Chamber and committees

I hear what you say about the scope of the pardon and its being limited to actions around and travel to and from picket lines. We have heard from miners who were directly involved in the strike and we have heard from members of the wider community that supported striking miners. One of the concerns with the limit of actions around and travel to and from picket lines is that it does not cover everybody. In one evidence session, somebody said that the pardon is welcome but will not mean anything unless it covers everybody. I will give you an example that does not relate to a picket line. As you know, miners who broke the strike were living in the same communities as striking miners and there were often tensions around that. Sometimes, the attribution of blame for violence—not violence to people but damage to property—was problematic. There are questions around why those kinds of incidents that were directly related to the strike but not at or around picket lines cannot be covered as well. Can you say more about why we cannot extend the criteria? Have you considered the option of extending the criteria to actions associated with the miners strike, which would include those kinds of activities in the community?

I appreciate what you say, and I appreciate that the act that you mentioned might cast the net wider than we think appropriate, but I am interested in exploring whether there is a way through. I do not necessarily mean that we should include the activities that you described, because we cannot assess things such as the degrees of malice involved, and, in many ways, we cannot make judgments about what happened at picket lines or on the journeys to and from them. However, it is important to understand that the strike happened in the context of the community, and not only at the picket lines. Recognising that aspect somehow is important, although I am not sure exactly how we do that.

In response to my earlier question, cabinet secretary, you talked about some of the reasons for not extending the bill’s scope to certain aspects of community tensions. I have been thinking and listening to your answers to my colleagues, and I wonder about that. We know and accept that the bill is about a pardon and not about quashing convictions, so what would be the harm in doing that? You said that it would set precedents elsewhere, but we are not talking about quashing convictions; we are talking about, as you said, recognition of the wider circumstances, which were different from the normal functioning of society.

Will you say a bit more about the setting of precedents and why, given that the bill is not about quashing convictions, that would be the consequence? I am not sure that I quite understand that link, given that it is a pardon and not a quashing.

The way that we experience crime is a product of inequality and imbalances of power, of social and economic pressures, and of assumptions and intersecting injustices. It is clear from the evidence and data that have been collected by the various parts of our justice system, and from extensive research both here and elsewhere, that bringing someone into the criminal justice system—even if that does not result in a caution, in a charge being brought or in a conviction—makes it much more likely that that person will be sucked further into the system, with negative consequences for them and, very likely, for their family and the wider community.

That is why I firmly believe, and am pleased to see it stated in the Scottish Government’s motion, that tackling crime must be a trauma-informed whole-government mission, and that it must be rooted in human rights. We cannot deal with crime through the justice system alone. With the new vision for justice, I hope that we can develop and sustain cross-departmental working that enables a renewed focus on areas such as youth work, community development and support for new parents. The police should not be used as a replacement for skilled and experienced youth workers or community workers, yet that is so often what happens, and it sucks people into a system that is dehumanising and deeply damaging. Of course, we also need to address that issue of the system, and I will come to that shortly.

Evidence also shows that there are significant generational and intergenerational relationships in criminal behaviour, which calls on us to think much more holistically about prevention. As part of our work towards the new just and caring Scotland that we want, we must provide appropriate non-siloed support for so-called “troubled families”, which would also result in health and social care benefits for those families.

The whole-government approach should not be focused only on prevention and early intervention. We must ensure that we support appropriately the people who come out of the system. So often, prisoners are released into homelessness, and that just perpetuates injustice.

I turn to our prison system. We need to be clearer in making the distinction between punishment and public safety. Prison tries to do both those things, but that is not always appropriate. We must act to reduce the numbers of non-violent prisoners, but we must also explore a different kind of public safety approach for dangerous people. It is right that dangerous people are kept away from the public, but that does not mean that the framework should be one of punishment. Indefinite sentences are not good. Post-punishment, there needs to be an alternative.

We also need urgent action to address the level of people who are on remand. We need to ask ourselves serious questions as to why remand numbers are so high if prison numbers are falling.

We need a complete transformation of our prison system. Improving the prison estate is all very well, and is important in ensuring that the human rights of those who are incarcerated are secured, but a serious effort is needed to tackle the culture of bullying, violence, self-harm and suicide that we know exists and that damages prisoners and prison staff. Radical culture change is necessary, and prisoners and staff must be included in that process.

In the same way that tackling crime must be a whole-government mission that involves working across departmental silos and with public and third sector agencies, so must the offer that we provide victims, survivors and witnesses of crime seek to address not only issues of support, communication and compensation, but those of restoration, reconciliation and healing. Our current processes do not often achieve that.

We have a responsibility to ensure that there is meaningful engagement with and support for victims, survivors and witnesses—perhaps especially women and children. We have much work to do to ensure that their voices are heard, and that they have the support, information and involvement in processes that allow them to be free from fear and hopelessness.

There is much more that I want to say about the different elements in the vision, including violence against women and Lady Dorrian’s recommendations, the proposed victims commissioner and Covid recovery, as well as the absence from it of civil justice, which Pauline McNeill noted. There is so much more in the vision to talk about.

I end with a plea for collaboration and engagement. Over the coming months, as we develop delivery and implementation plans for the strategy, we also need to involve wider society. The profound culture change that underpins the vision needs citizen discussion and engagement.

I look forward to working with the cabinet secretary and others across the chamber and beyond to create and develop spaces that combine expert and public understanding of the issues, which will enhance support for transformational change. We need to find ways to provide richer information to our citizens, catalysing conversations with people from all walks of life and garnering their contributions to inform the radically different state structures that we need to implement.

Radical reform, perhaps particularly in justice, is often viewed with suspicion and distrust, but that need not be the only story. A better justice system means a safer society for us all, and direct citizen engagement can help to make that a reality.

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the rural affairs secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding support for young farmers in the north-east to support and promote good mental health and wellbeing. (S6O-00713)

Farming has the poorest safety record of any occupation in the United Kingdom and a higher than expected suicide rate. Last year, the Farm Safety Foundation’s research found that 92 per cent of Scotland’s farmers who are under 40 say that mental health is one of the biggest hidden problems that they face, and the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution’s big farming survey revealed that more than one third of farmers are “probably” or “possibly” depressed. Financial uncertainty about the replacement of funding for European Union farm payments, powerful supermarkets’ dictating of challenging prices, and poor connectivity are just some of the contributing factors. What more can we do to ensure that we support farmers as part of strong, resilient and connected communities in our rural areas?

Scottish households are facing profound financial challenges. We must address those directly, demanding accountability from where decision-making power on energy lies and seeking to tackle the foundational causes of inequality, while acknowledging why we are in this position.

The crisis is a product of several factors. We have a UK Government that is taking more and giving less, as we have seen in its decisions on national insurance and universal credit. That pushes many into fuel and food poverty and stifles our businesses.

Westminster has failed oil and gas workers and energy customers, and further destabilised our climate with its refusal to support shifts away from volatile fossil fuel markets. In the process, it has also wasted our money, as can be seen in the £400 million that it spent on the abandoned green deal scheme, which supported only 1 per cent of households and delivered significantly fewer measures than any previous scheme. Its withdrawal of support for renewables, especially onshore wind, and comprehensive insulation schemes should be a cause of shame.

We must do everything in our power to minimise the impacts of the crisis on Scottish homes and livelihoods by disinvesting scarce public money from unsustainable industries and greenwashing initiatives. We must not prolong the extraction of fossil fuels while ignoring the fact that big oil and gas companies shift the detriments of market volatility on to workers. Instead, we have the potential to demonstrate how the just transition to local energy systems as part of a green new deal can reduce poverty and inequality.

Those innovations would see significant revenue generation that we could use to support households and businesses while reducing the cost of domestic energy use, but unfortunately they are still restricted by the UK Government’s socially and environmentally regressive policy regime.

We also need to make sure that the support that is available, such as the Scottish welfare fund, is as accessible as possible, as Citizens Advice Scotland and others have highlighted.

It is clear that Scotland is moving towards a more distributive fiscal policy, as we see in our decision to make bus travel free for young people, the doubling of the child payment and so on. The actions that we see from Westminster will only allow the gap between rich and poor to grow.

South of the border, where big decisions about Scotland’s energy system are made, home insulation schemes are failing without consequence. In the past year, 90 per cent of energy bill increases have been due to the rising price of gas. The only way to cut the cost of energy is to end our dependence on gas and break the relationship between gas prices and fuel bills, but Westminster refuses to do that. That reflects the general failures of Westminster to protect vulnerable homes and livelihoods from predatory and exploitative business practices, and from its own defective fiscal policy. All this happens as Covid-19 and its impacts continue to weigh heavy on many Scots who lost income and loved ones.

The Scottish Government’s resource spending review must mitigate the crisis rather than exacerbating it in any way. It will, of course, involve trade-offs—Scotland’s fiscal constraints demand such trade-offs—but the very least that the most vulnerable in our society deserve is for public money to be spent in a way that delivers sustainable and affordable outcomes for them.

There has been consistent denial from Westminster when we demand accountability for the crippling cost of living crisis. Let us not forget David Cameron’s desire to

“get rid of all the green crap”.

That has added £2.5 billion—yes, £2.5 billion—to UK energy bills. It seems that those in the Government at Westminster care only about things that make massive profits for their pals.

Denials and disinterest will not help anyone. We need a concerted and palpable intervention. If the UK Government is incapable of meeting, or unwilling to meet, the urgent needs of households and businesses in Scotland, it must give us the powers that we need to deliver the necessary interventions ourselves.

Thank you. I ask Stephen Montgomery, too, to speak about the rural-urban difference that Marc Crothall identified, if there is one in relation to your sector.

I am interested to hear Leon Thompson’s thoughts.

I am now interested in thinking longer term. International experts are saying that full recovery does not look likely until at least 2024, so I suppose that there is a question about how we deal with the next two years. However, are there discussions in your respective sectors about the fact that full recovery in 2024 will not mean that the sectors will look like what they looked like pre Covid? What innovation, changes or diversification are happening? What pressure points do you need us to focus on to ensure that we have a vibrant and sustainable tourism and hospitality sector in the future, especially if we are thinking about non-pandemic challenges such as the climate emergency?