Chamber and committees

We have had evidence that around 60,000 people got into debt for the first time during the pandemic; what does that tell us about the picture of poverty in Scotland, and what does that mean for how services are delivered and for solutions to the issue? In your submission, you call for a more joined-up data sharing scheme for support services and affordable credit. Could you explain a bit about what happens now and what a more joined-up scheme would look like? Finally, people do not have enough money to pay for essentials. As has already been said, even bankruptcy is a temporary solution. What specific action could we take in Scotland on that and to address the cost of living crisis?

What could we do with the powers that we currently have in Scotland to make the situation better?

Good morning, panel. Thank you for all the evidence that you have provided so far this morning and the information that you shared in advance of the meeting. As I said to the other panel, a lot of what we are hearing is just horrific and I cannot imagine what it is like to have to deliver these services and, indeed, to experience the sort of direct experiences that you have described. It is just horrific.

I have a couple of questions that bring together themes 1 and 3, and I will direct them at Mental Health UK and VOX Scotland. We know—and much of the evidence that we have received acknowledges—that mental health issues and debt issues are related. You have touched on some of this already, but what does that mean for the delivery of services? How can we break the link between mental health issues and debt, and what specific actions can the Government in Scotland take to identify people who will need that additional support?

If it is okay, I would like to direct those questions to Zahra Hussain and Wendy McAuslan.

Convener, in the interests of time, I will roll in one of my other questions, as it would sit more appropriately in this theme.

Good morning. I am sorry that I am not there in person. I thank the witnesses for their submissions to the inquiry—they have been incredibly helpful—and for the evidence this morning, some of which is incredibly hard to hear. I cannot imagine how hard it is to deliver those services, so I say a massive thank you to them for that too.

I have a couple of questions for Sarah-Jayne Dunn, and then a couple for Peter Kelly.

Last week, we heard about what is, to be honest, an horrific operating environment for some citizens advice bureaux advisers, and about what they have to deal with as a result of a lot of the things that you have explained this morning. We heard that they are completely burnt out—and someone said that their staff worry about some of the same issues as the people they give advice to, which shows the depth and change in nature of poverty and debt in Scotland. What is your understanding of that environment? Can you tell us a little bit more about the experience of your advisers?

I also have a question for you on something slightly different. I will ask it now in the interests of time. We know that digital exclusion prevents people from accessing some services. During the previous evidence session we heard that, during the pandemic, mobile phone companies let people access the NHS without using their data. Would it help the clients you work with if they were able to access specific websites without using their mobile phone data allowance? If so, which websites should they be able to access?

I will start with amendment 3A in my name. We are very happy to support measures that will broaden the bill’s scope, particularly the offences that are covered by it, but we believe that including in the bill offences that were committed by those who opposed the strike sends the wrong message and might even go against the spirit of the proposed legislation.

We prefer the wording “related to”, because it recognises that we are trying to support miners, not necessarily people who were opposed to the strike. We feel that amendment 3A tidies up the bill in that regard and is more in the spirit of what is intended through the bill. We are, for those reasons, more comfortable with the phrase “related to” as opposed to “supporting or opposing”.

On amendment 17, we welcome the fact that the Government has extended the convictions to include theft, and we believe that amendment 17 will reinforce the Government’s extensions in that regard. Moreover, as the amendment covers offences that are more specifically related to those that happened in industrial actions, we think that it relates directly to what the Government seeks to do through the bill.

We will not be able to support amendments 9, 10, 11, 15 and 12, as they narrow the scope of the bill further.

Thank you for that clarification, convener. I thought that I had better take a belt-and-braces approach.

I will cover some of the points that the cabinet secretary has raised, because a number of them are legitimate concerns. I would be willing to work with the Government at stage 3 to tidy up some of the amendments, provided that we could address what I intend my amendments to do.

The strike was, as is the case for many of us in this room, a feature in our household, although I was quite young at the time—three or four years old. What it did to miners and their allies was always spoken about in our home as an example of the maltreatment of workers who should not have had to fear for their livelihoods or fear being criminalised just for standing up for workers’ rights. I would have stood in solidarity with them then, as I would now. I think that we can all agree that they were treated awfully.

The rights to protest, to organise, and to rise up and give workers a voice must all always be protected—then, now and always. That is why I stand in solidarity with those who are striking now with the University and College Union and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—the RMT—and with the P&O workers. It is also why I spoke up when Glasgow City Council threatened to bring in agency workers when the cleansing workers went on strike. No intimidation of that sort is acceptable. An attack on one is an attack on us all, and we must always be on the side of workers.

The committee has heard compelling evidence from miners, which was incredibly moving. Communities were ruined. Families and friends turned against one another. Pensions were lost. Jobs were snatched away illegally. We also heard evidence from the police, which I have to put on record that I felt was at odds with the evidence from miners, and I found it hard to reconcile that.

In short, we welcome the Government’s intentions for the bill. We welcome the pardon and the extensions that the cabinet secretary’s amendments have proposed. We also welcome the support for things such as the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, but again we note that a number of communities still have not recovered.

My amendments 13 and 14 are consequential to amendments 4A and 4B and provide definitions. I would be more than happy to discuss those definitions in detail, cabinet secretary, because it certainly was not my intention to exclude some family members in the way that you have described. If the Government were prepared to work on that definition at stage 3, I would be prepared do that.

The reason why amendments 4A and 4B are important is that it was not just the people who lived in the same household who were affected by what happened to miners. It was also their family, their friends and those who stood in solidarity with them. That is why my amendments seek to broaden the definition beyond those who were in the household to other family members and friends who stood in solidarity with the miners.

As I said, I was quite young at that time, but if I may imagine the way that strikes go: you bring your household at times, but you also bring your family and friends. You bring your trade union colleagues and those who are standing in solidarity with you. That was the intention of both amendments 4A and 4B, and in particular of amendment 4B’s inclusion of the supporters of miners. It is incredibly important that workers know that they can have the support of other people standing in solidarity with them in the future, and that the people who did that during the miners strike know that they too can be pardoned for their part because of the way that they were treated.

We heard persuasive evidence that the strike was particularly difficult for women—the wives and daughters of miners—who took on huge responsibilities during the strike. Again, far from diluting the cabinet secretary’s amendments, I feel that my amendments would strengthen the bill by broadening the pardon to those people, whose lives were also completely ruined.

The Government’s amendment 1 seeks to take into account what the committee said and we support and welcome it, but it should be extended to include everyone who stood in support of the miners, family or not. Ultimately, the bill is about historical injustices and we need to send a solid message that that sort of treatment of workers should never be tolerated again. I believe that the amendments in my name do that by broadening the scope of who would be pardoned. I will potentially move the amendments, but not right now.

I speak in support of amendment 16. I understand that it will not go to a vote today, but I reiterate my colleague Richard Leonard’s calls to the cabinet secretary to produce a financial resolution ahead of stage 3. My colleague Fulton MacGregor has noted that the Presiding Officer has said that we cannot vote on the amendment today, but the Presiding Officer did not say that the bill was not the place to include compensation. The Presiding Officer said that, because the bill did not have a financial resolution, we could not consider the amendment. The reason why there is not a financial resolution is not that the bill is not competent to consider it; it is because the Government did not produce one. The Government did not produce one because it has said that, until now, financial compensation would be the responsibility of a different Government.

This is an example of putting our money where our mouth is. If we think that this Parliament can offer the pardon to miners that they deserve, we must also agree that Parliament has the competence to pay them compensation. If it does not have the competence to do that, what competence does it have to offer the pardon? The two must go together.

I do not want to delay the bill, because time is of the essence, but I reiterate my colleague Richard Leonard’s points about the speed at which legislation can be introduced and progressed when the Government wants to do so. We have shown that during the Covid pandemic and we have seen various other examples of that, the Carer’s Allowance Supplement (Scotland) Bill being one. I urge the Government to reconsider this issue.

Finally, on my colleague Alexander Stewart’s comments about this being an issue for the UK Government, I would love more miners to be pardoned in other jurisdictions, but this is a bill of the Scottish Parliament and it is a bill to acknowledge the injustice felt by miners. As we know, the injustice was at the hands of the police, the sheriffs and the justice system, all of which were part of the separate legal system in Scotland at the time, and for which the Scottish Parliament assumed responsibility later. It is not sufficient to say that this Parliament does not have the competency to consider the issue of compensation, so I would urge the Government to seriously consider the financial resolution that would be required. At least, then, if the Government does not necessarily believe that compensation should be paid—although I think that colleagues do believe that—Parliament can make that decision for itself at stage 3.

Good morning to the committee, the cabinet secretary and all those who have joined us in the public gallery.

I will start by moving the amendments in my name, in case I forget at the end. I move amendments 4A, 4B, 13 and 14 in this group—