Miners Strike 1984-85: UK-wide Inquiry

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) on securing this extremely important debate.

I have to declare an interest. I was one of those 11,000 miners arrested during the strike. I make no apologies for that. I am probably the only Member of Parliament now sitting who was part of the miners strike. I was on strike for the full year, for which I am again extremely proud.

Those were extremely difficult times. Miners are generally very hard-working, conscientious people. Very few miners had ever been in trouble with the police before. In communities up and down the UK, they were hard-working, hard-playing individuals who were the backbone of the nation. I will never forget what I experienced as a young lad. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) said it shaped her character; it definitely shaped mine, for better or worse. Some might say it is for worse, and some that it is for better.

My father, brothers, family and community were all out on strike to save the British coalmining industry. What we experienced was an absolute disgrace. There is an appetite for a public inquiry into what went on, whether we want to talk about the actions of the police, which have already been well documented by the previous two speakers, or about the actions of the courts, the magistrates and the Crown courts, or about the way miners suffered abuse, really, by the legal system through plea bargains—“Accept this and you’ll not go to prison,” or, “Accept this charge and you’ll not get a longer sentence,” when many of those people had not committed anything at all. They deserve justice, because those were hard-working, honest individuals, who, as has already been explained, were basically attacked by the police state, as it were, at the time.

I could recite a number of occurrences I was personally involved in, but I will not bore people to death with that, though they were significant. I had never been involved in anything with the police all my life till the miners strike, and I have never been involved with the police since. I am proud of my record; my record with the police is industrial and was to save communities. We could talk about a number of things, such as police infiltration and whether we had armed forces in the strike. We could talk about how an individual might have been picked off the picket line for no reason whatsoever, and might have lost their job and pension, and been blacklisted, never to get a job again. Some even ended up in prison. There needs to be an inquiry to sort that out.

Who was pulling the strings at the time? Recent documents show that it was the Thatcher Cabinet, if not Margaret Thatcher herself, that made a series of interventions. We want to know what happened. We need to understand and try to draw a line under what happened, which smashed our communities to smithereens.

The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign ran a marvellous campaign over many years, seeking an inquiry into what happened at Orgreave. That campaign was all well and good, and well deserved, and I congratulate everyone involved on their tenacity. But mining communities in south Wales, Scotland, the north-east, Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire all suffered as a consequence of the miners strike, through some form of intervention by the police. This goes beyond Orgreave, but Orgreave was the worst of the worst. It is nearly 40 years, but we can look back and think, “Did that really happen in this country?” The BBC reversed the coverage to say that the miners attacked the police. How bizarre that that could be allowed to happen in the UK.

I am absolutely delighted that Scottish Parliament has decided to pardon the miners in the Scottish areas. Compensation is something that we need to discuss and debate, as has already been highlighted. However, there is an overwhelming appetite for a public inquiry. If the Scottish Parliament can unanimously agree to pardons, perhaps the Minister can explain why that cannot be achieved for the rest of the UK.

I could speak for hours on this subject but will wind up my contribution. The miners deserve to be able to be draw a line under this. Many miners went to the grave with criminal charges for fighting for their communities—picked off a picket line by police from 300 miles away, in order to serve a cause that we were terribly opposed to. I ask the Minister to not simply discount the idea of potentially having an inquiry—not just into the policing, but into the miners strike in its entirety—but instead take a lesson from the Shrewsbury 24 campaign. That campaign began in the 1970s, with a strike of building workers. They fought and fought and fought for justice, and they only just got recognised last year, through papers that had to be disclosed to the public by the Government, which outlined all the wrongdoings of the police. We will keep campaigning for this inquiry, because the miners, their families and their communities are still very raw about this, even though it was 40 years ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my good friend and comrade, my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), on securing this debate. I say that not just because he is the Chief Whip of our group, but because he and I regularly found ourselves on the front pages of some of the more right-wing newspapers in Scotland, which condemned us for having the temerity to ask for a miners inquiry in Scotland. For many years, my hon. Friend, along with a number of others, has asked for a Scottish inquiry. It would be only right and fair to praise the efforts of a friend of mine, former Member of the Scottish Parliament Neil Findlay, who was one of the lead campaigners in ensuring a miners inquiry in Scotland. Neil is sadly missed in the Scottish Parliament, but I know he is continuing to do great work with trade unions in Scotland.

I congratulate all hon. Members who have spoken. I say to my friend, the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), that he has nothing to apologise for at all. Events have maybe been for the better; they have certainly made him a very good Member of Parliament.

The Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Bill is an important and historic step towards reconciliation. It is going to help to heal some of the wounds in Scotland’s mining communities. It is groundbreaking legislation, which will restore dignity to those convicted, provide comfort to their families and, I hope, start to bring some closure on the sense of injustice that members of mining communities may continue to feel. We very much sympathise with the miners who lost out in redundancy payments and pension rights as a result of being sacked by the National Coal Board after being arrested or convicted for actions while participating in the strike.

I hope the legislation will end some of the demonisation of trade unions who take industrial action on behalf of their members. The demonisation we saw during the miners strike was very much in evidence last week towards the rail workers. I take the view that those who take industrial action are exercising their human rights; they have a human right to withdraw their labour from any employer.

Professor Jim Murdoch of the School of Law at the University of Glasgow, who worked with John Scott QC on the independent review, said:

“As members of the independent review, our task was primarily to listen: to show that those affected by the miners’ strike had a voice more than a third of a century later.

At each of the meetings we held, it was clear that the pain felt by former miners and their families was still raw.

The response to the miners’ strike at the time left a deep scar on too many communities. Their stories showed without doubt that the criminal justice system all too often reacted in an arbitrary and disproportionate manner.

Our task was to seek to promote a sense of reconciliation, and we are pleased that our report and its recommendation have received clear support today in the Scottish Parliament.”

The Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Bill pardons the offences of breach of the peace, obstructing a police officer, breach of bail and theft that occurred during the 1984-85 dispute. The legislation has been welcomed by the National Union of Mineworkers in Scotland.

That brings us on to why the UK Government should now launch a UK-wide inquiry. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice in Scotland, Keith Brown, put it rather well when he said:

“It is now right that the UK Government recognises the passing of this historic legislation and gives further consideration to a UK-wide public inquiry and the payment of compensation to former miners. I have written to the Home Secretary this week urging her to reconsider her position given the strong support for this landmark Bill.”

Will the Minister tell us if the Home Secretary has received that letter and when the Scottish Government will see a response?

Many of us who support an inquiry were surprised when the then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, said in October 2016 that the UK Government were ruling out an inquiry into the events at Orgreave in South Yorkshire, probably one of the most notorious flashpoints in the miners strike. I have also received an excellent briefing from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign. It is correct to ask the UK Government to reconsider, because of new evidence that has come to light since October 2016, including the disclosure of documents that are embargoed until 2066—I do not think we should wait until then—as well as the existence of documents in the South Yorkshire archives. New evidence is also coming to light as a result of the ongoing undercover police inquiry, in which the National Union of Mineworkers is a core participant.

There is also—this is of most concern to me—the recent Daily Mirror article that exposed a conversation with Amber Rudd about the reasons not to hold an Orgreave inquiry, which were given as because it would “slur the memory of Thatcher” and upset party members. Protecting someone’s legacy is not a reason not to have the inquiry. That raises alarm bells with me, as I am sure it does with other Members.

[Ian Lavery]

I totally agree with the hon. Member in regard to Neil Findlay; he has run a tremendous campaign. Would the hon. Member like to comment on the fact that during the miners strike Scotland represented 10% of the National Coal Board workforce, but 30% of all those arrested were Scottish, with many being sacked? That was terribly unequal. Would he like to comment on why that might have been?

[Chris Stephens]

The independent review makes it very clear: it is because of the disproportionate actions of the police and the justice system at that point. I was also alarmed by those figures when they were brought to my attention. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the Labour party report, prepared by Gordon Brown and Merlyn Rees—a future Prime Minister and a former Home Secretary—which also raised and highlighted the concerns in 1985 about the strike. It recommended that there should be a royal commission into the circumstances leading up to the strike and the conduct of the strike, as well as looking at the wider constitutional aspects of the development of policing—including accountability. Even then, in 1985, the demands from that report talk about some of the issues that the hon. Member for Wansbeck raised.

I hope the Minister will respond positively. He should take serious note of what myself and other Members have said about the current vilification of trade union activity. We saw that vilification during the miners strike of 1984-85, and we are seeing some of it today. Perhaps, he could encourage some of his colleagues to engage in a better discourse when discussing such issues.