2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:30 pm on 12 June 2018.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 2:30, 12 June 2018

Leader of the house, you will be aware of the Scottish Government's decision to hold an inquiry into the policing of the miners' strike, and you'll be aware that this is a result of the UK Government's refusal, on a number of occasions—the Home Secretaries, Amber Rudd, and then Teresa May, whom I met with on the occasions, refusing to hold such an inquiry, despite considerable amounts of new evidence and documentation coming. And the reason it's important is not only the number of Welsh miners who were arrested, charged and then successfully prosecuted—took action against—the police for malicious prosecution, but it's the fabrication of evidence and the abuse of power that occurred, and where the orders for that abuse came from. Its relevance, of course, being that that conduct was, of course, then repeated subsequently at Hillsborough and then at the Rotherham inquiries. And that is why that conduct's important. Now, Scotland can have the inquiry because the situation with policing there is devolved, and we can't. Can I ask then that what the Welsh Government will do is that it will formally support the actions of the Scottish Government in holding its own inquiry there, but it will also make further representations to the new Home Secretary that it's about time the UK Government now held that inquiry, disclosed the documentation that is available? Because there are real questions to answer about abuse of power, where the orders actually came from, and one can only ask the question: what has the Tory Government got to hide?