Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.

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.