Maria Eagle
MP for Liverpool Garston · Labour · United Kingdom
“Of course, I recognise, as do many colleagues who have spoken in the debate, that the reasoning behind the sentence reduction for early guilty pleas—a principle that is a long-established part of our justice system—is that it saves courts time, reduces costs and can spare victims some of the trauma of having to give evidence, which can be…”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When Parliament created the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour, which was a breakthrough in itself—it had not been recognised in law before—it recognised an important truth: domestic abuse is not always physical. It can be psychological, emotional and deeply insidious.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This petition, on what is known by many supporters as Paris’s law, reflects a growing concern that our justice system must do more to recognise the unique nature of coercive control and its ongoing impact on victims; it is not something that comes and goes.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), which my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop) also spoke about from his experiences as a police officer: victims can spend months or years preparing themselves for trial, gathering evidence, reliving traumatic experiences, anticipating having to give evidence in c…”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I also pay tribute to Hayley’s mother Ruth Yates, who has campaigned tirelessly since Hayley’s untimely death for answers, accountability and change. She has worked relentlessly so that Hayley’s story could be heard, and to ensure that changes are made so that nobody else has to go through what Hayley did.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For many victims, that can feel like an extension of the very behaviour that they have sometimes endured for years and for which the justice system is seeking to hold that person to account. The uncertainty, delay and emotional toll can all compound the harm caused by the abuse.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Time and again, this Government have been criticised for poor performance on defence procurement. There have been 17 National Audit Office reports on procurement in the MOD since 2019, four reports by the Defence Committee and eight reports by the Public Accounts Committee. They have all been critical—some highly critical—of this Government. It is right that the Minister proposes some changes—we welcome that. He mentioned Ajax; can he explain how his proposals would have stopped the disasters of the Ajax procurement? That was supposed to see vehicles in service in 2017, but now they will not be on operational deployment until 2026. More than £4 billion has been spent, but just 44 vehicles have been delivered to date. That is 70% of the budget spent for 7% of the vehicles ordered. That cannot be described as good value for money.”
House of Commons28 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me begin by thanking the Minister for his statement and for early sight of it. Defence procurement matters. It provides the vital kit that our forces need to fight, as well as supporting hundreds of thousands of UK jobs. We need to get this right as a nation, both for our national security and for economic growth. However, defence procurement is a mess. It needs deep and major reform. The Public Accounts Committee describes it as “broken and repeatedly wasting taxpayers’ money.” It has been a mess for the last 14 years. Since 2010, the Conservatives have wasted £15 billion of taxpayers’ money through mismanagement of defence procurement programmes; £5 billion has been wasted in this Parliament alone. With 46 of 52 major projects not on time or on budget, this Government are failing British forces and British taxpayers.”
House of Commons28 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government have delayed producing the information required for the invitation to negotiate for the new medium-lift helicopter four times since September 2022. Can the Minister explain what has caused this 18-month delay? Given the reports last week about his Department freezing capital spending until at least the new financial year, when will the Government get their act together to get this competition under way? Can he promise that the delay will not push back the delivery date for this vital capability for our forces?”
House of Commons19 February 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me make clear that AUKUS pillar 1 and pillar 2 have Labour’s full backing. However, we are concerned about whether the Government’s current focus on implementing AUKUS is sufficient and we want more UK leadership for this national endeavour. The latest list of ministerial responsibilities, from October 2023, does not even mention AUKUS or Australia, although it does mention the USA. Ministers have agreed that pillar 1 should have only a part-time official responsible for its implementation. If AUKUS is not even in his job description and his officials are working on it part time, how can we take the Minister seriously when he says it is important?”
House of Commons8 January 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Tory party and the Government tried to do that rather more successfully than they have managed in 13 years, they might get some credit from the Opposition and from the nation, but there is precious little evidence that there is going to be any of that.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Almost a year after the current Prime Minister promised again to stop the boats, 30,000 more people have arrived. Hotel usage is going up, and not down as the Home Secretary claimed; it is at 56,000 at the moment, 10,000 more than when the Prime Minister promised to end hotel use. Criminal gangs are not being deterred. Convictions for people smugglers have dropped by 36% since 2010 and the criminal gangs are making more money than ever. The backlog of undetermined cases remains at 165,000, despite the PM’s promise to abolish the backlog of initial asylum claims by the end of this year. It is folly to continue with this farcical failed joke of a policy when what is really needed is competent, good administration. Why not put the money being wasted on this policy into dealing with the actual problem?”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“So there we have it: the policy is a Tory shibboleth, which has become an article of faith for some elements of the Tory party—the “five families”, as I think they have called themselves, somewhat menacingly. We see the Tory psychodrama unfolding yet again to decide the fate of the latest unelected Tory Prime Minister to be threatened with defenestration by some of the more right-wing elements of those five families. The country deserves better. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) set out in her excellent speech, time and again the Government go for gimmicks and infighting over basic competence and good administration. It is four years since the Tories promised to end boat crossings in six months.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It beggars belief that the Government’s response to the loss of their policy in the Supreme Court is to ask this House to legislate just to declare, “It’s all fine anyway; let’s carry on.” As others have pointed out, even if we were to start sending asylum seekers to Rwanda as a result of this Bill’s passing into law, the policy is designed for a few hundred people at the most, or less than 1% of people arriving in the UK. The permanent secretary at the Home Office was very clear when he said there was no evidence that it would work as a deterrent, whereas most of what we hear from Conservative Members is that that is the very purpose of the legislation—it is supposed to be a deterrent.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The narrow range of claims allowed are those based on “compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s particular individual circumstances”, and even those sorts of claims are excluded in some circumstances relating to refoulement. Excluding courts, by Act of Parliament, from considering relevant evidence; excluding them from taking account of judgments and laws, including domestic legislation; fettering their judgment as the Bill seeks to do; and giving Ministers power to ignore injunctions—taken together, that is tantamount to undermining the rule of law. It is certainly not respecting the rule of law, as I would expect parliamentarians in this place to do—and certainly as I would expect the Government of the day to seek to do, if they wished to uphold our international reputation.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given that the evidence that has already come forward, which the Supreme Court dealt with in its judgment, led the Court to say unanimously that it was not a safe country, it is worrying that we seem to think we can simply legislate to change the facts. The Bill allows a very narrow range of claims, and this comes to the heart of the argument between those on the Government Benches who wish to beef it up even further to exclude any kind of legal challenge, and those, perhaps on the one-nation side of the Conservative party, who are trying to put a line in the sand to say that they will not accept any further amendments.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is perfectly reasonable to legislate if the Supreme Court strikes down a policy, but one normally legislates to change a policy, not to purport to change the facts, or to say that the facts, which have not changed, are other than what the Court found them to be. That is the first thing that made me feel queasy. The Bill goes on to try to prohibit any legal challenges that may argue that Rwanda, having been deemed safe in this way, is in fact unsafe. It says that every decision maker “must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”, notwithstanding any evidence that may come forward to the contrary.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Speaking as a lawyer— [Interruption.] Yes, there are still one or two of us left. I must say that I felt quite queasy reading the Bill. It is not the kind of thing that I would expect this Parliament to be considering. I detected the same queasiness among some of the lawyers who have spoken from the Government Benches, including the former Justice Secretary and the current Chair of the Justice Committee. Apparently, they too found reading the Bill a queasy experience. I agreed with the former Tory Law Officer, Lord Garnier, who used to be in this House, when he called this Bill political and legal nonsense. It designates Rwanda as a safe country, but by doing so it seeks to reverse a conclusion of the Supreme Court on the facts.”
House of Commons12 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the Lord Chancellor knows, I still think that the independent public advocate’s powers need to be beefed up As the Lord Chancellor knows, I still think that the independent public advocate’s powers need to be beefed up to include an ability to compel transparency and be a data controller in order to torpedo attempts to cover up—what went wrong at Hillsborough was a cover-up, as much as anything. Will the Lord Chancellor reconsider his apparent unwillingness to legislate to make it clear that this House and our nation require accountability, require candour and require public authorities and those who work for them to act in the best interests of those bereaved in the appalling public tragedies that have occurred and will continue to occur?”
House of Commons6 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Bishop James called his report “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”—the key word is “unaccountable.” Thirty-four years after 97 men, women and children were unlawfully killed at a televised event, for which the public inquiry interim report pinned the blame on the police within four months, no one has been held accountable for what happened at Hillsborough, and now nobody will be. Accountability is key here. Although culture change is good, we need legal change, too. The failure to legislate for a full duty of candour for all public officials or to put the charter for families bereaved by public tragedy into statute is inexplicable.”
House of Commons6 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“New clause 14 is much better than the Government’s provision in the Criminal Justice Bill, which relates to producing codes of practice only for the police. Does my hon. Friend agree that his new clause would be a vital part of implementing a full Hillsborough law, which is what our party calls for?”
House of Commons4 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The whole purpose of the legislation that Lord Wills and I proposed was to ensure that things do not go wrong in the aftermath of public disasters, as they have done after Hillsborough and other disasters. One ends up with years and years—sometimes decades and decades—of subsequent campaigns, fights and proceedings, legal and otherwise, that end up costing society millions and costing the families their health and often their lives. Stopping things going wrong in the immediate aftermath of disasters is a good aim for public policy.”
House of Commons4 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“2) Bill—I have been introducing such legislation since 2016, and my hon. Friend the noble Lord Wills has been introducing similar measures in the other place since 2014—but it will be better than originally drafted. I welcome the fact that the Minister has conceded that the Independent Public Advocate will be established as a standing appointment on a full-time basis. It is a shame that he has not seen fit to go a little further to enable the families affected to be the people who call upon the public advocate to act, rather than the Secretary of State. One of the points of my legislation, and that introduced by my noble friend in the other place, was to give the families some agency—some power to act in the earlier stages of the aftermath of a public disaster and affect the way the aftermath is dealt with.”
House of Commons4 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak in respect of some of the amendments and new clauses in part two: specifically, Government new clauses 22 and 23; Government amendment 60; Government new clause 24; Government amendments 76 to 82; and new clause 14, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on behalf of the Opposition, on the Hillsborough law duty of candour. If these new clauses and amendments are agreed to tonight, the Bill will be better than it was when it began its life at Second Reading, and it will be better than it was even after it had been through a monumental Committee stage. However, the Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that it will not be perfect, and it will not be all that I hoped for in my Public Advocate Bill or my Public Advocate (No.”
House of Commons4 December 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I confirm again that Labour’s support for our nuclear deterrent, which we maintain on behalf of our NATO allies, is total? However, following reports in newspapers about a malfunctioning depth gauge on a Vanguard submarine at sea, can the Minister explain what steps he has taken to ensure that such an incident never happens again?”
House of Commons20 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I know that the Lord Chancellor has taken an interest in the public advocate proposals, but does he agree that they need to be strengthened in order to be effective, and that his proposals, as they currently stand, are nowhere near good enough to do the job that I, and others, hope they can do?”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When the Bill comes back for its remaining stages in this place, which I hope will be before Christmas, I will keep trying to make positive changes to improve it, because otherwise it will be an opportunity spurned. I hope that Government Ministers on the Front Bench will give thought to improving the current proposals because, if they are enacted as they stand, they simply will not be enough to make real use of the lessons to be learned from Hillsborough.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, the Lord Chancellor knows my view is that his proposal is not sufficient to make the public advocate useful in preventing things from going wrong in future in the aftermath of disasters. It will simply be a signposting service for those families who are caught up. A signposting service is all well and good, and it is welcome, but unfortunately it is not going far enough. There is a real opportunity to make sure that families caught up in future public disasters do not have to suffer the same experience as the Hillsborough families, but his public advocate has neither the independence nor the powers required to shift the dial in favour of families or to torpedo cover-ups, which is the whole point. Furthermore, it is to be directed solely by the Secretary of State, which will not give it proper independence.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I find that quite shocking. I have been pressing the Government to respond for all that time and there is no conceivable reason for them not to have done so—at least since May 2021, when the last of the criminal trials collapsed. It is now two and a half years since then and there is still no response. I cannot understand what has held them up. The fact that the response has not been published is an insult to Bishop James and the work he did, and it is trying the patience of families and survivors who have already had to wait too long. I keep hearing that there will be a response soon, and I really hope that is true, but I am not holding my breath. The Victims and Prisoner Bill carried over from the previous Session does contain a proposal for a public advocate, which I have welcomed.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thirdly, the law would ensure proper participation of bereaved families at inquest through publicly funded legal representation, and ensure equality of arms by ending the limitless use of public authorities’ budgets to defend their reputations on those occasions, no matter what the circumstances. Fourthly, it will make Bishop James Jones’s charter for families bereaved through public tragedy, which has been voluntarily signed by some, legally binding on all public bodies. The Government have recognised for years that there are things that need to be changed, but I am afraid they have been lamentably slow in doing anything about them. Bishop James Jones’s report, which the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) asked for when she was Prime Minister, was published in 2017. More than six years later there has been no response to it.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, it would establish a public advocate, independent of Government and able to act at the behest of families affected after major incidents to give them a say, and to use the learning from the Hillsborough independent panel process on the huge power of transparency to stop things going wrong as they did after Hillsborough. Secondly, it would place a statutory duty of candour on public servants, not just the police, although I welcome the fact that the Government will legislate for a duty of candour on the police. That can only help to make things better, but by itself it will not be enough to prevent the recurrence of an event such as Hillsborough.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why I support the more general call for a Hillsborough law to try to prevent what happened after Hillsborough from ever again affecting victims and families who are caught up in public disasters through no fault of their own then find themselves treated with indifference or hostility by public authorities, and their feelings ignored. There have been disasters since Hillsborough, and there will be more, although we must hope to keep them to a minimum. The Hillsborough law aims to rebalance the scales of justice towards families bereaved by public disasters and towards survivors.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yet the police campaign, aided by some newspapers, was so powerful and has been so enduring that we still hear tragedy chanting at football matches, blaming Liverpool fans for what happened. One of the biggest comforts that the families of those who died and survivors who still suffer to this day could have is the assurance that Parliament has taken steps to prevent such problems from occurring in the aftermath of such tragedies, yet we have not done so. That is why I have introduced my Public Advocate Bill, repeatedly blocked by the Government, since 2016.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To date, none of the South Yorkshire police responsible for the disaster, or for the subsequent cover-up and campaign of vilification, has been held to account, and now none probably ever will be, while the families of the dead and survivors have endured decades of wrongly being blamed for what happened and feeling that they have to defend the reputations of their loved ones from the ongoing ignorant attacks spawned by South Yorkshire police’s deliberate campaign to shift the blame from themselves. It is particularly difficult for families to feel frozen in time, forever being dragged back to their darkest days as they have to keep repeating to ignorant people what really happened: the findings of unlawful killing at the second inquests, and the findings of the Hillsborough independent panel—the truth of Hillsborough, in other words.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We cannot discuss confidence in the criminal justice system and policing without tackling the long and balefully negative influence of the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, which, although it was more than 34 years ago, has hugely impacted how the police and public authorities are seen across Merseyside and beyond. The impact is widespread and intergenerational, and more needs to be done to tackle it. I had hoped that we would see a Hillsborough law in the legislative programme, to learn the lessons of the tragedy in which 97 people were unlawfully killed by the gross negligence of the police responsible for keeping them safe.”
House of Commons15 November 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The Government have wasted £15 billion through the mismanagement of defence procurement, while failing to deliver vital equipment and overseeing the loss of 30,000 highly skilled jobs in the defence and aerospace industry since 2010. Does the Minister accept that preventing another 13 years of Tory failure is key to increasing the number of UK-based jobs in the defence sector, backing British industry and British military resilience?”
House of Commons11 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as giving false hope, the measures would extend the length of time it takes to get the decisions made, therefore extending the agony that people feel while not knowing what a decision will end up being?”
House of Commons11 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I always think of these things as public disasters in which a number of people have died—that is my definition—but the Government have chosen to define it slightly differently. No doubt the Minister can enlighten us about precisely how the Government see the interpretation of that phrase. Anything that can give families some comfort that the Secretary of State is acting in their interests, not with unfettered powers and not without having to discuss things with them, would be an advance on the current drafting. For those reasons, I support the amendments.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One issue is always the same: the Secretary of State gaining the trust of those affected is an incredibly important part of ensuring that things do not go wrong. The Secretary of State should be required to appoint an advocate, thus removing his discretion. We will have an argument—a discussion—later about whether the advocate should be a standing appointment. On balance, I think it should be, but if it is to be an ad hoc appointment, the Secretary of State should not have discretion about whether to appoint when there has been a major incident. There should always be an appointment. I therefore support amendment 20. There is also an issue about how we define “major incident”.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why I rise to support amendments 20 and 21, which were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North. Clause 24 gives total discretion to the Secretary of State, and there is no requirement about what he should consider in making the appointment and no requirement that he should consult those affected. My experience of having to deal with disasters as a constituency MP does not just include the Hillsborough disaster. There have been others: the MV Derbyshire disaster happened long before I became an MP, the Alder Hey organ scandal was another that I had to deal with, and I have constituents affected by the Manchester Arena bombing. A number of other disasters have happened during my time in this House.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why I am convinced we as a society must seek to get the aftermath of disasters right. If we can stop things going wrong—as wrong as they have with Hillsborough—we can save a lot of money and a lot of heartache. We can certainly make sure that the families of those killed in disasters, who suddenly face the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of publicity, do not also have to deal with public authorities’ intent on not getting at the truth and finding out what happened to the families’ loved ones, or not supporting them in every way possible, and in some cases trying to blame them for what happened. In all the cases that I have come across, the authorities try to make sure that they do not get the blame. That defensiveness often drives the behaviour of public authorities in the aftermath of disasters.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course, I had the lawyer’s response and said, “No, inquests have a different purpose”, but I quickly understood what they meant when I saw what had happened. In reality, the cover-up at Hillsborough began on the day and was then pursued at great cost and expense using taxpayers’ money over decades. In fact, at the second inquest, the same points were put by the police lawyers. Even now one hears similar arguments being put: “It was the Liverpool fans; they were ticketless; they were drunk. They pushed their way into the ground and killed their own.” One even hears it in the chants, which, mercifully, the Football Association is now trying to deal with. “Tragedy chanting”, as it is known, is done to Liverpool fans at grounds all over the country. That kind of issue resonates for decades for many thousands of people.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One can imagine the state that some of the people are in in terms of their mental health, particularly when there has been a cover-up that has lasted for so many years seeking to blame fans for what happened, rather than an acceptance of responsibility. We must remember that within four months of the disaster, the first interim report of the first public inquiry placed responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the police, which they never accepted and then chose to campaign to overturn. When I first met my constituents as an MP in 1997—I had known some of them before as a lawyer—the first thing they said to me was that the police had used the inquest to overturn the Taylor inquiry.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hosie. I begin by thanking my hon. Friend for her kind words about my long-standing efforts in respect of a public advocate, which arose out of my experience as a constituency MP seeking to represent some of the bereaved families of those who were killed at Hillsborough, and also survivors of Hillsborough—we often forget survivors. Many thousands of people in the ground on that day saw what happened and were subsequently pretty traumatised. Some have been in a terrible state for many years. I still meet people who tell me what happened to them on that day and say that they have never told anybody in the intervening 34 years.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move amendment 65, in clause 24, page 18, line 35, at end insert— “(1A) In doing so, the Secretary of State must have regard to— (a) the views of bereaved families, (b) the relative benefits of an Independent Public Advocate, a public inquiry, or an Independent Panel in relation to cost, timeliness, and transparency of the major incident in question, (c) any wider public interest” This amendment would ensure that in exercising the Secretary of State’s discretion as to whether an Independent Public Advocate should be appointed, the Secretary of State must consider the views of the bereaved families and the relatives of how best to get the truth of what happened in the major incident concerned in a timely fashion.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Families and survivors of major incidents and disasters often feel powerless in the aftermath as the processes of the state begin to grind forward. Inquiries, inquests—they grind into gear and it makes families feel done to, rather than a part of: they feel that they have no power or role in these matters.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Under subsection (4), the person may be appointed only if the Secretary of State considers the person “qualified” and “appropriate”. Subsection (5) details that the person may be qualified by virtue of qualifications, their relationship with a “geographical or other community” or “any other matter” the Secretary of State considers relevant. He has total discretion to consider whether and who to appoint. Nothing in clause 24 gives any kind of say or agency to the victims of the disaster, whether they be families of the deceased or survivors. That is an omission, and a missed opportunity. At this early stage, the Secretary of State could give the families immediate reassurance—that what they think matters, that their feelings matter and that they have some kind of role in how the state is going to deal with what has happened.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The role and functions of the public advocate, as set out in the clause, do not quite accord with what I think is necessary, but I hope that we can agree in due course to improve the Bill so that it becomes a turning point, which it can be, in how we as a society deal with the aftermath of public disasters and the terrible burdens they place on those who become victims, rather than it being a missed opportunity. Clause 24(1) gives the Secretary of State discretion to “appoint an individual to act as an independent public advocate for victims of a major incident”. A “major incident” is defined in subsection (2). As we have already mentioned, the clause as currently drafted gives the Secretary of State total discretion about whether to appoint an advocate.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They want to know that it will not happen to anybody ever again, because they feel the deep distress and pain of having to deal with these issues in the public glare and on all the newspaper front pages. Going suddenly from nowhere to that is pretty hard for people, so they want to know that it will not happen again. Families want to know that their loved ones have not been lost in vain and that lessons will be learned, and they want to be able to have faith that the investigations over the subsequent period will get to the truth and will not be some way of covering up what happened in order to excuse the feelings—and usually the pockets—of the public authorities that might have some responsibility for it.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although we can hope to minimise the number of disasters, we can never stop them entirely. There have been more since Hillsborough, and there have been more since I introduced my Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill to the Commons and Lord Wills introduced the Public Advocate Bill to the Lords. It would be best if we could get a better arrangement. We all agree on that; the issue is just about how. The amendment has arisen from my 26 years’ experience of campaigning with the Hillsborough families and survivors to get to the truth of what happened on the day. Usually, families want to know what happened to their loved ones, especially if they have lost them.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I very much welcome the fact that clause 24 enables the Secretary of State to appoint an independent public advocate, no matter how much we might disagree about how we should do it—whether it should be a standing appointment or done on an ad hoc basis, precisely what functions the independent public advocate will have, how he ought to go about his role and, indeed, what that role ought to be. I think there are some differences in all those areas, but there are no differences between us about the fact that there ought to be an independent public advocate. Across the Committee and the House, we have recognised that something about the aftermath of public disasters—the Minister calls them major incidents; I call them public disasters—is remiss. The way in which we as a society respond to them does not work at present.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They were obviously not consulted about who should head the inquiry. A judge was asked for, a judge was put forward, and that was the unfortunate consequence.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I use the example to illustrate the point that the families must have trust in the person and in how the state is to proceed if such an inquiry is to work. The failure of that inquiry wasted a year, upset the families very deeply and destroyed some of the credibility that the new Government of the time had with the families about what could be done to put matters in respect of Hillsborough right. The inquiry revealed one thing that was of use in the end, which was that statements had been altered by the police. That was the first inquiry that reported on that point, but Lord Justice Stuart-Smith did not think it important because it had not fooled Lord Justice Taylor. He was right in that respect; he was wrong in others. With one comment, the trust of the families were gone.”
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“When Lord Justice Stuart-Smith went to Liverpool to meet the families, the families had been misinformed about precisely which floor of the building he was on, so they were a few minutes late. He immediately made a joke about how they were late like the Liverpool fans on the day. That was not funny; it was crass in the extreme. It showed that he had taken on board utterly the police account of events. People may not know—some will—that a key part of the police smears about Hillsborough, to try to deflect the blame, was that Liverpool fans had turned up late. It immediately destroyed any credibility for that inquiry. The families thought very carefully about walking out and not co-operating with it. I am absolutely certain that there were ructions in the Home Office at the time about what should be done.”
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“I agree with that. It is easy to lose trust, and it is hard to gain it; it is very hard to regain it once it is lost—that is my experience of these things. I will give one example. When Jack Straw became Home Secretary in 1997, he was convinced that something needed to be done, in the aftermath of the drama-documentary “Hillsborough”, which raised some of the issues about what had gone wrong. We should remember that that was some eight years after the disaster—a long time ago, but only eight years after the disaster. A lot of things had already gone wrong in that time. He did not want to set up another public inquiry. What he came to was the Stuart-Smith scrutiny, which looked again at some evidence and reported back a year later.”
House of Commons6 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗