 The next item of business is stage 3 proceedings on the minor strike part in Scotland Bill. In dealing with the amendments, members should have the bill as amended at stage 2, that is Scottish Parliament Bill 5A, the Martial Blist and the groupings of amendments. The division bell will sound and proceedings will be suspended for five minutes for the first division of stage 3. The period of voting for each division will be up to one minute. Members who wish to speak in the debate on any group of amendments should press the request to speak buttons as soon as possible after I call the group. Members should now refer to the Martial Blist of amendments. I start with group 1, which is on qualifying conduct and I call amendment 3 in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy, grouped with amendment 6. The right to protest, to organise and to rise and give workers a voice must always be predicted then, now and always. For those reasons, we welcome the Government's intentions for the bill. We welcome the pardon and the extensions that have been secured in the parliamentary process. Amendment 3 seeks to use language that is more inclusive, and that is the approach to which the Scottish Labour Party has taken with the bill. We seek to ensure that the bill is as wide and encompassing as possible, and that is what amendment 3 does. Amendment 3, if I may, and I move amendment 3 in my name. Amendment 3 is also in this group, in the name of Richard Leonard, and I would like to encourage members to support it. The amendment reinforces the welcome extension of the offences that the Government included at stage 2, and that reinforces that. In fact, I would suggest that it is more relevant to the bill as it covers offences that are directly related to actions that are carried out in the course of industrial action then, now and possibly to the future, so we must make sure that that is also included. I move amendment 3 in my name. Thank you, Ms Duncan Glancy. I now call Richard Leonard to speak to amendment 6 and the other amendment in the group. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I move amendment 6 in my name? Let me begin by thanking all of those who join us in the public gallery today. I have come here to speak in Parliament for them. I have come here to ask this Parliament to stand with them. I have come here to call not simply for a symbolic act of Parliament and a symbolic pardon, but for real justice, a moral justice, a practical justice, a meaningful justice and a financial justice. amendment 6 seeks to include those to be pardoned, those miners who were convicted of an offence under section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875. The 1875 act is an old act, an archaic, an archaic act, which goes all the way back to Benjamin Disraeli. In its time, it has only been applied rarely, although notoriously, it was used to charge Des Warren, Ricky Tomlinson and the Shrewsbury Pickets in 1973. It is a law that was also used during the miners' strike in Scotland in 1984-85. However, as far as we can tell, it is only in Strathclyde, only in 16 cases and only covering low-level offences, leading to fines of only £50. For the avoidance of doubt, those were not acts of violence under section 7 of the act, which we are seeking pardon for, those were minor offences under section 7 of the act. The truth is, if they had been committed in Fife or in the Cabinet Secretary's own constituency in Clackmannan, they would have resulted in nothing more than convictions for breach of the peace. Without this amendment, those people convicted of breach of the peace will be pardoned, but the 16 miners convicted under the 1875 act would not. That is an inconsistency, an injustice within an injustice. Yes, I'll give way. I'm very grateful to Richard Leonard for giving away, and I assure him of the support of the Liberal Democrats for this important amendment. Does he agree that the use of that archaic act was symbolic at the time of the authorities trying to up tariff sentences or rather the criminality that they were trying to describe to lawful protest? Richard Leonard? Yes, I do agree with that analysis, and the John Scott review looked in some detail at the policing of the dispute, and it's that this bill, which I hope will become an act, has got its roots very firmly placed in that John Scott review. To exclude those miners convicted under the 1875 act would be an inconsistency. It would be an injustice within an injustice. It would be irrational and unjust not to include these offences to be covered by the pardon. Can I now turn briefly to Pam Duncan Glance's amendments? The strike ended 37 years ago. All the pits have long since closed, and I accept that for new generations, this might seem like some old history. But for those of us who live through it, in coalfield communities, it is still very real and very raw. Many of us joined miners support groups back in 1984, collected for the miners, we witnessed the strife, the hardship that was caused, and we witnessed as well the brutality of the state during that year. So it is right that those supporters convicted for nonviolent activities in support of the strike, as proposed by Pam Duncan Glance, are included in this pardon. Let me finish by declaring an interest. I was a delegate to the central region miners support group, which met every Thursday night in Stirling throughout the strike. I'm reminded that other delegates to that support group included the parents of the cabinet secretary for communities, social security and equality. Her parents were two of the nicest Stalinists I've ever met. I was not arrested. They, as far as I know, were not arrested, so maybe there is no need to declare an interest. But we stood firmly in solidarity with the miners along with thousands of others. Those who did so took part in the same battle as the miners, to save those jobs, to save an industry, a class, a culture, a way of life and should be included in the coverage of this bill, which is why I urge members to vote for Pam Duncan Glance's amendment. I'm delighted to speak in support of some of the amendments in this grouping. The two amendments in the grouping relate to qualified conduct, which applies to the conduct that occurred during the 1984-85 minus strike. Section 1 amendment 3, in the name of Pam Duncan Glance, leaves out supporting or opposing an insert relating to. That amendment provides slightly improved drafting to section 1, and we're happy to support that amendment. Amendment 6, in the name of Richard Leonard, wishes to extend the scope. We already have a breach of the peace, a breach of bail conditions and an offer under section 4, 1A, of the Police Scotland Act 1967. The proposal to extend or incorporate conspiracy and protection and property act 1875, we believe, extends the scope of the bill too widely, as penalties and infrasions and avoidance of violence or otherwise seems unnecessary. We will not be supporting this amendment in the name of Richard Leonard. I rise to speak in favour of the amendments of Pam Duncan Glance and the amendment for Richard Leonard. First, I would say that this is a good day, the recognition and the pardon for minors that were sacked. Alexander Stewart talks about violence. I was not a miner, but my dad was, and my dad was on strike in the 8485 strike, and I certainly toured the country with him on the picket lines, and I would say to him that the violence I saw was the violence of the state, and that's why it is right today that those minors who were unlawfully sacked for fighting for their jobs should have the pardon that is coming. However, in terms of the amendments, firstly, the people who were supporting the minors, the communities, I was certainly brought up in a mining community, and the buses that left Kelty to go to the strike, the picket lines. There were many people on those buses that were not minors, but were there to support them, and we should recognise that, and that's what Richard Leonard and Pam Duncan Glance's amendment starts to do. However, there will be 16 minors that were convicted under outdated law. I look forward to hearing what he has to say, but let's not leave those 16 minors out either and support the amendments that are put forward today. Thank you, Mr Rowley. I now call on the cabinet secretary to respond. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Like Richard Leonard, I welcome those in the public gallery who are former miners and their representatives. As Alex Rowley just said, that could be an extremely important historic day for Scotland if we can pass this bill, and I would hope that we are able to pass it with one voice. And also to say that we all are here to support justice. That's the whole purpose behind this bill. Presiding Officer, the chamber might be aware that I did not support the amendment that Pam Duncan Glance had brought forward at stage 2, which sought to replace the reference to supporting or opposing, proposed by myself with a broader reference to relating to the strike. The matter was debated at committee with the outcome being that the reference to supporting or opposing be added to the bill as amended at stage 2. Amendment 3 brings this matter now into the chamber for debate. I have again listened carefully to Ms Duncan Glance's explanation of why this form of wording is more preferable to what was supported at the committee and is now included in the bill. I note the member's point about the bill covering only those in support of the strike, but I had discussed this very issue with the national union of workers, Mike Muckers, who is here today, and they were perfectly comfortable with the new formulation. A consequence of moving away from exclusively covering pickets demonstrations and similar gatherings to covering disturbances in the community, as we did at stage 2, is that we need to recognise that those on both sides of the strike could have relevant convictions, remembering that the bill is about reconciliation. I would therefore remain concerned that the broader wording that the member suggests is rather vague and might create uncertainty, and, in turn, that uncertainty could make it harder for people to self-assess whether they qualify for the pardon. The current reference to supporting or opposing makes clear the purpose of the activity that a person was engaged in, participating in or responding to during the minor strike, and personal matters are expressly excluded. I would say to all members that if we are going to have any real attempt at reconciliation, somebody who is against the strike also has to be covered for the same behaviours as those who were for it. As I said, I have discussed that with the NUM, and that formulation is understandable and presents them with no issues. I therefore cannot support amendment 3 on that basis, and we urge other members to do likewise if Ms Duncan-Glancy presses her amendment. On amendment 6, turning to Richard Leonard's amendment, as the chamber may be aware, the committee had a cordial and constructive debate on that at stage 2. The limited data available had suggested that there were 16 convictions, as has been mentioned, under section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 related to the strike, all of which took place in Strathclyde region. There was also anecdotal evidence put forward that similar type conduct would have been prosecuted as a breach of the peace in other parts of Scotland. The offence on conviction had a maximum fine of £50 or three months' imprisonment. There is no evidence that anyone was imprisoned as a result of convictions. The conduct that led to such convictions, even if a degree of violence was involved, could therefore be considered to be on the lower end of the scale, similar to conduct charged elsewhere as a breach of the peace. I was therefore sympathetic to such calls for the offence to be included in the bill, and I agreed to discuss this further with Richard Leonard ahead of stage 3. We have, however, subsequently discovered, and have discussed this with Mr Leonard, and also with Nicky Wilson of the NUM, that the same behaviour that was covered by the offence in section 7 of the 1875 act is now covered by an offence contained in section 241 of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Consolidation Act 1992. That means that the criminalisation of that behaviour forms part of the subject matter of the 1992 act, which in turn falls within the reservation of employment rights and duties and industrial relations under the Scotland act. If that offence was to be added to the list of qualifying offences, then we would make the bill vulnerable to a challenge and not just a theoretical challenge to its legislative competence, which, if it happened, could risk delaying commencement and the coming into force of the pardon for everyone affected. I am relatively confident that no member across the chamber would wish to see the outcome, that outcome, given that the bill would commence today after Royal Assent if passed later today. I do, however, realise that this will be disappointing for those who support a more comprehensive pardon. I have already informed Mr Leonard that I will look to explore whether those offences can be added to the legislation at a later date through a section 104 order under the Scotland act, but that would require the consent of the UK Government to progress on order through the UK Parliament on our behalf. Therefore, matters touching on compensation, which we will shortly come to, and the 1875 act are both issues that constitutionally fall to the UK Government. That does not mean that nothing can be done, but I feel that a more persuasive case for both of those matters could be made if we can together come up with a common approach to the UK Government. I hope to meet with and I have already written to UK Government ministers shortly to discuss those matters. However, for the purpose of this debate, I am, unfortunately, unable to support amendment 6 and would urge other members to do likewise if the member elects to move amendment 6. I now invite Pam Duncan-Glancy to wind up and to press or withdraw amendment 3. As has been said by myself and my colleagues, the bill is of historic importance. It is not just important for the historical pardon but also to send a signal to workers for the future that they can and will be heard. That is why I think it is really important that we make this legislation as comprehensive as it possibly can be, and so I do move and press amendment 3 in my name. Thank you, Ms Duncan-Glancy. The question is that amendment 3 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No, we are not agreed. There will be a division. As this is the first division of the stage 3, I suspend for five minutes. We will now restart proceedings. The question is that amendment 3 be agreed to. Members should cast their vote now. Thank you. The vote is now closed. Point of order, Shirley-Anne Somerville. Thank you, Presiding Officer. My app is not working and I would have voted no. Thank you, Ms Somerville. We will make sure that that is recorded. Point of order, Oliver Mundell. Hi, Presiding Officer. I would have voted yes. I didn't manage to cast a vote. I'm sorry, Ms Mundell. Did you say that your app wasn't working? The app wasn't working, yes. Sorry. Thank you, Ms Mundell. I'll make sure that that's recorded. Thank you. The result of the vote on amendment 3, in the name of Pam Duncan Glancy, is yes, 50, no, 65 and there were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment 1, in the name of Fulton MacGregor, grouped with amendments 4, 5, 9 and 2. I ask Fulton MacGregor to move amendment 1 and to speak to all amendments in the group. I also take the opportunity to welcome those in the public gallery today, including those from my constituency in Moody's Burn. I see Willie Dylan, for example, an important figure in the mining community. I think that your microphone is on, but perhaps you could adjust it so that we can all hear you much more clearly. Who's that? Better now? I think that that's better. Okay, thanks. I'll continue then. There was a constructive debate at committee around the scope of qualifying individuals who would be eligible for the pardon, and I was pleased to support the cabinet secretary's amendments at stage 2, which were agreed by the committee and sought to extend eligibility to individuals who, at the time of committing a qualifying offence for household members of a miner. I know that the cabinet secretary was happy to keep an open mind in such matters, despite his concerns about deleting the effect of the pardon. The intention of my amendments therefore is to extend, but in a limited way, the formulation of what is meant by qualifying individual. My amendments 1 and 2, when taken together, seek to broaden eligibility for the pardon to an individual convicted for a qualifying offence who meets the other conditions of eligibility and who, at the time of committing such an offence, was a parent, sibling or a child of a miner. A definition of miner is already given under section 4 of the bill. Amendment 1 would broaden eligibility to those categories of family members who were not, at the time of such an offence being committed, a member of the same household as a miner. Amendment 2 defines what is meant by a sibling of a miner. That means an individual who is at least one parent in common with a miner and is intended so that half siblings are captured under the definition of a qualifying individual. A definition of qualifying individual is already given under section 1A of the bill. I would hope that all members agree that it is important that wives, children, parents, siblings and other household members of a miner, those who are arguably close enough to a miner to be the most directly affected by the impact of the strike, are able to be pardoned subject to meeting the other qualifying criteria. I am really pleased that the Government have worked with me to bring this amendment forward. I do know that Pam Duncan-Glancy's amendments in this group also seek to broaden this formulation further. Pam knows that I have some sympathy with those amendments. I think that we have had the same goal in seeking to increase those to qualify, but I do believe that there is a risk that some of Pam's amendments could dilute the effect for those most likely to be directly affected by the impact that the strike had. I trust that the cabinet secretary and other members will hopefully view that my amendments seek to strengthen the bill without diluting the effect. I am happy to move amendment 1 in my name. I now call Pam Duncan-Glancy to speak to amendment 4 and other amendments in the group. As has already been said, this is an opportunity not just to pardon those that were impacted then but also to signal that in the future such a situation the terrible treatment that workers endure just for standing up for their rights will not be tolerated or repeated. We would like to seize that opportunity and let the bill go further. The amendments that I have put forward in this group seek to ensure that the bill fulfills its policy intent in the widest, most comprehensive way possible. That is why we seek to broaden the pardon beyond just those who were in the household to other family members and friends who stood in solidarity with striking miners too. Amendment 4 adds family members who may not have lived in the household. Amendment 5 adds people who stood in solidarity. Amendment 9 is a consequential amendment that defines the term introduced by amendment 4. As I said, I was young at the time of the miners' strike, but I know from my involvement in strikes now that you bring your household at times but you also bring your family and friends and supporters. You bring your trade union colleagues and those who are standing in solidarity with you. That is why I and we on these benches so strongly believe that the pardon should include not just only people in the household but those who stood in solidarity with miners too. It is crucial now more than ever that workers know that they can have the support of other people without fear of losing their jobs or their livelihoods. We saw that in the 80s and we see it again today with workers at P&O and of course those standing in solidarity with the RMT today too. We need a workers movement that is fighting fit and this bill signals that we believe in their rights. Our amendments strengthen it by recognising that the fight for workers rights is a fight for all of us. I move and urge members to support the amendments in my name, amendment 4, amendment 5 and amendment 9. Group 2 deals with qualifying individuals. That is identified in section 1A of the bill and means an individual who was a minor or who was at the time of the commission of the offence a member of the same household as a minor. A qualifying individual includes a deceased individual so a pardon applies to those living or posthumously. All amendments 1, 4, 5, 9 and 2 in this grouping, in the name of Fulton MacGregor or Pam Duncan-Glancy, look to extend the scope of the bill to include and incorporate a wider scope of individuals and we believe that that goes too far. Therefore, we will not be supporting any of the amendments in this grouping. As the chamber may be aware at stage 2, there was, as Fulton MacGregor said, a constructed debate at committee around the scope of the qualifying individuals who would be eligible for the pardon. It has been my approach to trying to find compromise with the committee and other points of view throughout the process. I would say, of course, that we went further at the very start than John Scott's committee had proposed trying to meet some of the concerns expressed by members. I should also say that, as someone who has been a trade union member for two decades and a branch officer and trade union official, I share the views expressed by Pam Duncan-Glancy that people should be allowed, encouraged and supported in expressing solidarity with others in difficult circumstances. I would not quibble with that. I was also young or younger during the minor strike as a student and supported some of the activities that Richard Leonard talked about in terms of minor support funds and so on. Amendments at stage 2 were agreed to extend eligibility to individuals who, at the time of committing a qualifying offence, were household members of a minor. There were, however, arguments that would put forward that eligibility should be extended to cover more family members. I was happy to keep an open mind on that and turn to Fulton MacGregor's amendments 1 and 2, which seek to introduce a small extension to the definition of qualifying individuals and to cover parents, siblings and children of a minor. I believe that broadening eligibility to those categories of very close family members who, I think that that is an important point, may not at the time of such an offence being committed, have been a member of the same household as a minor, will strengthen the bill without diluting its effect. I recognise, of course, that there will always be a degree of uncertainty as to how many individuals were convicted during the strike who were a parent, a sibling or a child or even another member of a minor's household. I feel that it is important, however, that those who were immediately close to a minor and were arguably more directly affected by the impact of the strike are able to be pardoned, subject to meeting the qualifying criteria. I am therefore happy to support amendments 1 and 2 lodged by Mr MacGregor and we urge all members to do the same. I turn to Pam Duncan Glancy's amendment 4, linked with amendment 9, which introduces the definition of what is meant by another family member. I know that the member wishes for the pardon to apply to a longer list of family members, some of whom may not have been immediately close to a minor. Those matters have been debated at stage 2, and I could not support the amendment that that member lodged at that time. I know that other committee members shared that view. I was pleased to be able to meet the member to discuss this afterwards, and I recognise that the member has refined it for stage 3, but my concerns remain. As indicated at stage 2, there is a risk here that the intention of those amendments could have an unintended consequence of diluting the effect of the pardon for minors for the members of their households and, if the chamber were to agree to Mr MacGregor's amendments, parents, siblings and children of a minor, they were arguably the people most likely to be directly affected by the impact that the strike had because of the normally very close nature of those relationships. I therefore cannot support amendments 4 and 9 for those reasons and would urge other members to do likewise if the member decides to move those. I turn to Pam Duncan Glancy's amendment 5, which seeks to extend the pardon to individuals who, at the time of the commission, have a qualifying offence for supporters in either a professional or personal capacity of the minor strike. I have been open to refining the detail of the bill in ways in which it enhanced the bill without diluting its main purpose, and I did respond positively to the committee's recommendations at stage 1 so that household members of a minor could be included. I am also willing to support a small extension to cover certain very close family members who may not always be captured by the definition of household member in the bill. I recognise the intention of the amendment. I agree that solidarity in standing up collectively for the cause we believe in is right. The definition of supporter, as proposed by the member, would however seek to extend eligibility to a considerable number of other people in which I believe that the connection to being directly impacted by the strike is less certain. I believe that the intention of the amendment could create an even greater risk that the effect of the pardon is diluted for minors, as for the immediate members of their households, and if amendments 1 and 2 are passed for parents, siblings and children of a minor who may have been convicted for actions that they took as a result of that impact. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking the intervention. I also thank the cabinet secretary for the conversation that we had during the period between stage 2 and stage 3. I understand that there is a need not to dilute the relevance of the bill, because it is absolutely incredibly important. However, I also believe that it is really important for the people who student solidarity with minors at the time and for people who will do so again in the future. It has been said that much of this is symbolic, and I think that the symbolism of including people that we are supporting the minors at the time is incredibly important for the future of our workers' rights in this country. I urge the cabinet secretary and members across the chamber to consider backing that amendment on that basis. I can only repeat the points that I have made. We have a genuine point of disagreement on the effect of extending the bill widely. We would have an impact for those minors who will be subject to that pardon. I believe that it would start to dilute the effect of that pardon. I believe that genuinely, which is why I have held to that view on the one hand, but I try to compromise where I can by extending household family members, which I know that the member has put forward. She is part of the genesis of the amendments that Fulton McGregor has put forward. I acknowledge that, but I have to have an eye on how effective, how felt this will be by minors themselves. I do think that extending it too widely will dilute that effect, so I cannot agree to that amendment, unfortunately. I say unfortunately, because I think that it would have been ideal if the chamber were able to agree on all those points, and hopefully we will agree on the pardon itself, because I think that there is more work to be done if we are able to pass this bill and doing it in a united front would be most effective. The individuals mentioned in the amendment were all, arguably, people most likely to—sorry—in the amendments that were proposed by Fulton McGregor, were people most likely to be directly affected by the impact of the strike. The category of supporter, though, is quite vague, and it is not clear from the amendment what sorts of actions, if any, would qualify an individual to be a supporter of whether this would all be down to motivation for committing the relevant offence, and the danger of creating that kind of ambiguity and doubt also adds to the likelihood of the effect of the pardon being diluted. It would make self-assessment more difficult than for the household members or close relatives. Therefore, I cannot support the amendment by, for the reasons that I mentioned, and I would urge other members to do likewise if the member likes to move that. I now invite Fulton McGregor to wind up and to press or withdraw amendment 1. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I will press amendment 1. In just in terms of the debate that we have just had, I welcome the discussion. I am disappointed not to have the Conservative support of my amendments despite efforts. What I would say to the Conservatives is that there is a last chance to get them to support it, as this to me is that my amendments are common sense. They are extending to people who would ultimately be applicable for this if they lived in the same household, so it is extending it to those same people who perhaps did not live in the same household as the member for a last ditch attempt. In terms of Pam Duncan-Glansy's amendments, just like the cabinet secretary, I do have a lot of sympathy with them. I think that we are in the same space of trying to achieve the same thing, but I feel that they go just that wee bit too wide. I hope that she does not mind me saying that. Therefore, I think that the cabinet secretary is right not to support them and not to dilute the bill at this stage, because we have a really good and historic opportunity here to pass a really groundbreaking bit of legislation for the people affected and some of the people in the gallery here today, so I would not want to see the bill diluted in any way at all, and I will go back to saying that I move the amendment in my name, thank you. Thank you, Mr McGregor. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No, we are not agreed. Members should cast their vote now, and this will be a one-minute division. The vote is now closed and I point to the board of Christine Grahame. I am still trying to connect to the digital voting platform, but it is not connecting. So are we devoted? Yes. Thank you, Ms Grahame. We will make sure that that is recorded. Thank you. The result of the vote on amendment 1 in the name of Fulton McGregor is yes, 84, no, 31. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed to. I now call amendment 4 in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy, already debated with amendment 1. Pam Duncan-Glancy, to move or not move. Thank you. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. Members should cast their vote now, and this will be a 30-second division. The vote is now closed. I am sorry. I had no idea what was going on with my app at the moment, because I would have voted no. You would have voted no. Thank you very much. We will make sure that that is recorded. My app did not refresh. I would have voted no. Thank you, Mr Lumson. We will make sure that that is recorded. The result of the vote on amendment 4 in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy is yes, 24, no, 91. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. I call amendment 5 in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy, already debated with amendment 1. Pam Duncan-Glancy, to move or not move. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No. We are not agreed. Members should cast their vote now, and this will be a 30-second division. The vote is now closed. The result of the vote on amendment 5 in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy is yes, 24, no, 91. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendment 6 in the name of Richard Leonard, already debated with amendment 3. Richard Leonard, to move or not move. Not move. We now turn to group 3 on compensation review. I call amendment 7 in the name of Richard Leonard, grouped with amendment 8. Richard Leonard, to move amendment 7 and speak to both amendments in the group. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to move amendment 7 and 8 in my name. The cabinet secretary has spoken this afternoon about the need for consensus and unanimity, but in the next breath he says that the whole point of the bill is to grant a symbolic pardon. Many of us, including the miners, want this active parliament to mean something more than that, to make a difference and not just to be symbolic. In its briefing note, the law society says outright, and I quote them, given that pardons are ordinarily issued in order to relieve a person of some or all the legal consequences arising from a criminal conviction, we would welcome clarity on the impact a pardon would have. A scheme of financial redress would do exactly that. That would have an impact, a positive impact. The cabinet secretary has spoken of, in his words, the case for compensation from the UK Government, but in the next breath declares a scheme would be complex and divisive, and it would be viewed by many people as unfair. So which is it? You cannot seriously argue that a Scottish Parliament scheme would be inherently divisive and unfair, but a UK Government scheme would not. At stage 2, the cabinet secretary said, and I quote, the issue is not so much the time it would take to introduce legislation, it is the time it would take to put together a proper compensation scheme. Amendment 8 addresses that to the Greens and to the SNP-backed benches, who in all sincerity say that we do not want to delay the pardon, that a financial redress scheme would mean that this Bill would be unlikely to go through in the next eight months, according to Mark Ruskell. I say to them that amendment 8 addresses precisely that point. It gives the Scottish Government in consultation with the miners, their families, their union up to a year to produce, in the cabinet secretary's words, a proper compensation scheme. This is exactly what was done with the Mental Health Act 2015 and the Redress for Survivors Act passed by this Parliament just last year. So this idea of this Parliament passing a law without a fully worked out scheme at this stage has got clear precedent. The excuses for opposing this over the last few months have been manifold. They have been that employment law and industrial relations are not devolved, or that this Parliament did not exist in 1984, or that this Parliament is not competent or that time is of the essence. However, if it is competent for this Parliament to pardon the miners for what happened in 1984-85, it must be competent for this Parliament to compensate the miners for what happened in 1984-85. After all, this Bill is not about the application of employment law during the strike. It is about the application of civil and criminal law during the strike. Let me put it in plain terms. This Bill comes about because striking miners were arrested in Scotland by Scottish police officers, were prosecuted in Scotland by Scottish procurator ffiscals and were convicted in Scotland by Scottish sheriffs in Scottish courts. It was that in the words of the Scotland inquiry, arbitrary application of the criminal law that led to the disproportionate, excessive and unreasonable treatment of the miners. That is what we must now address. The cabinet secretary has said on the record that policing in Scotland followed a different path during the strike. It did if you were a striking miner in Scotland, you were twice as likely to be arrested and three times as likely to be dismissed as in any other coalfield. That is why a scheme of financial redress should be brought back to this Scottish Parliament. Finally, let me also stress that this proposal in the amendments is supported by the national union of mine workers. They do not want us to take a back seat on this question. They want the Scottish Parliament to take a lead on this question. As Nicky Wilson, the NUM president said recently in a letter to all MSPs, the NUM wants to see compensation paid to miners across the UK. We believe that this Bill provides a historic opportunity for Scotland to lead the way by including a compensation scheme for those miners and we will continue to advocate for a public inquiry. Let's seize this historic opportunity. Let's win justice for the miners, justice for the miners' families. Let us make history, right these wrongs and vote for material justice, meaningful justice, financial justice, as well as symbolic justice. I move amendment 7 and 8 in my name. Thank you, Mr Leonard. I now call Alex Cole-Hamilton. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I rise for the Liberal Democrats to speak in support of Richard Leonard's amendments. Presiding Officer, this Parliament has a recent precedent for passing legislation that rights historic wrongs. It did so in the Historic Pardons Bill. Much will be made, I'm sure, by the Government about the fact that the Historic Pardons Bill for men who are convicted of crimes that are no longer illegal did not attach with it a similar financial compensation scheme. I was the Deputy Convener of the Committee that was charged with leading that Bill through Parliament. We interrogated that extensively. We asked many of the men to whom it applied, or those that came before the Committee at least, whether this was something that they were after. They were clear that they were not interested in financial compensation. There have been financial compensation schemes extended as part of similar historic pardons bills around homosexuality, particularly in Germany. In the words of those who had made representations to the Committee, it was not an issue of money, it was an issue of justice in writing an older wrong. In this case, Presiding Officer, we can see a demonstrable link between the wrongs that were done to the miners and their families and financial hardship, financial wrongdoing. Sometimes, in some cases, things that would follow them throughout their careers. I think that there is a case to examine a scheme for financial recompense, and that is why the Liberal Democrats will support Richard Leonard. Can I commend him for his excellent speech and his passion in pressing this issue? Amendment 7 and 8, in the name of Richard Leonard, revisits the compensation scheme, which was brought forward at stage 2 and rejected on the grounds that a compensation scheme is not the purpose of the bill. I would only delay the bill's implementation, and we do not wish to see the delay of the bill's implementation. Therefore, we are minded not to support those amendments. I was driving across the day and thinking about the day that the miners strike ended, and the immense disappointment that, certainly when I went into the strike centre in my home village of Kelty. However, there is a comparison that you can draw, because if you take Mali Dad, he was in his 60s, his early 60s. Within six months, he had been made redundant, got a redundancy payment. He then lived in our 25 years, got his pick call, had a decent life, and was able to live a reasonable life in terms of the redundancy that he received. Then, I think of people like my friend, Fydel Ffemwy, and Bob Young, who was sad. That day, there were those who had stood together, worked together, those who had been sad, not through any fault of their own, but because of the way they were treated by the British state. It's right that they're pardoned today, but their lives, their lives suffered, their lives didn't end the day the strike ended. They were out of work. They never got the correct compensation and redundancy payments that others, like my dad, did get. They found it difficult to be able to get a job, in many cases, because they were being blacklisted and they had been sacked miners, so they paid a heavy price, a heavy price, after the strike when the others went back. As Richard Leonard has said, this compensation scheme is not tricky, and I'd appeal to the minister to look again at this. To say that there should be a UK scheme established, that's not going to happen. The minister knows that that's not going to happen. The Tories are never going to admit to the fact that the wrongs that they did to mining communities up and down Scotland and the wrongs that were done to sacked miners and their families in the hardship that they continued to take. As Richard Leonard has said, the bottom line is that those miners were arrested in Scotland by police in Scotland. The cases were considered by the Proculator Fiscal in Scotland. They were convicted in Scottish courts and there is no reason why the Scottish Government, taking the steps that I'm welcoming, there's no reason why you can't take that next step and give the compensation and recognition to those miners that suffered when the strike finished and their families who suffered. Let's compensate them. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Richard Leonard and I have debated this before. I absolutely support compensation for the miners but it's a question about who should pay and why. The policies were pursued by a Tory Government. There was no Scottish Parliament in place at the time. Liability lies entirely at the feet of the UK. A UK that Richard Leonard and I know has taken £4.4 billion out of the miners pension fund without putting a penny in it. They're sitting on that money. They've filched it. It should come from that, not from the budgets that we have in here for public services to penalise the health service, policing, education and so on. I hear what members say about what the UK does. I call upon the Labour benches to pursue with their Welsh assembly colleagues that they pursue the UK Government to get rich into that £4.4 billion that they have filched from the miners pension fund to set up a proper compensation fund and, at the same time, do what we're doing in here, and that's to grant a collective pardon, as we're the first nation to do it and as a disgrace that hasn't been, well, I was nearly finishing, but yes. Alex Rowley. Thank you very much. I'm sure that people listening to Christine Grahame, who are respect immensely, will think to themselves, what about the millions and millions of pounds of compensation that have been given to rangers, football club directors, because of the lawful or ill-offal way that they've been treated. We could find money for them, so let's find money for the miners. Christine Grahame. I'll respond to that. Actions that took place while the Scottish Parliament was in place, I understand. This is 1984. It's not as if they don't have the money. How can you possibly support £4.4 billion being taken from the miners pension fund, not being used for a compensation fund, and don't let yourself be bulldozed by a Tory Government? Get your Welsh colleagues at the Welsh Assembly to pressurise this as well, and let shame a Tory Government that requires to be shamed. I now call the cabinet secretary to respond. Thank you, Presiding Officer. That is, of course, perhaps the most substantial of the amendments coming forward. The most contentious and, unfortunately, divisive, I had hoped that we'd be able to reach a common position in order that we can then move forward from this place to a common position trying to achieve what we all want, but I regret that it's not been possible. I would say, of course, that it's the case that the Scottish inquiry did not propose compensation, did not propose this scheme for compensation, for very good. I will do it. Does he accept that it wasn't part of the Scottish inquiry's terms of reference to look at a compensation scheme? Does he accept that the adviser to the Scottish inquiry, Professor Jim Phillips, is in favour of a compensation scheme, and Dennis Canavan, a former MSP and a member of the Scottish review board, is also in favour of a compensation scheme legislated for by the Parliament? Can I just repeat the point that the Scottish inquiry that was set up that had broad support within the Parliament did not recommend a compensation scheme as part of that? Some of the reasons for them doing that were, of course, the fact that they wanted this to be an act of reconciliation in communities that were riven apart by the minor strike. There are a number of points to make. I've heard mentioned the fact that Scottish Procurators Fiscal to the Scottish Police was a national call board. It was industrial relations and employment law that was reserved to Westminster. I've heard a member saying that it's a political direction of the strike. How are we going to examine that and a portion blame for it? The records are held at Westminster, and the game is given up by Alex Rowley when he says that it was a British state that was responsible. That is the point. We don't disagree on the principle of compensation. We've said that from the start. It's how it can be best achieved. Amendment 7, and just to make the point, I don't know what amendment Alex Rowley was talking to because there is no compensation scheme proposed in Richard Leonard's amendments. There is no compensation scheme proposed. It's worth bearing that in mind when we come to the vote. Amendment 7 removes section 3B of the bill that provides that section 1, the pardon, does not give rise to any right in town from interliability. It seeks to strike that down. Amendment 8 seeks to place a duty on the Scottish ministers to carry out a review of the options for compensating those individuals who are subject to the pardon or the legal representatives of such individuals, which I assume means people who may have died and representatives who are now taking on that case. It seeks to have us publish a report on the review within 12 months of Royal Assent, setting out the estimated costs of those options and recommendations on how best to achieve the aim of compensating for the harms that are suffered by those subjects to the pardon. I have been consistent right through this process. I have considered options for compensation. We have reviewed it. I have discussed it with officials, I have discussed it with the committee, and I have discussed it with individual members. We have reviewed it. We think that this is the best way in order to achieve exactly that aim. Amendment 8, just to repeat, does not create a right to compensation. What Richard Leonard proposes is that there is no need to remove section 3B of the bill. Removing that provision would imply that the pardon does create a right to entitlement or liability, but it is uncertain what that would be, looking at the bill that is currently drafted. All amendments 8 seeks to do is to require a review. It does not create a right to compensation now or in the future. I am concerned that amendment 7 would therefore create uncertainty and I am not prepared to support this. I would urge members to do likewise if the member presses amendment 7. As many of the members in the chamber will already know, my view is that it is for the UK Government to devise a scheme and make compensation payments to former miners and their families. One of the issues raised by Alex Rowley is blacklisting, which we all know went on. The one attempt that was to deal with blacklisting was in the House of Commons because it had the powers. It was by Maria Fife in 1988. That is where the powers to address this lie. If we agree to what is being proposed by Richard Leonard, my genuine fear is that, when those of us who are willing to pursue the route that we think is most productive by putting pressure on our own political parties in Westminster to make sure that any future Government—I do not know whether Alex Rowley holds out, I hope that there will be a Labour Government at any time in the future, but if he assumes that the Tories will all be in power, then we are all doomed. However, it can be the case that we can try and propose to our own political parties as Christine Grahame says, our colleagues in the Welsh Assembly, and if we can do that, if there is a change of government or a change in heart in the Tory party and I share Alex Rowley's pessimism about that, but if there is a change in government then we are ready to go, we have all that support. However, we will undermine it if we say that we are also looking to review a compensation scheme in Scotland. We think that we should do it but we are going to review one in Scotland, so that is why I think that it works against the interests of those who are trying to seek compensation in relation to this. My view is that any compensation should, if it is to be taken forward, should be properly thought out, it should be uniform and it should be fair, it should take account of the wishes of former miners across the UK. A previous iteration of Richard Leonard's proposals would have had us providing a pardon for some people, but not for others. Some would have lost their job, they would have got compensation, but not if they had been pardoned or vice versa. It would have created more division when this bill is all about trying to seek some reconciliation. I repeat my remarks that it is for the UK Government to devise the scheme and to make the compensation payments for former miners and their families. That is why I also continue to press for a UK inquiry. I am sorry that Richard Leonard will not take up my proposal. I made to him previously that we should approach our own parties. I spoke today with a senior member of the Welsh Assembly who also said that, when they have had discussions, both in Plaid Cymru and the Labour Party, they have talked about compensation in the context of the £4.4 billion whovered out the miners' pension fund. That is what they have talked about, and we should be getting them on side and making sure that we have the maximum possible impact on the Westminster Government. I previously put on record and I am happy to do so again that we would be willing to consider and compile as much factual and other information that the NUM and other bodies may be able to offer. They have made that offer to us to give us that information as part of any future representations made to the UK Government. It is not just an abstract offer. I have already written to the Home Secretary and to a number of other people to try and garner this level of support to make sure that we can exercise the maximum possible amount of pressure. I would also hope that Mr Leonard and all other members agree with me that it is important that we have, if we can still do it, consensus across the chamber for the bill at stage 3. A united front can strengthen our calls on the UK Government to undertake the inquiry that they should be undertaking, that miners and their families have for a long time been asking for and division at this stage of the bill, I believe, will weaken the cause. The lack of a consistent approach to compensation across the chamber may also be questioned by those who seek to influence and undermining any collective action that we could take together at Holyrood and with our colleagues at Westminster. For now, I have to speak to the amendment in hand. I believe that its inclusion in the bill will distract attention and focus away from the campaign that we can all take forward collectively to the UK Government following the bill's passage. Indeed, Scottish ministers have already assessed the options for the payment of compensation that have set out. It also means that, if somebody can assume a pardon because of the bill if it is passed, they cannot assume that they would have to apply for compensation. We deliberately sought, given the age of the miners involved, given the fact that many are no longer with us, not to make this an honourous process for those involved. I therefore will not support Richard Leonard's amendment 8, and we urge members to do similar, if the member wishes to move it. I now invite Richard Leonard to wind up and to press a withdrawal amendment 7. The cabinet secretary wants me to withdraw my amendment or wants people to vote against it. He says, in the interests of unity, well why doesn't he support the amendment in the interests of unity? He wants me to withdraw it because, in his words, it is for the UK Government to devise a scheme. That is the same UK Government which, on 20 May, in the daily record, he himself called corrupt, immoral and law-breaking, even the mild-mannered Fulton MacGregor, on 13 May, in the national called them sleazy, lying, law-breaking Tories. As recently as two days ago, the First Minister said, this is a UK Government that has no respect for democracy. So why are you now telling your constituents why are you now telling the ex-miners, their wives, their partners, their mothers, their sons, their daughters, to put your faith in them? But wait, but wait, wait. The cabinet secretary tells us he is hoping to meet the Home Secretary. Is that the same Home Secretary who, this week, is trying to force asylum seekers on to flight from Rwanda? I have to say to the Greens. Hello everybody, could we just have some calm so that the person who has the floor can be heard? Cabinet secretary, your intervention is taken. I think that I made it clear when I spoke that I did not expect that the same people in those offices that she has mentioned in the UK Government will remain the same for all time. I think that this is the most effective way to do it. Richard Leonard is talking about me making excuses, and raising the temperature and the division in this debate is working against what I think we are all trying to achieve. I had asked him to think about his remarks before he makes them if we are to have that consensus. I am assuming that he thinks that it is not worthwhile to approach the UK Government at all. He will not do that. We will do that regardless of whether he comes with us or not, whether he speaks to his colleagues. I would just hope that he will temper his remarks and try to support the greater good. Richard Leonard Thank you. This afternoon, I am approaching the Scottish Parliament for legislation in this area. Let me turn to the situation of relying on Priti Patel, the Home Secretary. I have to say to the Greens, who have been fairly quiet this afternoon, that they want Scotland to be the Scotland of Kenmio Street, not of Downing Street. Which side are you on in this debate? Why are you putting your faith in Priti Patel rather than in this Parliament? The cabinet secretary complains that my amendment will distract attention and focus away from any campaign that we can all take forward. I have to remind him that this is not a one-party state. This is a Parliament elected by the people. We are entitled to have a different view from the Government. Even those in the Government party are entitled to hold a different view from the Government. It is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of democratic strength. The cabinet tells us that Scottish ministers have already assessed the options for the payment of compensation that he has set out. However, saying no, no, no at each stage in this bill's passage is not setting out the options. It is Government by ultimatum. The options have not been set out. They have not been set out before this Parliament and they have not been set out before the people. That is what this amendment asks for. The cabinet secretary knows that it is perfectly possible, that it is perfectly competent, that it is perfectly affordable for the Scottish Government to spend time over the next year to come up with a scheme of financial redress and bring it back to Parliament. That is all that this amendment seeks to achieve. It is a modest, reasonable amendment which I hope Democrats in this Parliament, in a spirit of and in an act of unity, will support. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. Members should cast their votes now. This will be a one-minute division. I just to point out that we are actually going to rerun that vote because there is some technical issue. I will revert to you in a few minutes, hopefully. Colleagues, the question is that amendment 7—we are rerunning the vote and I am now announcing once again—we have already had the secondary run come through. Thank you, Ms Hamilton. Indeed, that appears to be the case. The vote is not closed yet, Ms Graham, so perhaps to keep trying and if it does not succeed, you can always make a point of order after the vote is closed and I have not yet announced that. That is the vote closed. I want to make sure that I have voted no. Indeed, your vote did not register but we have now noted how you would have voted and we will make sure that that is recorded. The result of the vote on amendment 7 in the name of Richard Leonard is, yes, 24, no, 88. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendment 8 in the name of Richard Leonard. Already debated with amendment 7, Richard Leonard to move or not move. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. Members should cast their vote now. This will be a 30-second division. The vote is now closed. The result of the vote on amendment 8 in the name of Richard Leonard is, yes, 24, no, 92. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendment 9 in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy. Already debated with amendment 1. Pam Duncan-Glancy to move or not move. The question is that amendment 2 in the name of Fulton MacGregor. Already debated with amendment 1. Fulton MacGregor to move or not move. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are not agreed. Members should therefore cast their votes now and this will be a 30-second division. The vote is now closed. Sorry, my app failed to connect and I would have voted yes. Thank you, Ms Constance. We will ensure that that is recorded. The result of the vote on amendment 2 in the name of Fulton MacGregor is, yes, 88, no, 27. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore agreed. That ends consideration of amendments. As members will be aware, at this point in the proceedings, the Presiding Officer is required understanding orders to decide whether, in her view, any provision of the bill relates to a protected subject matter, that is, whether it modifies the electoral system and franchises for Scottish parliamentary elections. In the case of this bill, in the Presiding Officer's view, no provision of the minor strike pardon Scotland bill relates to a protected subject matter. Therefore, the bill does not require a supermajority to be passed at stage 3. Thank you. There will now be a very short pause before we move on to the next item of business. The next item of business is a debate on motion 4979 in the name of Keith Brown on minor strike pardon Scotland bill. I invite members who wish to participate in the debate to press the request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible. I call on Keith Brown to speak to and move the motion, cabinet secretary, for around seven minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I should say that I have at the last month adapted what I intended to say. I had hoped that we would have the consensus, which I think many people had sought to achieve, but that has not been possible. If I can just address at the outset one point which was that Richard Leonard accused me of saying, no, no, no. Well, the fact simply does not support that view. I consistently made compromises with the committee. We went further from the very start with the John Scott committee. I cannot really escape the conclusion that it did not really matter what the Government did. We were always going to get that kind of grandstanding from Richard Leonard towards the end, which I think is unfortunate because it now means that we cannot have that joint approach that we had hoped to have given the fact that he thinks that it is not worth making representations to the UK Government. We do. We will persist with that on our own and with anyone else who is willing to do it. We hope that we can achieve further justice for our miners. I am happy to give way to Richard Leonard. Richard Leonard. The point that I was making about no, no, no, was that each stage in this Bill you said no to any form of financial redress. Those are the three no's that I was speaking about. I accepted and I will accept in my closing speech that the Government has shifted some ground and we welcome that. Let me also say that at the end of this debate we will vote for this legislation. We will work with the SNP Government, the Green Government and the Welsh Government to put pressure on the UK Government, but I am sorry that the cabinet secretary feels that we need to all vote on block at all times in order to have any influence. I do not see it that way at all. I think that the simple fact is that I have never asked for everyone to vote on block the same way in every instance. I have tried to make a number of compromises in order that we can try and get the maximum consensus, but that is obviously not going to happen. I would like to thank Joe Fitzpatrick and the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee for their scrutiny of the Bill. I would also like to thank the Bill team. I have never seen a Bill team so engaged and involved in this. Of course, they are civil servants, they are neutral, but the advice that they gave to me, the way they went to work out things like investigating potential compensation avenues and various other aspects of the Bill was tremendous, and I would thank them for their support in relation to that. I am also grateful to Nicky Wilson, the president of the National Union of Mine workers and to the retired police officer association of Scotland for the views that they offered to inform the Bill. I was pleased to see the Parliament agree the Bill's general principles back in March and responded positively to the lead committee's recommendations, as I have said at stage 2. Today, I want to focus on what can be achieved through the passage of the Bill. Anybody who considers that they or their loved ones meet the pardon criteria should feel pardoned. That is a pardon to own for themselves or for their loved ones, many who have sadly not been able to see this day arrive. The qualifying criteria are straightforward. If a conviction was for an offence of breach of the peace, breach of bail conditions, police obstruction, etc., or theft that was connected to the strike, then the pardon will automatically apply to miners and to those who lived in a miner's household. Of course, we add to those categories mentioned in Fulton MacGregor's amendments 1 and 2. To recognise the difficulty in sourcing records, that means that no to an application process, but yes to a collective and automatic pardon. That outcome puts Scotland at the forefront across the UK in helping to remove the stigma of convictions relating to the strike and in providing some reconciliation and comfort to those affected. I have the greatest respect for former miners. I have represented a mining community for many years. I was not raised in a mining community, but I had support the strike as a student when the strike happened in 1984. I know that the men concerned were the backbone of the coal industry and worked in dangerous dirty and hard conditions to keep our homes warm and to keep the wheels of our economy turning. A collective group of honest, hard-working men supported by their strong, resilient wives in many cases. Proud former miners like Nicky Wilson, Alex Bennett and Bob Young, who gave powerful evidence to the lead committee, others such as Watty Watson, Jim Tierney and Willie Dulan, who I know have been watching the bill's progress. Not forgetting, of course, the thousands of other men who were on strike to safeguard the future of their industry and communities. Perhaps one of the lasting effects of the strike was the extent to which it radicalised young students like myself, the very experience of watching the strike take place. That is why the pardon is so important. It is a recognition of the suffering and the need to restore dignity to those communities. At stage 2, we extended the scope to cover qualifying offences that took place more broadly in mining communities. We also added theft as a qualifying offence. I should mention that the three cases of theft were three women, all in airshare, who, as best the records can tell, were convicted for stealing potatoes because of the economic hardship of the strike, and we extended that offence to them. We extended the list of qualifying individuals. It is fitting to recognise the support that immediate family members provided during the strike. I am delighted to see former miners and family members joining us in the chamber today, as I have said. Finally, there is one outstanding issue that remains around including offences under section 7 of the conspiracy and protection of property act 1875. I committed to discussing that further with Richard Leonard, which I did. Having explored the matter, I can confirm that I supported the inclusion of that offence, but he is aware of the reasons that the subject matter of the offence is now superseded by successor legislation, which is reserved to Westminster. Therefore, in order to add this offence, legislation has to be progressed through the UK Parliament. I confirm that it is my intention to pursue that through an order under section 104 of the Scotland Act of Westminster. I cannot guarantee that the UK Government will agree to promote the order, but we will use our best endeavours to secure that agreement. Presiding Officer, I recognise that an uncovering of the truth of what happened during the strike is important. I agree that a UK-wide inquiry should be taken forward by the UK Government and that it should consider the management of the strike and the payment of compensation. Let me be clear that I entirely sympathise with those who lost out financially through their participation in the strike. It was not just that they lost their job, they lost pension benefits. Blacklisting blighted their future employment prospects, and it blighted the lives of their families. For that reason, I say that the passage of this bill does not mark the end of the Scottish Government's efforts on behalf of many communities. However, I have previously outlined the reasons why the bill is not the mechanism to provide financial redress. I know that members, such as Richard Leonard, but others will disagree. However, I believe that a united front had we been able to achieve it at Holyrood and through our parties at Westminster would have strengthened calls for that inquiry. I have, as I said earlier this week, written to the Home Secretary to reinforce that point and to request a meeting. However, for now, we must take the opportunity to recognise the circumstances that led to so many convictions and to say that, as a Parliament and as a country, we want to pardon those convictions and bring some comfort and reconciliation to those involved. I move that the Parliament agrees the minor strike pardons to the Scottish Government's bill. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. To avoid unnecessarily contrailing the debate this afternoon on the motion to pass the bill, I am minded to accept a motion without notice to push back the decision time until 5.30. I would invite Gillian Mackay on behalf of the bureau to move such a motion. Thanks very much, Ms Mackay. The question is that decision time be moved back to 5.30. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much indeed, and with that I now call Alexander Stewart for around six minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm grateful for the opportunity to open the stage to debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. I would first like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's been involved in allowing the bill to reach this stage, including the many witnesses, committee clerks and members who have worked constructively to improve the bill since its introduction. Every time this chamber debates the bill that is taking its final steps through Parliament, it provides the opportunity to reflect on the importance of what the bill seeks to achieve. This bill is no different. I have spoken before about the symbolic importance of the bill to those affected by the minor strike of 1984-85, and this important is something that has been clear to see from the beginning of the bill's journey through the Parliament. From the scale of the public response to the independent review to the heartfelt witness testimonies that I saw as a member of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee through to all those who have attended Parliament at each stage of the bill's progress, it is clear that much closure to the bill stands to bring the people and the reasons why we ensure, and that is why we will be supporting the bill at decision time today. The scars of the turbulent events of 1984 and 1985 have stayed with many individuals and even whole communities right up to the present day. The bill will not right every wrong of the past and no bill itself ever could, but the pardon that the bill seeks to provide will mean a great deal to so many individuals and communities and will give go some way towards healing the divisions of the past. However, as for the legislation, the bill introduces required improvements in order to fully achieve the stated intentions. There have been concerns that the bill lacked clarity in certain places that could have created ambiguity around the eligibility of the pardon. This is the particular problematic when we were dealing with a bill that requires self-assess and the equality and the equivalence of the pardon. I was therefore pleased to support the cabinet secretary's significant redrafting of section 1, which meant that many of the amendments that I introduced were incorporated. The scope of the pardon that is offered by this bill is something that has been much debated throughout the bill passage through Parliament, and we already have heard the debate continue in the chamber today. However, I remain of the view that, while it has been possible to adjust small changes to the scope of the bill as originally introduced, it is not possible to justify significant expansions to the scope. We saw attempts to do that at stage 2, and we have seen attempts again today to do that at stage 3. I have no doubt that the amendments in these lie have been well motivated. Although I will not spend time today rerunning every aspect of the debate, it is clear to me that, as it stands, the bill goes far enough in this respect. Once the calls for compensation scheme were introduced, we have gone through that discussion and amendments have already been put here today. One of the most important features of the bill is that the pardon is granted to automatic and self-assessment. It is important that the symbolism of the bill that those included in the scope are able to judge right away that they will receive a pardon. The delay and the complexities that would occur in any compensation scheme could risk undermining such simplicity. Implicably, the arguments that were put back in the committee report that we had at stage 1 were clear when that was discussed. The introduction of a compensation scheme to the bill would not only have impractical aspects with it, but it could also have delayed and would have taken some time for things to progress. We do not want to see that. John Scott's QC's independent review made it clear that there were injustices in some of the convictions that took place as part of the minor strike. It is therefore only right that the bill being passed today provides a formal pardon to those who were caught up in some of the difficulties and the difficult circumstances that they found themselves in. In passing the bill at decision time today, this Parliament will formally acknowledge those injustices and for the communities that are scarred by the events, that will go some way to healing. However, it has taken four decades for us to get to this stage. While the bill will not undo those injustices, I do hope that for those people it will at least bring the closure that many communities, many constituents, and many individuals deserve. Although I was quite young at the time, only three or four years old, I remember the minor strike being a prominent topic of conversation in my house, highlighted as an example of injustice and terrible maltreatment of workers. People fearing for their livelihoods and fearing being criminalised just for standing up for the rights at work. Communities were ruined, pensions were lost, jobs were illegally snatched away and families and friends were torn apart, turned against one another. During the evidence sessions and committee, we heard those stories come alive. I thank the miners who gave such compelling and moving evidence. As others have, I welcome and pay tribute to the miners joining us here today. The treatment that they endured was unacceptable and must never happen again. That is why, as we made clear at stage 1, Scottish Labour wholly supported the principles of the bill. We believe that an automatic pardon will go some way to providing justice for those who were affected. The right to protest, to organise and to rise and give workers a voice must always be protected then, now and in the future. With this bill, we need to retrospectively write a historic wrong, but we must also send a message to workers today that you have power and we stand with you. An attack on one is an attack on us all. We must always be on the side of workers. The Scottish Labour Party has always been and always will be firmly on their side. I would also like to put on the record today that, had I been just that bit older, I would have stood in solidarity then and that I stand in solidarity with those who are striking now, in particular with the UCU and the RMT, and with all workers who are taking a stand to defend their rights, the rights of those who work alongside them and of those who will come after them. That is why I spoke up when Glasgow City Council threatened to bring in agency workers when the council workers went on strike. No intimidation of that sort is acceptable. For those reasons, we welcome the Government's intentions for the bill. We welcome the pardon and the extensions that have been secured through the parliamentary process. This bill is an opportunity not just to pardon those that were impacted then but to signal in the future that such a situation, the terrible treatment that workers endured, just for standing up for the rights, will not be tolerated or repeated. We would like to seize that opportunity and had hoped that the bill could go further today. The amendments that I and my colleague Richard Leonard put forward sought to ensure that the bill fulfilled its policy intention in the widest, most comprehensive way possible by providing comfort and reassurance to all those impacted by the strikes, re-emphasising our solidarity to them now once more and disappointed, of course, that they were not agreed. I am particularly disappointed in the cabinet secretary's response to Richard Leonard's considered amendment on compensation. We know that the impacts of the strike on financial stability, on public reputation and on all the other areas of people's lives that were thrown into turmoil are still felt now. That he is happy to leave this in the hands of the UK Government and not his own Government to consider over the next year is a sorry state of affairs. Words matter, but deeds do too. Presiding Officer, it is crucial now more than ever that workers know that they have the support of other people standing in solidarity with them and that they can do so without fear of losing their job or their livelihoods. Colleagues, ultimately, this is about a historic injustice and we must send a solid message that this sort of treatment of workers should never have happened and will never be tolerated again. It is important for today and for the future too. Now, more than ever, we need to end low pay and security and bad employment practice, and that means that we need a workers' movement that is fighting fit. This bill signals that we believe in their rights, and I say to people everywhere that an attack on one is an attack on us all. The fight for workers' rights is a fight for all of us, so join us, join workers and join a union. So, whilst I am, of course, disappointed that our amendments to extend the pardon and strengthen it were not accepted this afternoon, today I will back the bill and signal with pride to the workers who fought for our rights then, to those who defend them today and those who will do so tomorrow that you can and must be heard. Tomorrow and in the future, I will act with deeds and stand with pride on the picket lines with you fighting injustice until workers' rights prevail. Thank you very much indeed, Deputy Presiding Officer. I rise with the Liberal Democrats to speak in favour of this bill. It's a very important bill, and I am proud to do so. I'd like to thank the committee for their work in this, and in particular, Pam Duncan-Garancy and Richard Leonard for the amendments that we supported with them this afternoon. Let me also wholeheartedly welcome this bill in its entirety. Presiding Officer, this legislation is long overdue. This Parliament has, in its recent history, started to unpick the wrongs that have been done by previous Governments, and it's important that we should do so. In this case, we are offering pardons for offences that should never have been registered as such in the first place. That action has gone some way to repair the damage that is wrought by the injustice that is suffered by the miners and their families. Unlike previous examples of legislation that this Parliament has passed to that end, there is a significant financial hardship that was suffered as a result of the previous wrongs. That is why we were proud to support Labour amendments to try and identify means of compensating miners and their families in that regard. I am sorry that that has fallen short today, but I sincerely hope that what we do pass today will provide some degree of closure to the many people who were wrong during the strike of 84 to 85. It is important to remember that those striking and picketing were doing so not just for their jobs but for their wellbeing of their families and of their communities and their ways of life. Presiding officer, that sense of community, that fraternity and unity often seems to be so sadly lacking in our modern society, and we are the poor without it. During the strikes, the whole weight of the establishment and the police force was thrown at these mining communities. During the strikes of the 70s, the police approach to picketers was one of neutrality, not so in the 1980s. One miner is quoted as saying that they were being used against us. As we know, around 1,300 arrests were made during the strikes and with 400 of those leading to convictions. However, what those numbers do not communicate are often the untold stories of lives and livelihoods forever impacted. Families fractured and communities often torn apart. There was a particular injustice in Scotland as we have had several times during today's proceeding. Striking miners here in Scotland were twice as likely to be arrested and three times likely to be as dismissed as miners in other coal fields across the United Kingdom. Presiding officer, this legislation should represent an apology by those who took decisions that they should never have been taken. We cannot speak for the Ministers at the time, but we can do our best to recognise the injustice done. An apology by the State itself. Signing officer, at the heart of this bill, it's about justice. As far as I see it, one of our chief duties in this place, in this chamber, is to safeguard justice. When it becomes clear that a wrong has been done, we are duty bound to write it. Some members in this chamber have had direct experience of the impact of these strikes. I made particular reference to Alex Rowley. I thought his speech was excellent, and I recognise the stories that he told. They live in communities and have close relationships with people whose lives were deeply affected by the decisions taken during this moment in history. I am not one of those people. I do not come from a mining community, and as far as I know, none of my close friends or families were scarred in this way by these events. I have the same memories that Pan Duncan Glancy references, however, sitting round the dinner table during the strike, talking about the impact of those families and the callous decisions by the Government of the day. I have also been moved by the stories of so many communities in this country, and indeed across the UK as a whole. Before those who join us in this gallery and those at home, I would like to say that, although many may never be able to fully understand what you and your families and your communities were unfairly forced to endure, we are sorry for that. Although the bill cannot erase the painful memories nor the scars that you will inevitably bear, I hope that, after today, you feel that your voice has been heard by this Parliament and that justice has in some way been served. It is the very least that you will deserve. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Mr Cole-Hamilton, claiming to be the same age as Pan Duncan Glancy is a bold and brave move, I would have said, but we now move to the open debate. I call first Christine Grahame to be followed by Alec Rowley for up to four minutes, Ms Grahame. I am not going to talk about age. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a privilege to speak in this debate. I also spoke at the stage one debate, and also because we are the first nation in the UK to recognise in law the injustice of that time. I say gently to Richard Leonard that Labour was in power from 1997 to 2010 for 13 years and did nothing about granting pardons or setting up compensation schemes. There is a legacy of mining communities in my constituency—Newton, Grangecore, Bridgend and Pernacook—and I have immediate family connections with miners and, indeed, my own direct memories of the 1984-85 mining dispute. The footprint of the mines in my constituency is there for all to see. The Mining Museum and the Great Wheel in Newton, Grange, just bordring the A7. It is still characterised by the neat rows of miners' cottages, first feet, second feet and so on, with narrow lanes at the back where the coal lorry delivered their quota. Gore Bridge, with its memorial high above the community to miners who lost their lives in the pits over the years, and I was glad to attend the inauguration of that. The Shorts Town Miners Welfare Club in Pernacook and those communities are still all there. All that means that the landscape and sense of community of Scotland's mining past are literally never out of my sight and we have a responsibility to those communities. That family connection was my paternal grandfather, a Welsh coal miner whom I would never meet. He died prematurely in his early 40s from a head injury, sustained when a pickprop fell in him. That left his large family of children, including my late mother, a Derbyshire woman, orphaned, his wife having died in childbirth. My mother never let us forget the hardships of that job and the fact that he left those 10 orphan children, including her. His death had an enduring effect on the way that she led her life and how she saw coal mining, which she passed on to me. When the events of the mid 80s became the stuff of news bulletins, she raged against the Tory Government for its ruthless treatment of the miners, their families and their communities. I, too, was shocked, especially when police on horseback were sent charging into men, simply demonstrating for their livelihoods. Often those officers were shipped in from outside the community because the local police could not be used. During that strike, as others have said, 1,300 or more people were charged and more than 400 were convicted, and those convictions stand to this day, so the bill is much to be welcomed. At stage 1, I noted that the Government recognised that miners' wives and families who were directly involved in the dispute may also receive convictions and should perhaps be encompassed in the bill, and I am glad that at this stage that has happened. We need a publicity campaign to ensure that everyone is aware of their rights, and I understand that the Government is doing that partly through the NUM. I absolutely agree with a symbolic and collective blanket pardon. However, a pardon does not remove the conviction from the record. Section 3A makes it plain that that remains the case, so you may say what practical effect will a pardon have. People may think that, by being granted that collective pardon, their conviction will be expunged from the record, but it will not. However, I appreciate that we still have the effect of the prerogative of mercy, the power of the crown, to cause a conviction. In any event, in practical terms, it may not be so relevant, as convictions may now lapse through time and records may be lost. However, 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. In compensation—I will be briefed, Presiding Officer—we have already rehearsed this, but it really makes me cross that £4.4 billion, taken straight out of the miners' pension run without the UK Government putting a penny in, and we are looking to take—you were looking—sorry, member was looking—for compensation here from our budgets for public services. I would never let a Tory Government off the hook the way Richard Leonard seems to be doing, so I'm glad you're going to speak to your Welsh colleagues, because we need a power behind us to ensure that that £4.4 billion goes to where it belongs, to the miners. Thank you, Ms Graham. I now call Alex Rowley to be followed by Fulton MacGregor up to four minutes, Mr Rowley. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I certainly am pleased to speak in this debate today. I want to say that, if you grew up in a mining community, you knew what the NUM was, you knew what it stood for, and one of the things that it stood for was unity. In this debate today, we may have some disagreements around compensation schemes, but let's not take our eye off the ball. Firstly, it's absolutely right that we are bringing forward in a green in this Parliament the pardon of those miners that were unfairly sad, and that should be unity. Christine Grahame is right to say that Labour, when it was in power and here didn't do that, I acknowledge that, but I would want to pay particular tribute to Neil Findlay MSP, who has never given up on this issue, has fought this issue, brought forward a private member's bill on this issue, and that has resulted in the Government then picking it up. All praise and thanks to Neil Findlay. Let's unite in this Parliament. Let's say that we will work with the Welsh Government, we will work across party, perhaps not the Tories, because it's the Tories in Westminster that we're trying to put the pressure on. I can also say that I watched last night a video of, I was going to say, young Mick McGaghey, but perhaps he's not that young, but Mick's son talked about that experience of that time and the strike, and it struck me that when he said, my father was entrenched in the NUM, remember the NUM wasn't just about who represented miners in the pits, the NUM was part of the community, the NUM fought for better housing, for better terms and conditions in communities, and people as you grew up, the miners galas, the Christmas parties, the NUM was a part of the fabric of the community in your life, and that's why this is important today. But let's not forget also, for example, the P&O workers. This was the state used against working people, but today working people are being treated appallently, and we have a Tory Government that seems to have no regard for the common decency of the workers' right to earn a decent wage and not be treated appallently. So, sadly, the fight for jobs, the fight for workers to be treated properly, the fight against poor terms and conditions and the cuts to wages is a fight that goes on, not so much with the National Union of Mine workers because we don't have the pits, but the lessons of that should never ever be forgotten. And on the compensation, I have already outlined the impact that these miners who were unjustly and unfairly sad the impact, but I have seen Richard Leonard post a number of videos where those very people talk about the impact that it had on their lives. So, I welcome, I thank everybody for the former mining communities across Scotland. Everybody that lives through that strike 84-85 will welcome what has been brought forward here today. Let me just finish by saying this. That year, though, that minor strike, the hardship was absolutely appalling, but there were masses of positives. In Celticwyr, I live, there was the pipe ban that marched round the village every few weeks and collected all the food and brought the food into Celticlub, where that food was shared out. Man Aime, one of our old friends, set up a soup kitchen that then became a food kitchen where meals were prepared, the strength, the unity. That's the lesson that has to be for Scotland. If we're going to go forward, then let's unite our country. We cannot, regardless of what the constitutional outcome will be at the end of the day, a country that's disunited will not be a country that succeeds, succeeds. So, let's learn the lessons for the miners, for the NUM, unity is strength, let's unite together and always stand up for working people. Thank you very much, Mr Rowley. I now call Fulton MacGregor to be followed by Maggie Chapman for up to four minutes, Mr MacGregor. Thank you, Presiding Officer. My constituency of Colbridge and Creson has a very rich history of mining, as I've mentioned, countless times in this chamber. It has been central to the life of so many in my constituency even decades after the mines have been closed and you've had push to find someone that did not have a family member or at least know of someone who was a miner. Members will perhaps recall that my constituency is the Orkingeek memorial site, which commemorates the Orkingeek mining disaster of 1959, considered one of Scotland's worst mining disasters. Every year a memorial is held there to remember the 47 miners who lost their lives at this site and the impact it had and continues to have on the local community. The devastation that was caused by this disaster and the legacy of grief and loss for the victims' loved ones is still felt. This tragedy left 67 children without their father and made widows of 41 women. I want to pay tribute again to the Orkingeek memorial committee who continue to ensure that these miners are in living memory. Since my microphone wasn't working properly when I started to speak to my amendments earlier, I will now take this chance again to welcome those from Moodiesburn and the committee to the chamber, including Willie Dillan. Focusing on the strikes, how this impacted my constituency, for example, that curbed down collaring steps, which had officially closed in September 1983, hundreds of workers stood united day in and day out for a year to fight for their industry. Those men fought not just for their jobs and industry but for their communities. This bill is therefore so important, especially to those communities, as I have already mentioned, as the department is an official acknowledgement of the hardships experienced by those who striked in the 80s. The consequential fallout of those strikes run deep and endeavours to provide respect, reconciliation and regeneration to the miners' families and communities involved is well overdue. I was still fairly young, probably about the same age as Pam Duncan Glancy, when the strikes took place, but, like everybody who was brought up in a mining community, my upbringing was shaped by them. We heard about them through school and I can even remember them being talked about in primary school. That is how big an impact they had. There is no doubt that many miners suffered great hardship because of the strike and convictions arising from it. This was true for many who were caught up directly in the dispute and also for their families and the wider communities to this very day. I am pleased that the amendments that I lodged earlier today were agreed to, which widened out the scope. I am sure that members agree that there were disproportionate impacts arising from the miners being prosecuted and convicted during the strike and the hurt has still felt to this day. Questions always remained about whether the strike was policed fairly if the justice system did right by miners. There were rumours, as Christine Grahame talked about, of political interference and it always felt that there were unanswered questions when it came to the way that strikes were policed. Of course, it was a volatile situation, as many disputes are, but the way miners were treated was clearly wrong and disproportionate. There is no getting away from that and that is why a pardon is so necessary. This bill does not answer all the questions that we have, but this legislation will go some way to aid reconciliation and to help heal wounds within Scotland's mining communities. An automatic pardon will provide some form of justice to those families affected. As a committee member, I think that the Government has responded well to our stage 1 and stage 2 considerations, and much of that has already been outlined by the cabinet secretary. There have been various aspects that the Government has made moves on following the committee's report, and I am really pleased about that. Of course, the most heated discussion has been about compensation, so let me be very clear for the chamber, for those in the gallery and in the else. I, like my colleagues, and articulated by Christine Grahame earlier, support compensation for the miners who couldn't, but the question has always been who pays. That is clearly for the UK Government, and going through the passage of the bill, I am more and more convinced of that. That is not simply a constitutional question. Of course, I would rather be independent than their compensation would have been paid ages ago by a Scottish Parliament, but that is a matter of principle. 4.4 billion from the miners' pension fund is our miners' money, and that is their money. We all must unite to get it back, and simply saying that the Scottish Parliament should bring in a compensation scheme, or simply saying that there should be no compensation at all— You do need to wind up, Mr McGregor. … is glitting the tories off the hook. I would ask that Christine Grahame and others have said for us all to unite, and I welcome Alex Rowley's plot call on that basis as well. I will wind up and say that I fully support this bill, apart from the one that recognises the disproportionate consequences suffered by many miners. It is well over to you, and very welcome. I would like to begin by thanking the miners, family members and friends that spoke so movingly to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee as we scrutinised this bill, and I welcome many of them and their friends and family to the chamber today. I appreciate that we might not have delivered all that you hoped for today, but please know that we have heard you, and I know that I am not alone in believing that our work on this is not yet complete. I thank my fellow committee members and other MSPs for the discussions and debates that we have had at committee and earlier this afternoon, and of course the clerks, researchers and building who have supported our work. As Alex Rowley said earlier, this is a good day. On behalf of the Scottish Greens, I welcome this bill and the pardon it confers. I wish that this pardon had happened decades ago. I wish, too, that it covered the whole of the UK, not just Scotland. The miners' strike defined a generation. The injustice inflicted on the miners was shameful. It was an ideologically driven attack by a Tory Government that cared more about breaking the trade union movement than it did about the rights and wellbeing of the people and communities that it was supposed to represent. For the workers and communities caught up in this dispute, it was a devastating era of violence, betrayal and division. Local police officers found themselves facing down family and friends, creating wounds that in some cases never healed. The bill matters because it acknowledges the past, the harm that has been done, some deliberate, some inadvertent, careless or callous, poisoned by a toxic and persistent ideology. We do not have to be personally or institutionally culpable to share as a society a common responsibility to address that harm. We are also reminded by the discussion of this bill of the importance of trade union solidarity. Trade unions exist to protect their workers and will rightly protect jobs, terms and conditions whenever they can. We must allow that right to be exercised without fear of violence. I would like to say a few words about some of the amendments that were not passed today. As I said a few moments ago, our work on this issue is not yet finished. I do think that the 16 people that Richard Leonard spoke about who were convicted under section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 should be pardoned. I await with interest the reply to the cabinet secretary's letter seeking a robust mechanism for doing just that. Similarly, the Scottish Greens believe in the principle of financial redress for those who lost earnings, jobs, future employment prospects or pensions as a consequence of participating in the minus strike. We think that there should be an inquiry to examine the allegations made at the time and repeated in committee that there was political interference in police operations and allegations too of collusion between the national coal board and different parts of the justice system. Pursuing these measures will be complex and time consuming and if we sought to include them in the bill before us today we would delay perhaps by years the passing of this pardon. We do however give our commitment that we will work with the Scottish Government and others to pursue these measures. So today we acknowledge the past, we acknowledge the harm done to individuals and communities and we acknowledge the on-going injustices and inequalities that continue in the former mining communities across Scotland. While we welcome the collective and posthumous pardon the bill offers, we must, as we remember and look back on the events and actions that they made this bill necessary, learn from the mistakes that were made and pledge to never repeat them. Thank you very much indeed Mr Chapman. We now move to the closing speeches and I call firstly Richard Leonard for around four minutes please. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. It's been the privilege of my life being welcomed into the homes of miners and their families and hearing from them their deeply personal, their intensely emotional experiences. Some I met for the first time like Cathy and John Mitchell who clung on in heartbreak and hardship when John, 27 years working at the Francis, was arrested, convicted, sacked and blacklisted in 1984. Others, like Jim Taney from Sockey, in the cabinet secretary's own constituency. I did know but I hadn't met for almost 40 years wrongfully arrested, falsely accused, he spent 26 days and nights in Barlinny. Jim Taney's only crime to be a man of principle of unyielding integrity to stand up for his class. I heard the anger but also the strength, the determination of the women of Ock and Geek, Moody's Burn and Cadawn. Women like Margaret Martin and her daughters Angela and Caroline, like Janet and Nicola Reagan, Donna Lyons, June Johnson, Mary Johnson, Jackie Fleming and others, as one uplifting evening in the Ock and Geek Miners welfare, they recounted how the women of the villages went to the picket lines as well as to the soup kitchens. I've listened as well to the families, still scarred by the pain and loss. But everyone, everyone of them with a rich sense of pride in the principles of their fathers, people like the late Doddie McShane. Over and over again, the young miners who had their futures stolen from them, Wattie Watson, Mick Magahey Jr, Willie Doolan, now in their 50s and 60s, still fighting for their communities, each of them in the words of the late Mick Magahey, products of their class and their movement. Let me say as well that if it wasn't for the commitment of another product of his movement and his class, Neil Findlay, I do not believe that this bill would be before us today. This Parliament has heard powerful testimonies from Alec Bennett, Bob Young and Nicky Wilson on behalf of the National Union of Mine Workers, which is a reminder that this Parliament exists because of the vision of Mick Magahey and the NUM in making the case for its establishment to the trade union movement in the late 1960s. We owe them a huge debt. This bill has been amended. It now recognises that, back in the strike, the battle for survival was not just waged on picket lines, it was conducted on the streets of towns and villages too, in the miners' welfare, the miners' institutes in housing schemes and in neighbourhoods, and that this battle was rightly not just enjoined by the miners but by their families too. It is a bill that now recognises that those people convicted under the archaic 1875 conspiracy and protection of property act must be pardoned as well and that must be part of the next step of our journey. All too often we have heard the tired old arguments that it is not for this Parliament, that it is not for this bill, that it is not up to us to offer financial redress to these men who are not criminals but who have been criminalised all these years, which is why I say in closing today to members of this Parliament, what shall we tell them? Those 206 miners who were sacked in their families, those 500 miners who were convicted, what shall we tell the people watching in the gallery today to go back to your communities and be patient? Put your faith in Boris Johnson? The miners know better than anybody else that they have always had to fight for everything that they have got. They know and we know that this campaign for justice is not over. Today is an important staging post, but in the words of Cathy Mitchell, we keep fighting on. We keep fighting on. We keep fighting on. Thank you, Mr Leonard. I appreciate the emotions running high, but I encourage those in the public gallery not to participate in the debate. I now call Rachel Hamilton for up to five minutes. The emotions are running high, and it is always a bit of a shame when people come to support our debates here in the chamber that they are not able to express themselves, but we understand that precedent. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservative Party. It is a pleasure to participate in the debate, and there has in reality been much cross-party consensus, which I am sure will have been demonstrated to those in the gallery and watching at home of how important this bill is to all of us. I grew up in Wales. I was born in Brecon, and as a young girl I witnessed the heartache of the strikes and the closures of the pits, and it really was very heartbreaking for everyone. Even though I was not directly involved, it affected everybody. It was absolutely vital that the Government got this bill right today, and even though some people in the chamber do not agree that some of the amendments were not accepted, it has been good to find that, because there were so few amendments, it means that I think we did get it right, even though I was not actually involved in that process at the time. I would like to echo the sentiments of many of my colleagues today and congratulate the cabinet secretary in his approach to the bill, the committee members and the clerks, and for all of those who gave evidence throughout the passage of the bill. Colleagues in the chamber have spoken passionately this evening, particularly Richard Leonard, Alex Rowley and Alex Cole-Hamilton. I cannot mention everybody because everybody has made passionate speeches. I would like to congratulate Christine Grahame for sharing her memories of her family and her growing up and witnessing some of the things that I witnessed, but did not really perhaps take so much attention to because I was quite young, and I am not being ages there, Christine. However, the most important thing to take from today's debate is not about the good work of those involved in bringing this bill to this stage, but rather about those for whom this bill can bring a degree of closure and a sense of historical wrongs being righted. It is to torture that old cliché about healing the divisions of the past, and today, in a way, although it is highly charged, I do feel that it is a positive day. As my colleague Alexander Stewart pointed out, John Scott's review made it clear that there were injustices in some convictions relating to the minor strike. I completely agree with him that it is right to pardon those as we will do today, convicted of crimes related to the minor strike. Although I have not sat on the committee, as I said, for long enough to have heard those testimonies made throughout the evidence-gathering process at first hand, I have become acutely aware of the strength of feeling on the issue. Listening to the words of those affected by the unjust response to the strike brings home the importance again of this bill. There is absolutely no doubt that it could not have been handled by the parties any better than it has been today. The scope of this bill is a matter that I feel required particularly close consideration. I know that there were concerns raised around the eligibility for pardons, particularly surrounding Fulton MacGregor's amendments. We thought very carefully about that, and I know that Fulton was very engaging and ensured that we were given the detail over some of those amendments. I know that it is very important to him as well, because he has his links within his constituency to former minor communities and their families. I very much respect that. Fulton MacGregor also spoke about extending the bill for compensation. Perhaps that is for another day, but speaking to my colleagues within the passage of the bill, that could have meant that if we had incorporated it in particular in the scope of this bill, it would have meant that this bill would have been delayed and people would not have got the justice that they fully deserve. How many minutes have I got, Presiding Officer? Am I meant to be closing now? Closing five minutes. Just looking at it, I do not want to dwell too much on this point because I feel that between the parties that it may be extended in terms of that compensation, but I would like to echo some of the sentiments that I made yesterday during the Good Food Nation debate by saying that legislation in this place that passes through the Parliament is always done best when we try to work collaboratively. Even though we are talking about a party that perhaps 40 years ago carried out some of those decisions, it is important that now, in this room, that we are working collaboratively, particularly for those who are affected within the 1984 and 1985 minor strikes. I sincerely hope for those in the gallery here today and all those affected by what has happened over the last 40 years that this debate has shown that the Scottish Parliament is united behind their cause. Ms Hamilton, I now call on the cabinet secretary to wind up the debate for around six minutes, please. The debate has provided a final opportunity to discuss what I think is an important piece of legislation, and I am grateful to all the members that have contributed to it. Can I be the first person to say that I am, in fact, older than Pam Duncan-Glancy? As I said in my opening remarks, the bill has enjoyed relatively strong cross-party support from the start. That is to be expected, given the connection to the former coal mining industry of many members, which many of the communities we represent continue to hold close to their hearts. I am encouraged that the Parliament's endorsement of the bill, if that is what happens, has been reflected to a large extent in today's debate, and I hope that this endorsement will be crystallised with the bill being passed unanimously at decision time. I recognise that the debate has again covered a broad range of familiar and fundamental questions relating to the scope of the pardon and the bill, how to maximise awareness of the pardon once it comes into effect, what can be done now to support former mining communities, and what can be done collectively to press the UK Government to consider undertaking a full UK-wide inquiry into the events of the strike. I am just going back to the debate. I never asked for or demanded consensus. I certainly hope for it. I think that the point that I was making was simply that it is not possible to mock a set of people because they want to make representations to their Government and then say that they want to do the same thing as well, not with any credibility at least. I did listen carefully and welcomed the opportunity to address some of the points that were made and to close today's debate on what is the landmark bill. It is also true to say that the division has run very deep. I was talking to a Scottish Government employee recently who was raised in the mining community that Christine Grahame represents and said that he was aware of his father's friend who, as a father, had never spoken to his son since the minor strike. If they saw each other in the street, they would cross the road to avoid each other. That gave some idea of the impact that the strike had. For those of us who were around at the time to witness it, it was visceral. It was a horrible situation for the people who were there, and that is those of us who observed it. We can only imagine what it was like for the miners and their families. That is why the focus of the bill is to try to concentrate on reconciliation. I have always said that the challenge for the Parliament was to refine the detail of the bills on which it enhanced that reconciliation aim without diluting its main purpose, which was to remove the stigma of convictions. It is worth remembering that some of those people had never had a conviction in their life before and never had its sins, and felt it to be that badge of shame that we are now seeking to lift here today. To try to help to restore dignity and to help to heal the long-standing wounds in our former mining communities. I believe that the bill, as amended at stage 3, that the Parliament will surely be asked to agree, meets that challenge. I have welcomed the constructive elements of the debate as part of the bill, although I recognise that, even when we might not entirely agree with each other on certain points, I do appreciate that those points are well intentioned. I do not want to accuse others of acting in bad faith. We all have the interests, I believe, of former miners and communities primarily in mind. I should also acknowledge, as Alex Rowley did, that he captured the idea and the purpose behind that when he spoke, which is that we might not be able to force consensus, but sometimes consensus and unanimity send an extremely strong message, so I would endorse the comments that Alex Rowley made. I also have very powerful speech from Maggie Chapman as well. Alex Rowley mentioned former member Neil Findlay. I would also mention former Justice Secretary, whom he took on the early parts of the bill. I think that both Michael Matheson and Pamza Yousaf were involved in that, and other former members, as well as former miners and others who gave evidence to the committee. In terms of the pardon criteria, the bill at introduction went further, just to repeat, than the parameters that were set by John Scott's review group. Following parliamentary scrutiny, the bill now goes even further to make the pardon available to more people and for additional offences. I therefore hope that it is recognised that, where some members still believe that there may be gaps or omissions in the bill, that is due to having to work within the powers afforded to this Parliament and also in order to keep focused on the key purpose, the key outcomes and the key people that the bill seeks to address. If the Parliament is content to approve the bill, I am committed to working as best as I can with parliamentarians across the chamber and at Westminster, including colleagues in other UK jurisdictions, to ensure that the impact and legacy of the strike are not forgotten, and to ensure that pressure is applied to give former miners and communities across the UK an inquiry that will provide the truth and the answers that they require to be able to fully move on. We will also press for compensation to be paid to miners who lost out on thousands of pounds, having lost their rights to redundancy and pension payments following dismissal for participating in the strike. I mentioned previously that the practice of blacklisting has well exploited many families. However, for now, the bill has the primary theme of reconciliation running through its veins. With that in mind, we should acknowledge the miners and the other individuals who fought passionately for their livelihoods and communities, who took action that they believed was the right thing to do for their families and communities. I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the police officers who were caught up in the strike. Many who, like former miners, are now retired or sadly no longer with us. In most circumstances, they were doing their job very bravely in hugely difficult circumstances to uphold the law in the communities that they represented. To close, this is an important bill that has allowed Scotland to lead the way in acknowledging the wounds that were inflicted by the strike and its legacy, which have been endured for too long in mining communities. Pam Duncan-Glancy mentioned that the Government should be aware of the sorry state of affairs that it brings us to. I do not see it that way. I see this as being the first Parliament to pass a pardon for miners in the UK, the first Government to bring this to a Parliament, and I would hope that a first Parliament to vote for that unanimous will. I do not think that that is the sorry state of affairs. I do concede that it is not business finished, but it is not a sorry state of affairs. I think that this is a cause of real achievement. It also allows Scotland to lead the way in taking action to remove the stigma of the convictions as a result of the strike, but to restore that dignity to former miners and their families. That is a collective pardon. It applies posthumously and to those living and symbolises our desires as a country for truth and reconciliation following the decades of hurt and anger and misconceptions that were generated by one of the most bitter and divisive industrial disputes in living memory. In the spirit of reconciliation, the pardon recognises the exceptional circumstances that gave rise to the former miners' suffering hardship and the loss of their good name through their participation in the strike. Today, that is what really matters to me and I hope that that matters to the Parliament. I therefore urge Parliament to support the bill but to also work collectively following the passage of the bill so that we can promote the further outcomes that we know of those communities, and the miners and former miners in the chamber today want to seek. I commend the motion to Parliament. Thank you. That concludes the debate on miners' strike pardon Scotland bill. It is now time to move on to the next item of business. Point of order. Oliver Mundell. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I apologise to those in the gallery for making them wait a little bit longer. Under the standing order rule 8.17.1, I wish to seek your clarification on whether our minister answering a question to this chamber is expected to give a full answer and to take the opportunity given to share with Parliament a significant change in Government policy, which has already been communicated to stakeholders. Today, during general questions, Lorna Slater stated that during recent discussions she indicated that it is important for Government to work with stakeholders to explore options for future more sustainable forms of bracking control. However, I have been contacted by a number of individuals who suggest that the minister went considerably further and indicated a change in Government policy to stakeholders, telling them that she was not minded to support the continued use of azulocks in the future. Bracking control might seem unimportant to some members of this Parliament and, indeed, to some ministers, but, Presiding Officer, that has far-reaching consequences for livestock, the environment and the rural economy. As a minimum, Parliament should be kept informed. For that reason, in addition to my query around the properness of withholding key information in response to a direct parliamentary question, I wish to seek your view on whether a minister, having come to such a view and having expressed it to stakeholders, should be proactively sharing such a decision with Parliament in a timely manner via one of the many mechanisms available and thereby allowing their decision to be subjected to scrutiny. Although perhaps not on the scale of other actions this week, that speaks to me to the general culture of discurtycy towards this Parliament and its members, which exist within the current Scottish Government. As I am sure all members are by now aware, it is not for the chair to rule on the content of responses provided by ministers in the chamber. There are many mechanisms for the Government to provide information to the Parliament and the expectation that Parliament is made aware before important matters are announced elsewhere. The member will also be aware that, if he is dissatisfied with an answer to a question, there are a variety of methods open to him to clarify the information that he is looking for. There is one question to be put as a result of today's business, and that question is that motion 4979, in the name of Keith Brown, on minor strike pardons Scotland Bill, be agreed. I will allow a brief pause before we begin the vote. I would be very grateful if members could refresh their voting screens. Members who voted earlier should see confirmation of their last votes and members who are voting for the first time will see the message that there are no votes currently open, but I would be very grateful if all members could refresh their screens. Today's pin for those who have not been logged in The question is that motion 4979, in the name of Keith Brown, on minor strike pardons Scotland Bill, be agreed. Members should cast their votes now. The vote is now closed. Mr Smith will ensure that that is recorded. The result of the vote on motion 4979, in the name of Keith Brown, is yes, 117. There were no votes against, there were no abstentions, the motion is therefore agreed and the minor strike pardons Scotland Bill is passed. That concludes decision time and I close this meeting.