Lord Rooker (Lab)

My Lords, I make it crystal clear that I support the Bill. Indeed, I would support a tougher Bill to include better protection for whistleblowing, because prevention is better than cure. As has already been said, it is clear that, without a national oversight commission dealing with inquests and inquiries, it is likely that such reports will continue to gather dust. I realise that we are going to be told these are issues for other Bills. I have heard that in the past many times. I have also learned that you need to act legislatively when you can. Even if you can get only 80% of what you need or want, take it then—because all the other plans and promises will be down the road by several years. We need these two things in particular to make a stronger Bill. We can get them put into the Bill. While several scandals are referred to in the volumes of briefing on the Bill, it is absolutely clear that the damage done to Hillsborough families over the decades has created the pressure and momentum for the Bill. At Inquest’s family listening project in 2025, a participant said: “It’s only when we had the Hillsborough Independent Panel did the families get full disclosure”. Without disclosure, “you don’t know what you’re up against”. We will again fail these families if we do not build in sufficient resources. This was the final point in the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller: we need the resources, because otherwise the extra work will be taken from front-line services. In general, and I regret to say this, we have become a nation that scrimps along on the big issues. That is not how it used to be. We did not always scrimp along. That is what we are doing. To prevent this, we need to have a belief that those running front-line services, when they are asked to do something that cuts front-line services, will have the guts to speak up and say, “We are cutting front-line services to do what we need to do as a result of this Bill” and to use the Bill to tell us the truth. Otherwise, we will simply have a demission of power and cuts without us being told about it. People would get on and do the extra work that the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, said would be required, but they would not do other work. I have yet to hear the evidence that we will have sufficient support from the Government or the House for those people to take those actions.