need it most and working with local people to deliver the change that they want to see, that will perhaps be the best and most effective thing that we can do to help those communities. However, the pardon will also have a tangible effect for many people who were involved.

The answer that I gave to Maggie Chapman still stands. We thought long and hard, as did the independent review group, about who was most directly affected, and we feel that it was the miners themselves. Many other people, including me, got involved in demonstrations at the time, but we do not think that the bill should cover them. Other people, including students, received convictions but, for the reasons that I mentioned, it is important that we restrict the qualifying offences under the bill to the miners who were involved.

You asked about the definition of a miner. That relates to employment in a mine that was owned by the National Coal Board. We considered a number of matters—it is not straightforward—in forming the Government’s position on how a miner should be defined.

We consider that the people who were most adversely affected by the strike and the consequences of strike-related convictions were the miners themselves. Only males were allowed to work underground in the UK coal mining industry in 1984 and 1985, so inevitably the focus in relation to the numbers of people who were arrested, prosecuted and convicted was on male miners. However, the definition has been drafted to recognise that there might have been other people—employed by the coal board or licensed under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946—who could meet the pardon criteria. The definition recognises that some surface employees experienced their livelihoods being directly threatened by mine closures and might have participated in or taken action in support of the strike—in fact, I know people who did so who were surface employees.

The policy intention is to capture people who worked underground in a coal mine, at the surface of the coal mine and at the larger workshops located outwith coal mines which were used to maintain and repair mining equipment and machinery. I think that you can draw a line regarding people whose livelihoods were directly related to the mine and under threat because of the strike itself.

The definition would also cover female employees who meet the pardon criteria. However, we are not aware of any robust evidence to suggest that any female was convicted in Scotland for offences related to the strike. That is why we have come to that conclusion. We think that the miners are most directly affected and that to extend the definition further would be problematic, not least because of the poor quality of the evidence—records and so on—that is still available. We think that we have struck the right balance in relation to that. However, as I have said before, we will listen to representations.

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.

We are still looking at that, but that is likely to be the case. We have started discussions with the NUM about using its records to identify a number of people in relation to the convictions that they had. If we can do something proactively in relation to that, we will look at that. However, there are bound to be people who are not captured by that, and we want to make it as clear as possible that if they want to get in touch with us, we will give them as explicit a statement as possible, in writing, about the pardon.

The maximum number of judges is set out in section 1(1) of the Court of Session Act 1988. The draft order in council will increase the maximum number of judges of the Court of Session by one, from 35 to 36. Judges of the Court of Session also sit as judges of the High Court of Justiciary. An increase in the number of judges of the Court of Session has been precipitated by the recent appointment of Lady Poole as chair of the Covid-19 inquiry. Lady Poole is an outer house judge of the Court of Session on secondment to the inquiry. During the secondment, she will not be available to sit in court. However, she remains a judge for the purposes of the statutory limit in section 1(1) of the 1988 act.

As that inquiry is expected to last for several years, the Lord President requested an additional judge to meet the demands of the business in the Court of Session and the High Court. The appointment of Lady Poole to chair the Covid-19 inquiry, coupled with the current high level of court business, means that the appointment of a further judge will provide additional judicial resource during these challenging times.

The Lord President does not consider that it is possible to appoint a further series of temporary judges drawn from the shrieval bench for this period of time, as that would place additional pressure on the sheriff courts and would therefore not secure the most efficient disposal of court business.

I am happy to answer any questions from members.

It would be consistent with my previous answer, and I would just point out that the Scottish Government and Parliament did not exist at the time. Indeed, policing itself was not devolved at the time. One of the allegations was that, at a Cabinet sub-committee, there was a reference to the way in which the policing of the strike should happen in Scotland. I do not know the exact terms, but it was around the Secretary of State for Scotland being asked at Cabinet to ensure that the strike was policed in the same way as the rest of the UK. That brings us back to the accusation that was made at the time about the policing of the strike being politically directed. There were also allegations about the involvement of security services, the use of phone tapping and so on.

However, we are in no position to examine those things—they do not fall within the competence of the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, if we tried to hold an inquiry without that evidence, we would undermine the calls that I, my predecessors and others have made for the UK Government to hold an inquiry. When I recently wrote to the UK Government on this matter, I said that the very process of introducing the bill and highlighting the issue would increase the pressure for a proper public inquiry to be held. I know that it can seem like a forlorn hope to make such calls to the UK Government, but I note that it recently agreed—at last—to hold an inquiry into the treatment of people who were convicted of homosexual offences in the armed forces before 2000. It is therefore possible to achieve such an aim, and that is where our focus should be. After all, these are the people and the agencies that have the evidence.

As for your point about policing being devolved, I have already mentioned the extent to which policing records have been destroyed. That has happened sometimes for very good reasons—indeed, it is part of the process. There are what are called the 40/20 and 70/30 rules. If you reach the age of 40 and it has been 20 years since your conviction, the police will destroy the records; if we are talking about something more serious, the records will be destroyed if you reach the age of 70 and it has been 30 years since the conviction. As we do not have the records, they cannot be looked at with the rigour of a public inquiry, but, on the outstanding questions about the policing and management of the strike and its political aspects, I believe that the right focus for that is the UK Government. That will certainly continue to be my focus.

That is not covered.