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The report covers the year 2020-21. Will we at some point—even if it is three years hence—see signed off accounts for SEPA for 2020-21, or is that possibility gone forever?

The next item on our agenda is consideration of “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”. We are joined by the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle, and, via videolink, by Morag Campsie, who is a senior manager of audit services in Audit Scotland, and Joanne Brown, who is a partner in Grant Thornton UK LLP and carried out the audit.

I invite the Auditor General to make an opening statement.

That is great. Willie Coffey, who joins us online, has a question.

Auditor General, one of the striking things in your opening statement was the fact that the auditor issued a disclaimer of opinion on SEPA’s annual report and accounts for 2020-21 and, therefore, the accounts have not been signed off. You used the word “unusual” for that choice, and it is extremely unusual. You also said that that was principally because of unsatisfactory records or evidence around a notional £42 million of income from fees. Who takes the decision to put in that disclaimer and not sign off the accounts? Is it Joanne Brown at Grant Thornton, or is it you, the Auditor General, at Audit Scotland? At what level is that decision taken?

I presume that that means that you—I do not know whether it is just you or a team—have to work closely with SEPA’s finance people and audit committee to ensure that things remain on track and go at the fastest pace that can be done while retaining the integrity of the accounting systems. Are you devoting a lot of your time to developing the situation from where it has been?

Thanks, Willie. I will come back to you before the end of the session for the other area of questioning that you have.

Craig Hoy wants to explore SEPA’s response, both immediate and in the medium term, to the crisis and attack when it happened.

Thank you very much, convener, for allowing me to take part in this morning’s evidence session—I really appreciate it.

Some of my questions reflect on what you have already told us, cabinet secretary. Did I hear you say earlier that those convicted of an offence under the Conspiracy, and Protection of Property Act 1875 will now be included in the pardon?

Okay, so it is not covered. I think that most people accept that, if there are public assaults involved, they are not included in the pardon. However, the 1875 act—I think that only a handful of people in Scotland were convicted under it—is about encouraging people to take part in strike action. That seems to me to be directly related to the activities around the strike, which in my view ought to be covered. However, I am sure that we shall debate that as the bill goes through Parliament.

Another thing that you mentioned earlier—again, keep me right on this, because I was obviously wrong about the first thing—was in relation to answers to questions about community-based convictions, which are currently excluded. You said something about “going through” communities. That reminds me of the case of one of your constituents, Jim Tierney, who was arrested and then convicted in Alloa sheriff court for allegedly throwing a missile at a working miners’ bus outside the Fishcross miners welfare club. He was convicted, but he disputes the conviction and he has evidence to support his disputation. Are you saying that you are willing to accept that such a case could be covered by the pardon?

This is a related point. Cabinet secretary, you mentioned the eastern villages—Fallin and Plean, for example—which were a flashpoint in the strike back in 1984 and 1985. Let us consider the village of Fallin, which is where the Polmaise colliery was. The miners at Polmaise were 100 per cent out, so there was no question of there being a need to take action to discourage people from going into the pit. However, it was reported to the Scott inquiry that there was nonetheless a very heavy police presence in the community, which led to tensions in the community and to arrests and subsequent convictions in the community.

Do you not think that there is a case for extending the scope of the bill in recognition of the fact that the dispute was conducted not just at the gates of the colliery or at demonstrations, but in communities as well?

I accept that you are not aware of any convictions in Fallin in that context, but you are aware of the conviction of Jim Tierney, for example, who is one of your constituents.

There is a final area that I want to probe a little bit more. We have heard members of the committee say that they are not in favour of a compensation scheme. I am in favour of a compensation scheme, and the reasons are pretty straightforward. We know from the Scott review that there was

“an element of arbitrary application”

of the criminal law by the police, prosecutors and the sheriffs. The review found an inherent injustice. It also spoke about dismissals being

“disproportionate, excessive and unreasonable”.

In one of the committee’s previous evidence sessions, the former Lothians police officer Tom Wood said that, in his opinion, the dismissals represented “extrajudicial punishment.” He thought—he is a former serving police officer who policed the strike—that the National Coal Board’s actions were “spiteful” and excessive.

You mentioned Orgreave, but the figures show that someone in Scotland was twice as likely to be arrested as someone at a coalfield in any other part of the UK, and they were three times as likely to be dismissed. People have spoken about the then National Coal Board area director, Albert Wheeler, conducting almost a vendetta. Anybody who was convicted was automatically dismissed. In other areas of the National Coal Board, that was not the case. There was a mood of reconciliation—at the time, in 1985—and people returned to their jobs. Do you not see that there is a Scottish dimension that needs to be addressed?

There has been psychological and emotional scarring, and family lives changed for ever as a result of what happened, including what happened to those people who were convicted and then dismissed. We have spoken about women not being included in those who were convicted. That might be true, but many women who were married to or had relationships with miners, or were daughters of miners, were condemned by those decisions and suffered huge hardship as a result of them.

Do you not at least accept that there is a principle that there ought to be some compensation? You may say that it could be paid at a UK level rather than as part of the bill, and members have spoken about a delay to the pardon. It seems to me that, if you set out the principles in the bill, it would be possible to address that. It has been done in other instances where there have been injustices and the Scottish Government has decided to address those.

Where do you stand on the principle of compensation? Surely you understand the arguments about the impact that the dispute had and the injustices that were perpetrated on the miners and their communities, but also their families.