Contribution
It is my privilege to follow the noble Baroness and to commend the part she played as Home Secretary and Prime Minister in listening to the families. I hope the House will forgive me for reiterating words that have already been used this afternoon, but I have been reflecting personally over the last year or two on the 1989 disaster and whether I could have done a great deal more afterwards as the Member of Parliament in whose constituency the Hillsborough stadium is located.
The commendations that have already been made to the families and campaigners, who have shown the most incredible tenacity and commitment to bringing about change, need to be reiterated, because making democracy work when you are suffering as they have suffered, with the emotion that they have felt, has been the most impressive yet tragic element of modern British democracy.
I was not at the game—I was a very new MP for the area, and it was a semi-final—but my father-in-law-to-be was, and, to his death, he remembered it as though it was yesterday. My wife-to-be was a volunteer at the Sheffield Hallam Hospital, as a doctor, and I went to the Northern General Hospital and spoke to some of the 766 young men and women who were injured on that day.
We were briefed by the police entirely wrongly. To this day I am grateful that, for once, I did not believe the police; other Members of Parliament did. The lies that were told on that day are a stain on the South Yorkshire Police and the force in general, but they do not need to be a stain on the community I was proud to represent. I am saying this because, out of that terrible day and the immediate aftermath, the humanity and commitment of local people also needs to be remembered. There were those who took people from Merseyside back to their homes because cars were not usable and the tragedy had brought such emotional trauma; people who had lost their keys; people who, in those days, did not have a mobile phone and had to use local landlines. I say this only because sometimes, we need to balance the terrible things with the humanity that also emerges.
I want to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wills, who will speak in a moment. When I was a very new Member of this House, he brought forward his Private Member’s Bill, and I was pleased to be a sponsor of it. As I said a moment ago, I have reflected on how little I did as Home Secretary, and I regret that deeply, because the time it has taken to bring about this Bill, and the recognition that goes with it, could have been shortened enormously if some of us had taken more responsibility at that time. Two Prime Ministers now have played their part. The current Prime Minister, my friend, paid tribute to Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons earlier this afternoon, and I pay tribute to Andy Burnham. He learned a terrific political lesson on the 20th anniversary, in 2009, at Anfield. Some of us have learned lessons like that over the years, and it is seminal.
I want to say two or three things about the Bill. First, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady May, mentioned the Independent Public Advocate, who is here this afternoon. Unless this role is properly funded and supported, and unless the powers are adequate, it will not work. As the noble Baroness, Lady May, said, this is not about taking things to yet another public inquiry; it is about getting to the truth quickly and decisively and bringing justice in that way.
The second issue is the security services, which have been mentioned already this afternoon. As Home Secretary, I was painfully aware of the sacrifice that many people made and the danger in which they put themselves. So getting this right will be important in ensuring not just that they cannot escape from actions that are totally unethical, but that we do it in a way that safeguards our national well-being.
This is not about the legislation itself; it is about getting people to act ethically, and not to be dealt with by legislative process. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester mentioned not only his early time and his terrible experience in South Yorkshire all those years ago, which I have spoken about, but the work he is doing with the National Police Chiefs’ Council. The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, and I were painfully aware during the nine-month inquiry we undertook into the leadership of the police service in Britain that there is a desperate need for the ethics to be built into everyday life.
I say to my good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, that there will be a cost, but the cost will be much less if people themselves take responsibility and act not just with humanity but with the ethics that ensure that those around them are not permitted to act fraudulently and against the best interests of the community.
Finally, I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench, will he make sure that in reopening the stages of the Nottingham foundation trust inquiry, people are made to give evidence rather than escaping by having taken other jobs?