Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this issue. I extend my apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton; I am trying to cover a range of issues in a very short time. On the question of the duty of candour and the Hillsborough law, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness will know that the UK Government had a manifesto commitment to introduce that legislation. As yet, it has not been introduced, but I know that work is being done behind the scenes to do that. As a supporter of the Liverpool Football Club, and somebody who, when a Member of Parliament, had constituents who were victims of the Hillsborough incident, I know that that will be very welcome legislation. It is still being worked on in government terms, and will be published in due course. The noble Lord mentioned the support of voluntary organisations. That is extremely important. I would hope that the prospective chair, whoever he or she will be, will reach out and look at the role of the voluntary sector as well. The noble Lord is absolutely right to say that victims know no ethnicity. There are perpetrators from every walk of life and every religious and ethnic group, including white British, and there are victims from every group. We have a particular focus on organised gangs, and that has been prevalent in certain places. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has made recommendations about ethnic data collection, which we will look at and which will help inform in future what is happening for both victim and perpetrator, but the noble Lord is absolutely right to raise this issue today.