Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)

My Lords, it is a privilege to introduce this group and these amendments, which are designed to incorporate and acknowledge the role of the Independent Public Advocate in the context of this Bill, because the Bill and the IPA are really two sides of the same coin. As we know, the Bill is about targeting and ultimately dismantling the institutional defensiveness that stops people getting to the truth, while the IPA is the person whose job it is to represent those people when those institutions have let them down. I will focus today on Amendments 9 and 125 in the name of my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead, who is sorry she cannot be here. I, too, am sorry because, having put my name to them, I am afraid it means that instead of a former Prime Minister, noble Lords have me as a rather poor tribute act. Nevertheless, I hope the rationale behind the amendments will remain clear. Amendment 9 would make it explicit that public authorities and public officials are required to operate the duty of candour in any dealings with the IPA. While the Bill contains a broader general duty of candour, the specific naming of the IPA would serve several purposes. First, it would provide a legislative coherence with the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which created the office of the IPA. Secondly, it would recognise the unique role of the IPA in delivering the strategic objectives of this Bill. Thirdly, it would help establish the IPA as someone who cannot be disregarded. This last point is so crucial because it is potentially so transformative. As lots of people have discussed today, one of the many recurring themes that run through the disasters and scandals of previous decades is the egregious length of time it takes to get to the truth, Hillsborough being the most prominent example. The Bill focuses on inquests and public inquiries, and understandably so, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned in a previous group, this means that families are already a long way down the line from the original incident. As the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, said at Second Reading with regard to Hillsborough, “the lies, the manipulation of the facts and the misinformation at Hillsborough did not start at the inquest or at the independent panel; they started on and off the pitch on the day, 15 April 1989”.—[Official Report, 1/9/26; col. 40.] There was no Independent Public Advocate back then but, had there been, they would have been deployed in the immediate aftermath, representing all those families and making sure that their voices and their legitimate concerns were heard. We cannot say whether things would have turned out differently, but you can imagine that with a strong IPA, perhaps with the duty of candour behind them, they might have done. In looking to the future, and again in the words of my noble friend Lady May, “there will be circumstances where it will not be necessary to move to a public inquiry; if the Independent Public Advocate can work with the families who are affected by a mistake by the state, they can get to the truth at an early stage and there will be no need to move to an inquiry”.—[Official Report, 1/9/26; col. 41.] Of course, this will not always be the case, but if the IPA is robust and the families have faith in the IPA, it is possible that where an inquiry is needed, it will not need to be statutory. At Second Reading, we heard from a number of noble Lords about the proliferation of statutory inquiries—the fact that they are unwieldy, time-consuming and expensive—yet invariably, a statutory inquiry is the default position. That is because families see it as the only way to get to the truth, because it has the power to compel evidence. That is why in pretty much nearly every case where the Government have tried to establish a non-statutory inquiry in recent years, they have ended up having to convert it after pressure from those affected. While this Bill will go some way to addressing that, we need the added heft of the IPA—that trust in that position and the belief in that position—to really move that forward and give people the trust to perhaps go for a different form of inquiry. I shall leave it to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, who has great experience and authority in this area, to further demonstrate by his Amendments 122 and 125B the advantages of non-statutory inquiries, the role of the IPA, what the IPA can and should do, and the benefits of the IPA in helping to bring families together after a major tragedy. I shall listen with interest to contributions on Amendment 118 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, which seek to clarify the IPA’s role with regard to inquiries, investigations and inquests. Finally, I briefly turn to Amendment 125. This is a probing amendment that seeks to ensure that the IPA is given the right levels of support to establish the necessary frameworks to fulfil its remit. As it stands, the role is structured as two days per week with the flexibility to scale up to a full-time position during an active deployment. Cindy Butts, the first IPA, was appointed in September 2025. The following month, she was deployed following the terrible attack at Heaton Park synagogue. Just to be clear, during the year that she has been operational, she has done an outstanding job—but with the best will in the world, she is not yet operationally ready for a tragedy on a larger scale or more than one incident at a time; it could happen. It is hard to see how she will be ready if she soon reverts to two days a week, with an office of just three people and an annual budget of just over £500,000. We are the first and, so far, the only country to introduce this role, and that is something that we should be really proud of, but it means that we have a particular responsibility to get it right. To that end, I appreciate that there will be a review of the role next year, and these questions may be for that review. Given the way that the Bill and the IPA go hand in hand, at least to my mind, it seems appropriate to mention it here, particularly if the Government consider Amendment 9, which I very much hope they will. On that note, I look forward to the Minister’s response and I beg to move.