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For clarity, I note that VAT policy is reserved.

Hear, hear.

I welcome the legislation. To put the issue in practical terms, the First Minister will be aware that in many small towns, such as Galashiels in my constituency, town centres are blighted by many long-term vacant large retail outlets, whose actual owners or landlords cannot be traced, which prevents organisations such as Energise Galashiels and the local authority from redeveloping the town centre through either voluntary or compulsory purchase. Is that the type of difficulty that the legislation will, at long last, help to resolve?

Will the member take an intervention?

Will the member take an intervention?

I like the word “generous”—thank you, Presiding Officer.

First, I thank the former miners and families whom I had the privilege of meeting earlier today. Unfortunately, I probably talked too much, as usual.

My interest in the matter stems not only from my memories of 40 years ago and the images of police on horseback charging into lines of demonstrating miners, but from having the National Mining Museum Scotland in my constituency. It is in Newtongrange, which has neat lines of miners’ cottages on First Street, Second Street, Third Street and so on. My constituency also includes Gorebridge, which has a memorial to miners who lost their lives in the pits over the years, and the Shottstown miners welfare club in Penicuik.

All that means that the landscape and sense of community of Scotland’s mining past are literally never out of my sight. I also think of my mother, a Derbyshire woman and the daughter of a Welsh miner who died prematurely of an injury sustained in the pit. My mother never let us forget the hardships of the job, and the fact that he left behind 10 orphaned children, including her.

I also witnessed the events of 1984-85 in daily news bulletins. I saw the severity of Thatcher’s assaults on the mining communities and the union leadership taking on the Tory Government when coal was stockpiled high. None of that prepared me for mass policing and the sight of police charging on horseback into men and women who were defending their communities and livelihoods. Those officers were often shipped in from outside the community, because the police dared not use local officers.

During the strike, 1,300 or more people were charged and more than 400 were convicted, usually of breach of the peace or obstructing the police. As has been said, those convictions stand to this day, so the bill is much to be welcomed. However, a pardon does not remove the note of a conviction from the record. I will come to that later. I absolutely agree with a symbolic and collective blanket pardon. I note others’ comments that the Scottish Government should try to identify surviving individuals or family members to let them know that miners might qualify. We need a publicity campaign to ensure that they are aware of their rights, which the Government is doing partly through the NUM.

I note that the Government has recognised that miners’ wives and families who were directly involved in the dispute may also have received convictions and should perhaps be encompassed by the bill. I am glad that that door is open.

I note that there is currently a limit on the locus. The issue of the locus is extremely difficult. The Law Society has said that the current definition, which uses the wording “other similar gathering”, is difficult. Thompsons Solicitors has suggested that the phrase should be

“activities connected with the miners’ strike”,

but that is quite broad. That issue has to be teased out. I am listening carefully to the idea that the locus should be limited to the picket line and travel to picket lines.

I certainly agree that the UK must hold an inquiry into all that took place and, in particular, into whether there was political interference in policing and the judiciary.

I am hugely sympathetic to what Labour members have said on compensation. However, the problem is that, if we provide compensation from our budget, that would come out of the budgets that keep our health service and education and justice systems going. I note that £4.4 billion has been taken from the miners’ pension fund by the UK Government, which has not put in a penny. We must not let the UK Government off the hook, either for that or for the responsibility to pay out for something that was its fault.

I am with the member much of the way, but I am reluctant, not because the miners do not deserve compensation or should not get it but because we would have to take money from the budgets that deliver our health and education services to pay for something that was wholly the political fault of the UK Government. The issue that I have is that the money would come from other ordinary people’s pockets and services.

I will finish shortly, because you have been very generous, Presiding Officer. I note that the Historical Sexual Offences (Pardons and Disregards) (Scotland) Act 2018 had similar policy objectives, although it was about something that was once illegal becoming legal. However, there was a second condition in that act that is not in the bill. The 2018 act put in place a scheme to enable a person who had been convicted of a historical sexual offence to apply to have that conviction disregarded, so that it would never be disclosed as, for example, part of an enhanced disclosure check.

That brings me to the observations of the Law Society in that regard. It noted:

“the Bill specifically stresses that a pardon will not affect any conviction or sentence, nor will it give rise to any right or entitlement or liability.”

There is an issue there. People think that, by being granted this omnipresent pardon, their conviction will be expunged from their record, but it will not. I ask the Scottish Government, if the bill does not expunge the conviction, as it managed in the 2018 act with a similar pardon, why can we not put something in the bill so that miners have on their record a note that shows that they have been granted a pardon?

Further to that answer, what difference have the 20mph speed limit and dedicated cycle lanes had on road traffic accidents in areas such as my constituency?

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government anticipates the impact will be of the register of persons holding a controlled interest in land, which will launch on 1 April. (S6F-00968)

Following on much the same strain, does the First Minister agree that Douglas Ross should remember that we wear face coverings not just for ourselves but mainly to protect the stranger next to us on the bus or in the supermarket who might be, for example, undergoing cancer treatment and be immunodeficient without us knowing and who needs us to wear our masks so that they can at least go out and shop?