HC Deb 20 December 1984 vol 70 c544
13. Mr. Barron

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will instigate a public inquiry into the policing of the mining dispute.

Mr. Brittan

No, Sir.

Mr. Barron

Does the Home Secretary accept that many right hon. and hon. Members will be dismayed by that answer? Will he explain why the Minister of State with responsibility for the police, the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw), made an unannounced visit to my constituency and visited four collieries, yet spoke neither to striking miners nor to others in the community who have had to live with a massive police presence for the past 10 months? Like many other hon. Members, I see that kind of action by Ministers as nothing short of irresponsible.

Mr. Brittan

The hon. Gentleman does not seem to know what goes on in his own constituency. My hon. Friend did have meetings with community representatives and representatives of the National Union of Mineworkers, but that does not seem to relate to the question. I am happy to elaborate on the answer by saying that, given the opportunity for any action to be tested in the courts—as has happened—and for any complaint against the police to be ventilated through the statutory mechanism, I see no need for an inquiry such as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Mrs. Currie

Does my right hon. and learned Friend recognise the gratitude of working miners all over the country, and especially those in my constituency, to the police, who have enabled them to go to work safely? Will he join me, on behalf of those working miners, in wishing all the policemen who have helped them a very happy Christmas and a more peaceful new year?

Mr. Brittan

I do so gladly.

Mr. Kaufman

Is it not a fact that through the miasma of distortion which the Government have created on this issue the Home Secretary was forced to admit yesterday in his press notice about crime that the number of notifiable offences in connection with the miners' dispute has not had any material effect on national crime figures, despite the fact that under his stewardship crime has risen in the past year by 9 per cent. and now stands at near national record levels? Is it not in the interests of the police and the public that we know exactly what takes place on picket lines and that a public figure such as Lord Scarman is put in charge of an independent public inquiry?

Mr. Brittan

The right hon. Gentleman has not begun to make out a case for such an inquiry. He merely seeks to cloak his own embarrassment at what is being done in the name of the Labour movement.