Derek Twigg

I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), on his excellent speech. I was present in this House in 1998 when the then Home Secretary Jack Straw made a statement on the conclusions of the Justice Stuart-Smith review of the evidence and papers relating to the Hillsborough disaster, which I will quote. If anything, this justifies and underlines why we need this change in the law: “Taking those and all other considerations into account, the overall conclusion that Lord Justice Stuart-Smith reaches is that there is no basis for a further public inquiry. He also finds no basis for a renewed application to quash the verdict of the inquest, and he concludes that there is no material that should be put before the Director of Public Prosecutions or the police disciplinary”.—[Official Report, 18 February 1998; Vol. 306, c. 1085.] The independent panel report and the subsequent inquest followed. How misspoken was that set of words in this House. That justifies why we need this change in law. We are again seeing continued delay. This a question of government machinery. As we have seen through the history of the campaign, delay has followed delay. There is often pushback from Whitehall and the wider public sector machine, finding problems but not solutions. It is a concern that there are issues that have not been resolved by now, and the continued delay breeds suspicion and distrust in the state’s ability to act competency and fairly. I do not doubt that there are legal matters that need addressing, but why have they not been resolved by now? In previous Parliaments, progress was made with respect to the Hillsborough justice campaign when there was firm direction and action from Ministers, including from two previous Home Secretaries—the right hon. Alan Johnson and Baroness May of Maidenhead. They set up the independent panel and took action on its subsequent groundbreaking report. If there is a will, and direction and determination from Ministers, solutions can be found and barriers removed. There must be a duty of candour for civil servants and public servants, and parity of legal representation. Such a Bill could help to improve and repair public confidence in the Government.