Chamber and committees

Thank you, Willie.

Auditor General, you are absolutely right to talk about the human dignity and respect that are at the centre of the Sturrock report and recommendations. I want to look at the overall cost and some of the nuts and bolts of that. Do you have any indication of how many further recommendations for financial payments there are likely to be? Could you clarify who is footing the bill for that? Is the funding coming from the health board itself, or is any additional Scottish Government funding being made available? Could you, Joanne Brown or Leigh Johnston shed any light on what the division is between the value of the compensation payments that have been made and the cost and administration of the process?

Could you begin by addressing those points, Stephen?

Thank you, convener. I appreciate the opportunity to ask my questions this morning.

As Karen Adam said, the strike was a defining moment in modern Scottish history and ensuring that we get the legislation right will be a defining moment for the Scottish Parliament.

I was old enough to be around during the miners strike. I was living in Stirling at the time and the Polmaise colliery was one of the flashpoints that precipitated the national strike.

I want to make a couple of points, if I may, convener. Bob Young introduced himself as the NUM chairman at Comrie, Alex Bennett introduced himself as the NUM chairman at Monktonhall, and Nicky Wilson, now the president of the union, was also very active. We need to understand that it was a clear attempt to decapitate the leadership of the union. That must be recognised in our approach to what happened and what we need to do now.

Alex spoke about his own experience. In preparation for today, I read the testimony of Cathy Mitchell from Kirkcaldy, because the families as well as the miners themselves were affected by what happened. She talked about her husband John, who was blacklisted and convicted of obstruction in 1984 and fined £5, which resulted in him losing out on a £26,000 redundancy payment from the Frances colliery. [Richard Leonard has corrected this contribution. See end of report.] The challenges were very real and that is why it is perfectly legitimate for us to look at compensation. Clear financial hardship and detriment were caused. I hope that we will address that in the course of our deliberations in the Parliament.

I will put my question to Nicky Wilson. One of the arguments that people have made against compensation is that we no longer live in an age where there is a unitary UK Government because we have devolution, so why should the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament be in any way responsible for what happened back then?

There is now a Scottish Parliament and there is no longer a Scottish Office—there is a Scotland Office. We no longer have eight police forces—there is just one. The National Coal Board does not exist in the way that it did. My question to Nicky is this: does that mean that an apology is impossible and that financial compensation could not be met?

Richard Leonard has identified an error in his contribution and provided the following correction.

At col 20, paragraph 9—

Original text—

She talked about her husband John, who was blacklisted and convicted of obstruction in 1984 and fined £5, which resulted in him losing out on a £26,000 redundancy payment from the Frances colliery.

Corrected text—

She talked about her husband John, who was blacklisted and convicted of obstruction in 1984 and fined £50, which resulted in him losing out on a £27,000 redundancy payment from the Frances colliery.

I again thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask a couple of brief questions.

Language is extremely important, and the choice of words in this session has struck me. Jim McBrierty, you used the expression “infiltrators”. I presume that you do not consider Nicky Wilson, Alex Bennett and Bob Young to be “infiltrators”. How many of the 400-odd convicted miners that we are talking about would you classify as “infiltrators”?

The language that Tom Wood used, which I have heard him use before, really resonated. Tom, I think that you spoke about the coal board exercising extrajudicial punishment that you considered to be spiteful, disproportionate, excessive and so on, with people who committed minor breach of the peace offences being subsequently sacked and blackballed.

In those circumstances, what do you think that the most appropriate remedy is? You spoke about the lives that were changed, the lives that were lost and the course of people’s destinies being changed by that simple act, which you described as extrajudicial punishment. In those circumstances, do you not think that there is at least a case for some form of compensation to be paid to people?

Yes, it does. That was helpful. I presume that any money that is recovered as a result of the initiative goes back to the bodies that have been defrauded, and not to Audit Scotland.

My point is that although you have to pay a fee to get the data sets, and although you track the fraud, you do not get to recover the fee that you have to pay in the first place.

I have just one very quick question. I note that paragraph 68 of the budget proposal document, under the heading “Other administrative costs”, mentions an increase of £220,000

“in respect of the biennial National Fraud Initiative”.

Can Stephen Boyle explain how that figure has been calculated? Is the increase for recruiting additional staff or for bringing in additional services? Moreover, can you explain for our benefit under which of the various budget lines that expense sits in the table in appendix 2 on page 19 of the document?

That would be helpful.

Thank you. I remind witnesses and members that, if they wish to come in at any point, they should type R in the chat function.

As Mr Brannen has just told us, he is quite new to the post, so he should feel free to bring in John Kerr and Andrew Scott to answer the more detailed questions that members will wish to put to him. If there are any questions that you are not able to fully answer, there is the opportunity for us to receive evidence in writing after today’s oral evidence session, if that is a better way of communicating the information that we seek.

I will open with a couple of questions. My first is a fundamental question, which is to ask whether you accept in full all the findings and recommendations of the Audit Scotland report.

Thanks, John. I think there will be a return to some of those areas in further questions from the committee.

I wish to move on, and I invite Craig Hoy to ask some questions.