Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)

My Lords, at about 8.30 pm on the evening of Saturday 15 April I came home from synagogue with my late father. As we did every week, we conducted religiously our family’s two rituals. First, there was a short ceremony to mark the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the working week. Secondly, we turned on the radio to get the Liverpool score—and I will never forget what we heard. We did not get the result of a football match. Like the noble Lord, Lord Barber, who I think said that he tuned in after a wedding, we were confronted with a human tragedy. By that time some, but not all, of the terrible facts were known. The disaster had been unfolding in the national media for about five hours. Many had done their best to help, in dreadful circumstances. I think everybody who heard the personal witness of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester could not help but be incredibly moved by it. By the time we switched on the radio, the death toll was already appallingly high. Shankly, of course, had famously joked that football was more important than life and death. That night, we learned the terrible truth: it is not. I do not recall that we yet knew that there were 94 victims on that day, whose names are now inscribed on a fitting memorial. We rightly now mourn the 97, with the tragic additions of Lee Nicol a few days later, then later still Tony Bland and then, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, Andrew Devine, whose family went through particular pain, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, reminded us. I also remember the following morning. Sundays were often quiet in Liverpool, but that Sunday there was an almost palpable sense of silence and loss. Sometimes, of course, there really are no words. In this House, however, we deal only in words, so I come to this Bill with a particular personal background. I begin by making a point which has already been made by many others. But, if a former President of the Supreme Court has ruled that we can repeat propositions, a mere shadow Attorney-General is content to follow her, and many other noble Lords, in paying tribute to the families of those who died at Hillsborough, to their supporters and, yes, to their lawyers as well, for their extraordinary campaign for truth and accountability. Their resilience over decades has reminded this House of what it means to demand justice. As I close this debate for these Benches, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed from across the House. There has been genuine engagement with the substance of the Bill. That is precisely what this legislation deserves and, as my noble and learned friend Lord Keen said, it is what we intend to do as well. There were so many fine speeches. With apologies to others, I will mention just a few. The noble Lord, Lord Roe of West Wickham, spoke powerfully of his experience at Grenfell and in the military. His speech showed how this House benefits from the personal experience of noble Lords. I listened very carefully to his speech, and I hope we will benefit from his input in Committee. My noble friend Lord Arbuthnot raised the appalling treatment of sub-postmasters by the Post Office, which has had so many devastating consequences. Like Hillsborough, that campaign took far too long; like Hillsborough, that campaign is still ongoing. My noble friend knows more about the Post Office scandal than almost any of us—perhaps if I include the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, I can delete “almost”—and I hope we will benefit from his expertise as the Bill progresses. He made some important points on the scope of the duty of candour. The imputation of knowledge within an organisation sounds like a very dry legal point but, as we have just heard, it is not. It is the sort of thing that lawyers talk about, and people switch off, but in this Bill, it is a point that we need to switch on for, because it is very important. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, spoke powerfully about her own family’s tragic loss as a result of the infected blood scandal. I hope she will bring that experience and passion to our debates in Committee. Finally—this is certainly not in any order—my noble friend Lady May, in addition to her remarks on the interaction between the Bill and the security services, to which I will return, expressed her dissatisfaction at the omission of any role for the Independent Public Advocate in the Bill. That was a view shared by a number of noble Lords across the House; it is clearly something that merits further debate. I agree with my noble friend that we should be aiming to seek a just and truthful resolution for victims as soon as possible. About two years ago, this Bill was promised as one of the Government’s first Acts, but here we are in 2026 still debating it. That is because it is complex. But, as my noble and learned friend Lord Keen said, the manner of its scrutiny in the House of Commons is troubling. Significant amendments to the Bill, in particular those addressing the intelligence services and national security, were tabled with about 24 hours’ notice before Commons scrutiny began. The noble Lord, Lord Beamish, was right to explain that the delay was because the issues are so complex. It is important, however, that there is proper scrutiny of a Bill, and it is a matter of fact that the Commons had next to no time to scrutinise those important amendments. It is therefore the responsibility of this House to provide the deliberate, forensic scrutiny that the Commons timetable did not permit. On that point, I am in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. The other point the debate raised is how generous the Minister has been with his time, especially over the Recess. It is appreciated and not taken for granted. I look forward to further interactions with him, both personally and with my colleagues, as the Bill progresses. My noble friend Lady May, with all her governmental experience, made the point that cumbersome legislation can lead to errors in application and unintended consequences. As a lawyer, I respectfully second that. Clause 6 is clunky and should be looked at carefully to see whether it can be improved. There is a risk that the Bill may make some public officials less candid and less transparent. One example is vetting information. If this is disclosed at inquiries, or if the net of those who have access to this information is expanded as a result of this legislation, this may deter future witnesses and also damage national security recruitment, because people subject to vetting may become less forthcoming if they fear that their vetting records could be publicly exposed in a courtroom or an inquiry hearing. Of course, to protect national security, the whole point of a vetting process is that it is both candid and thorough, but the Bill must not create a risk that people withhold information which would undermine security rather than improve it. That would also make it more difficult to recruit to sensitive posts. We simply cannot afford to deter talented people from joining the intelligence services, the military, counterterrorism or any number of other posts which require vetting, out of fear that their vetting history may one day be made public. I look to the Minister to provide reassurances on this point, and I can safely say that he can expect us to return to this in Committee. I will say a few words about the definition of “duty of candour”, because that is one of the main aspects of the Bill. Clause 1 sets out the Bill’s purpose, but the duty of candour itself is articulated as requiring public bodies to act with candour, transparency and frankness, without favour to their own position. As my noble and learned friend Lord Keen set out, there are some fundamental questions about how this operates in practice. When is the duty triggered? Clause 2(3) requires someone to notify an inquiry that their acts or information may be relevant. What does “may be relevant” mean? What is the nature of that connection? Who assesses the relevance? How is the obligation switched off? This was another point made by my noble and learned friend. Confusingly, at least to me, the concept of full disclosure is mentioned in the Explanatory Notes but is not in the Bill. In the Explanatory Notes it says that public bodies must act “with candour; promptly and proactively; with full disclosure of evidence—and without favour of their own position”. But that “full disclosure” is not in the Bill. What, in any event, does “frankness” mean? Is that meant to be the same as full disclosure? There is a concept in the law, as the lawyers among us will know, called full and frank disclosure. That means you have to disclose to the court information which is adverse to your position. Is that what is intended? If it is, this ought to be set out in the Bill. That point was touched on, with all his experience in the law, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. If I may say respectfully, he was absolutely right. At the moment, the language is vague, and that vagueness will create a risk of uncertainty for public authorities trying to comply with it. There is also a question as to how that duty interacts with other duties: the NHS duty of candour under the health and social care regulations; the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which requires disclosure sometimes but also has exemptions from disclosure at other times; data protection law, which restricts disclosure of information; and legal professional privilege. How do all these duties interact? I am not expecting the Minister to explain that in his winding-up speech, but they are points that we are going to have to come back to in Committee. Clause 10 imposes a duty on public authorities to establish and maintain codes of ethical conduct based on the Nolan principles. The peculiarity here is that this clause has the potential to impose significant administrative and financial burdens on public bodies, but it has not been included in the impact assessment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, explained, this can have a real effect, not only on the services which she was referring to but on other public services. What work have the Government done to assess how many existing codes of conduct—referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard—already comply with Clause 10? It seems that it has to be one or the other of these alternatives: either these codes of conduct are not burdensome, because the Bill will require only minor tweaks to what is already out there—in which case, do we really need primary legislation to achieve that objective?—or the existing codes of conduct are not compliant and we do need the Bill; in that case, why is the effect of all that not in the impact assessment? It will have a very significant effect on those bodies. Again, the Government have not provided any analysis of the impact, and we will probe that at further stages. On the new offences of misleading a Minister and the destruction of documents, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, explained, the common-law offences were problematic. I will take a moment to pay tribute to the Law Commission, which is often unsung and should get a bit more credit than it often gets. We do not want to replace a problematic common law with a problematic statutory offence. The points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, merit careful attention from the Government. We are concerned about whether the deliberate misleading of a Minister by a civil servant in the advice process, undermining the quality of government decision-making, would be included—a point made by my noble friend Lord Howard. Would the deliberate destruction of documents by a public official seeking to conceal evidence be included? If there is ambiguity in the current law, we should explore whether adding explicit statutory language would strengthen the Bill and provide greater clarity. I will not repeat the points about self-incrimination made by my noble and learned friend Lord Keen in opening, but I will take 20 seconds to highlight that the Bill does not define “recklessness”. That means that the normal definition of “recklessness” will apply. Is that what is intended? Statutes sometimes have a specific definition of “recklessness” for the statute, so I ask the Minister to think about whether we need a particular definition of “recklessness” here. To pick up a point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy, you can spot good legislation like you can spot a good shot in cricket: by whether there is a good follow-through. There appears to be merit here in proper post-legislative scrutiny of the Bill and how it operates in practice when it becomes an Act. In the same vein of follow-through, there also appears to be merit, I suggest, in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, that a Government who are deciding not to adopt a recommendation of a public inquiry should at least give reasons for not doing so. Of course, they do not have to adopt a recommendation—they are not passing their pen to the person conducting the inquiry—but they should at least give reasons. Of course, the changes we have been discussing today cannot ultimately be affected by law. What we all need is cultural change. Law has its limitations, and it is harder to change culture than it is to add to the statute book. The Bill addresses profound constitutional issues: the duty of the state to be honest with the public and the right of bereaved families to truth and accountability. Those are cross-party principles. Perhaps this is one of the rare occasions where I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said about how those principles command support across the House. Our role in this House, and what we will seek to do from these Benches, is to ensure that the Bill’s provisions are both clear and workable, and that they genuinely improve public accountability without creating unintended consequences. It is in that spirit that I look forward to further engagement with the Minister in Committee and beyond, and I am confident that, if we all work together, we can improve the Bill.