Chamber and committees

No. I do not know enough of the details of the case. I know the Fishcross miners welfare club, which is no longer called that, very well. I related to you the story about things being thrown at my car, such as snowballs, in a different context. I am also familiar with Alloa sheriff court.

We cannot go into that. As I have explained already, we cannot go back, although if what you have said about Mr Tierney is correct, there are avenues of redress that can be taken forward by him in relation to that. That is the best way to do that—through the judicial system.

What we are saying is that, if somebody was travelling through a community on their way to a demonstration, to the picket line or to their work, that is included. Just to make sure—because I seem to have caused some confusion with my previous answer; it may be me who was wrong, rather than you—we will maybe get Elaine Hamilton to be specific on that.

However, I will add a point for your information. You said—and you are right—that there were very few convictions in Scotland under the Conspiracy, and Protection of Property Act 1875. According to the records that we know about, there were 16 convictions, which were solely in the Strathclyde region. At the time of the strike, the maximum penalty was £50 or three months in prison. We do not know what the disposals were.

I do not know whether Elaine Hamilton wants to add anything to clarify that, specifically in relation to travelling through an area and where we are and are not covering that.

That is a very good point. We are examining what we can do around that. The reason for the automaticity of the pardon is to make it as easy as possible for people who cannot necessarily provide evidence or documentation—in fact, we cannot provide much of the evidence and documentation. However, the idea that people really have to know that they have been pardoned is an important point.

We are looking at whether we can, first of all, work with the National Union of Mineworkers to look at its records and reach out to as many people as possible. However, there may be data protection issues in relation to that, which we will of course observe.

Beyond that, whether we can make a written statement will have to rely in some cases on people getting in touch with us, because we will not have the necessary information. We will not be able to go into the details of anybody’s particular conviction, mainly because those records are no longer held. The written letter, if we are able to do that, would make explicit the details of and qualifying criteria for the pardon, and it would it make it clear to that individual and their family that they are being pardoned. We are looking at that just now.

I can speak from my own experience of watching the events contemporaneously. I was never on the picket line, but I am pretty sure that I was involved in demonstrations, and certainly supporting activities, as a student in 1984. As I am sure the committee will remember, there was a lot of activity among students and community groups to help with miners’ welfare and so on.

Like everyone else at that time, I saw the pictures coming in from Orgreave, for example, where the policing seemed to me to be inconsistent with policing methods in Scotland. That distinction sometimes still appears to be there. For example, we might look at the policing of the recent 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—and the policing of the aftermath of Sarah Everard’s murder and the conviction that followed.

Policing in Scotland followed a different path even back then. However, there were allegations at the time—for example, that officers did not have numbers on their tunics and so on. I remember that there was a lot of grievance, because it was a time of heightened tensions at Bilston Glen and the other mines where there were issues. We are saying, therefore, that it was very difficult for the police, too, as they had not been put in such a situation before.

I do not have enough evidence to make a judgment on what the policing was like or where it fell down, but we know that miners were trying to defend their communities, their way of life and their livelihoods, and that led to some of the situations that happened on picket lines. For that reason, we are trying to see whether we can bring some reconciliation to the communities, and some comfort to the miners who were convicted and have had that conviction hanging around them for some time. That is the purpose of the bill; I do not pretend that it is trying to do anything else.

There are good reasons why we should not try to do a job that should be done by the UK Government. We do not have the facility to do that—we do not have the records, and the Parliament does not have the competence to look at some of those issues.

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.

The answer to the second point is no, I am not sure that we have considered that suggestion from the Lord President.

However, the draft order before us comes at the request of the Lord President, and that is partly for the reasons that you mention. We are keen to tackle the backlog, and that is perhaps why we have gone beyond the previous limit of 35, which was increased from 34 in 2016. We do not want the business to deal with the backlog to slow down, and that is why we want to appoint a further judge.

We have considered other things that may help. Sheriffs are sometimes elevated, but that would put more pressure on the sheriff courts. We are trying to balance that. The measure increases capacity for the Court of Session at a time when it would otherwise reduce because of the appointment of Lady Poole to the inquiry.

I am pretty sure that the Lord President said to me in his letter that the measure was to do with the backlog, too. That is being taken into account.

This landmark bill honours the commitment that the Scottish Government made to bring forward legislation to pardon miners of certain offences relating to the miners strike of 1984 to 1985. It follows up a recommendation made by an independent review group that a pardon should be granted to miners who were convicted of certain offences during the strike, subject to qualifying criteria. The pardon was intended to recognise the disproportionate impact felt by those miners as a result of taking part in the strike, to restore dignity to them, and to help the mining communities heal old wounds.

To establish what the qualifying criteria should be, the Scottish Government undertook a public consultation last year. The provisions in the bill reflect both the outcome of that consultation and careful consideration of the available data. It is important to emphasise at this point that there is very little surviving evidence from police and court records from the time of the strike, which is why I do not propose to put in place an application scheme for the pardon. I wish to make the qualifying criteria for the pardon as simple as possible so that people are able to assess for themselves whether the criteria are met, without having to find documentary evidence.

The bill proposes a collective pardon to miners that will apply automatically to those who meet the qualifying criteria, which are that the miner’s conviction relates to an offence committed while on a picket line, demonstration or similar gathering in support of the strike, or while travelling to or from such a gathering. The qualifying offences are breach of the peace, breach of bail conditions and those under section 41(1)(a) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967, commonly known as obstruction.

The bill is about reconciliation and dealing with the past in a sensitive way. The conditions of the pardon recognise that miners and police officers found themselves in extremely challenging situations where relationships came under unprecedented strain. Miners who took part in industrial action did so to protect their jobs, their way of life, and their communities. Police officers were only exercising their duty to uphold the law, in circumstances and on a scale that they had never encountered before.

The pardon will apply both to living people and posthumously, given the passage of time since the strike. The pardon does not quash a conviction; neither does it create any rights or entitlements. I am clear that the bill should not cast any doubt on decisions made by the judiciary at the time or seek to place blame on any individual or group of individuals. Once again, I am happy to take the committee’s questions.

I am grateful for the opportunity to present the Scottish Government’s new vision for justice in Scotland. We want to transform our justice services and put people at the heart of everything that we do.

We have a long and proud tradition of effective justice in Scotland and we have worked hard, over many years, to strengthen and modernise a justice system in which individuals and communities can have trust, but we recognise that we must do more. Our vision for justice will continue to strive to deliver a just, fair and resilient Scotland. I am bold in my ambition that the people of Scotland should be living in even safer, more tolerant and inclusive communities, free from inequality and hate.

Our vision is a Scotland where there is less crime and unintentional harm in our communities and where we all have fair access to justice, so that when we experience crime, something is done. It is a Scotland where we will be treated as people, first and foremost, and where our voices will be heard and we will be supported to recover from the trauma that we have experienced. It is a Scotland where those who have committed offences will be supported in rehabilitation by the most effective means, primarily remaining in our communities with support and opportunities for fair work, employment and housing.

I want to highlight two key messages from that vision. First, all our justice services, including those that are delivered by our third sector partners and the legal profession, must be person centred and trauma informed. No matter what our role is or what our interaction with justice services is, we know that how we are treated affects our feelings about justice processes and our confidence in them. Those experiences are often as important as the conclusion of a case or a dispute. Delivering person-centred services will ensure that a person’s needs and views are respected, that people receive timely and clear communication that they can understand, and that individuals and families will be involved in decisions that affect them.

Many of the issues that bring people to the justice system, whether as a victim or a person accused of crime, are very traumatic. It is our duty to minimise the inflicting of further trauma or retraumatisation and help recovery. We will embed trauma-informed practice and ensure that our justice services recognise the prevalence of trauma and adversity. We have already invested £250,000 over three years to fund a trauma specialist at NHS Education for Scotland to help to drive forward the development of a trauma-informed responsive workforce in our justice services in relation to the needs of victims and survivors.

Secondly, we must work across our public services to improve outcomes for individuals and focus on prevention and early intervention. The causes of crime are complex and varied, but we know that, to address those causes, we must tackle societal inequalities, such as gender inequality, child poverty, mental ill health, addiction and adverse childhood experiences. Those issues are beyond the responsibility of justice alone, but justice has a role in responding to them. I am determined that Scotland’s public services will work together to address those issues and that individuals will be supported at the earliest opportunity to improve their life chances and, ultimately, to reduce the risk of offending and reoffending. By focusing on early intervention, we can also ensure that the right services are provided at the right time and, where possible, that they support people to avoid contact with the justice services.

I have three priority areas of action. The first is women and children. Violence against women and girls in any form has no place in our vision for a safe, strong and successful Scotland. It damages health and wellbeing and limits freedom and potential, and it is a violation of the most fundamental human rights. The Government is committed to tackling behaviour that stems from systemic and deep-rooted women’s inequality. That inequality leads to violent and abusive behaviour by men directed at women and girls precisely because they are women and girls.

We must recognise the role that our justice system plays in perpetuating that inequality. Historically, our justice system was designed by men for men. Put simply, it does not meet the needs of women and children in our society. Survivors tells us that how they are treated by justice services affects their feelings of confidence in the justice process.

Low conviction rates for sexual crimes are also a real cause for concern. That is why we want to improve how the justice system can serve women and ensure that survivors have trust in the criminal justice process.

I welcome the establishment of the new women’s justice leadership panel, which is chaired by the Minister for Community Safety, Ash Regan.

In “Improving the Management of Sexual Offence Cases”, Lady Dorrian made a number of recommendations to benefit and empower women who have experienced sexual abuse. A governance group that is led by the Scottish Government and which comprises key stakeholders met for the first time on 21 December. That group will drive forward progress and detailed consideration of the individual and collective recommendations in Lady Dorrian’s report.

We also have work to do to improve justice for children. We are committed to keeping the Promise. We will continue to deliver our reinforced and reinvigorated whole-system approach to prevent youth offending and, to the extent possible, no under-18s will be remanded or sentenced to detention in a young offenders institute. We will continue to invest in services to strengthen support for families that are affected by parental imprisonment and to listen to the voice of the child in family law cases. During the lifespan of the vision, we will fulfil our commitment to provide access to a bairn’s hoose for every child who needs it.

Overall rates of offending have fallen under the Government, but we must ensure that victims are heard. We must offer approaches to justice that place victims at the heart of the process and support them in their recovery. We will deliver on our commitment to appoint a victims commissioner to provide an independent voice for victims. We will also look towards progressing different forms of justice, including restorative justice, which allow victims to take a prominent role.

We know that delay and uncertainty caused great stress to victims and survivors. Covid-19 has put significant pressure on our justice system, increasing the time for cases to progress through the criminal justice system, and that brings additional stress to victims.

While we continue to recover our services and reduce the backlog of cases, we must avoid going back to the system as it was before the pandemic. Instead, we should embrace innovative approaches that allow our services to operate efficiently and with the needs of victims at their heart. We have established a justice recovery fund of £52.3 million in the next financial year, which will be allocated to recovery, renewal and transformation activity across the justice system.

Although there will always be a place for prison in our society, we must support people in their rehabilitation in the most appropriate and effective setting. Many of those who offend have themselves experienced poverty, disadvantage, adverse childhood experiences and trauma, and have often had substance abuse or health problems that require our support. Ultimately, the evidence demonstrates that community interventions are more effective than short prison sentences in addressing offending behaviour and reducing the risk of reoffending. I repeat: community interventions are more effective than short prison sentences in addressing offending behaviour and reducing the risk of reoffending. Surely, we all want to reduce the risk of reoffending.

The consultation on bail and release from custody arrangements closed yesterday after running for 12 weeks, and that represents the first step in a wider discussion about how custody should be used in a modern, progressive Scotland. The responses to that consultation will inform the legislation that we will bring to Parliament for scrutiny. Additionally, a refreshed national community justice strategy has been developed, and it will set out clear aims for partners, with an emphasis on early intervention and encouraging a further shift away from the use of custody.

Public protection remains paramount, and, for many crimes that are committed, there are victims who have suffered and continue to do so. As we work to ensure effective rehabilitation and recovery for those who have offended, that must be balanced with the safety of victims and their own recovery from harm and trauma. That is a principle that we have taken forward in our work on bail supervision. The new guidelines place a specific emphasis on victim safety in decision making, with greater focus on using remand for those who pose a risk of serious harm.

There are two views about how the justice system can evolve. We can have the puerile practice of trying to look tough on crime after crime has happened and victims have suffered, which usually involves locking more people up for longer periods and building more and bigger prisons, paid for, presumably, by slashing police numbers by around 17,000; or we can be tough enough to make the difficult decisions that will lead to less crime being committed, which means that there are fewer victims and less suffering.

Our new vision for justice has been developed in collaboration with our justice partners and has been endorsed by the justice board for Scotland. Our year 1 delivery plan, also published today, demonstrates the commitments that Government and the justice agencies have already made, but we recognise that we need to do more. Therefore, over the coming months, we will work across the justice sector and beyond to develop a delivery plan setting out our medium and long-term actions for the rest of this parliamentary session and beyond.

I want to conclude by making a commitment that the minister and I will ensure that Scotland’s justice services are transformed to meet the needs of people in today’s society. To them, I say: justice will be for you and with you, at heart.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises that the new Vision for Justice enables a programme of work to transform the justice system to ensure that services are person centred and trauma informed; further recognises the need to work across public services, taking a whole-government approach, to improve outcomes for individuals and focus on prevention and early intervention, and making communities safer; acknowledges that there must be urgent action to improve the experiences of women and children and ensure that the voices of victims and survivors are heard and acted upon; acknowledges that, to address the causes of crime, any action must tackle socio-economic inequalities such as gender inequality, child poverty, mental ill health and addictions, and support individuals at the earliest opportunity to improve their life chances and reduce offending and reoffending, and acknowledges that, while there will always be a place for restricting people’s liberty in society, there must be a safe and secure environment for those in custody, as well as those who work in prisons, and that the balance should be shifted to ensure that the role of custody is used only when no alternative is appropriate, making greater use of alternative options in communities.