1. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the implications for former Welsh miners and their families and communities in Wales of the Scottish Government's decision to hold an independent inquiry on the impact of policing during the miners’ strike? 183

The Welsh Government has repeatedly pressed the Home Secretary to undertake a review into policing in Welsh communities during the miners' strike. Those requests have been refused. I'm looking carefully into the Scottish inquiry. I will be speaking to my counterpart in the Scottish Government this week and writing, once again, to the Home Secretary.

Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary. The events at Orgreave in June 1984 during the miners' strike represented one of the most serious abuses of state power in recent times. Events during the miners' strike were, in my view, the closest this country has ever come to becoming a police state. Police officers were ordered to use maximum force against the miners, many of whom were from Wales, and many Welsh miners were violently assaulted, beaten and left bloodied. They were then charged with concocted common-law charges of riot and unlawful assembly, which, had they been proved, would've led to long prison sentences for many of the miners. The evidence was fabricated and manipulated in an attempt to secure convictions, and despite all this, Cabinet Secretary, all the cases failed. Every miner was acquitted, the state attempt to pervert the course of justice failed, the South Yorkshire Police were forced to pay £0.5 million in compensation and legal costs for malicious prosecution and false arrest, yet no-one has ever been held to account.

The UK Government has persistently refused to hold an inquiry. New evidence has emerged and the Independent Police Complaints Commission found that there is a reasonable basis for an inquiry to be held. The importance of this issue is that, had Orgreave been investigated, subsequent events at Hillsborough and Rotherham may well have turned out differently. Scotland is holding its own inquiry, but in Wales, policing is unfortunately not yet devolved, yet the call for the inquiry has been supported by all four police and crime commissioners.

The legacy of the miners' strike remains in Wales. Memories of Margaret Thatcher's victimisation of the miners and their communities is not forgotten—that is written into our memories and into our history. However, the legacy of the injustice of Orgreave, the abuse of state power and the undermining of the rule of law linger and continue to undermine confidence in our judicial system and, indeed, in justice itself in Wales and elsewhere. It is time for the UK Government to disclose all the files, to hold a public inquiry and to find out once and for all what happened, who gave the orders, who were the main conspirators and how the rule of law could be so undermined in a country whose constitution purports to be based on the supremacy of the rule of law. Cabinet Secretary, what I ask the Welsh Government to do is to do all it can to co-operate with and support the Scottish Government inquiry, and, again, to call upon the Home Secretary to commit to a public inquiry into the events at Orgreave. 

Presiding Officer, as the Member has pointed out in his question, policing is not devolved to Welsh Government and, consequently, we've not carried out an assessment of the issues he raises, since this is a matter for the United Kingdom Government. Members will be aware that the First Minister wrote to the then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, in July 2016 regarding the possibility of an inquiry into those events that were described. In October 2016, the Home Secretary decided, after considering all the views put forward, not to establish an inquiry. Can I say I very much regret that decision? All of us who were active in supporting the miners during that strike—there were many of us who were standing on those picket lines at the time, supporting friends, school friends, colleagues and communities in struggle—we stood with the colliers in those days and we stand with them today. I witnessed that violence, I witnessed it at first-hand. I saw what happened when those communities were facing almost warfare from their own Government. Those communities deserved better then, the people deserved better then and they deserve justice today. I'm absolutely clear in my own mind that the United Kingdom Government has to recognise its responsibilities in this matter. There were people I knew, that I was in school with, who suffered the consequences of those actions. They deserve fair play, they deserve justice.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.