6. Urgent Question: Orgreave

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:51 pm on 1 November 2016.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 3:51, 1 November 2016

Diolch. Minister, the battle for Orgreave witnessed one of the worst days of violence in the 1984 miners’ strike, and yet yesterday the Home Secretary turned down a public inquiry on the grounds that it wasn’t serious enough. She said that there were no wrongful convictions, but as Tyrone O’Sullivan, who was at Orgreave, made clear this morning, there were wrongful arrests, there was mass violence instigated by the South Yorkshire Police, and there were careers ended—the men who were arrested never worked for the National Coal Board again. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has unearthed evidence of perjury and of perverting the course of justice. Papers revealed under the 30-year rule and, indeed, memoirs of Ministers have shown that the police were deliberately used for political ends and that the instruments of the state were used to crush a lawful strike. Indeed, William Waldegrave in his memoir referred to the police being sent in to crack heads. Minister, does not the evidence of the Hillsborough inquiry show that when things go badly wrong, the best thing to do is to be open and transparent and admit and learn from those mistakes? It’s deeply disappointing to people from the mining communities that many of us represent that this opportunity wasn’t taken and it will make it even more difficult to rebuild trust in authorities.