Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, said she was diffident about having to fill the shoes of her noble friend Lady May, but she did a very good job in explaining the terms of her amendment and the need to enhance the role of the Independent Public Advocate. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for flagging up our correspondence during the Recess, which included the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, and the noble Lord, Lord Wills. My interest in this began while serving as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We brought in a report calling for the enactment of the Hillsborough law, which is the public accountability Bill before us today. On becoming chair of the committee, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Wills, whether he and Cindy Butts, the IPA, would speak to the committee. It seemed to me that the role she could play might pre-empt the need for many of the public inquiries which we have heard so much about, many of which have run on for years and ended up failing to satisfy any of those who appeared before those committees, and some of which have cost huge amounts of money. It seemed to me that a more light-touch and fleet-of-foot approach by someone such as the IPA might render everyone a service. I was very struck by how engaged Cindy Butts is in this. As we have heard, in her first deployment she went to the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester after the attack there and did a first-class job, but she also recognised that the involvement of the IPA was not necessary because all the statutory agencies had become involved and they were doing their job properly. This was not someone looking for more work; this was someone who understood what her specific and unique role is. I was also struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, said about how this role is unique to our own country. It has not been created elsewhere, and it is something we can therefore be proud of, just as we can be proud of all the work that went into the Hillsborough law and campaign and the various groups referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, not least the work that Bishop James Jones and the independent panel conducted, which was so crucial. As the noble Lord said earlier, we would not have the Bill here now if it had not been for all that work. If we have learned anything from this, it is that we need more resources early on. It is worth repeating those figures: the office currently has only three staff and an annual budget of just over £500,000 and, as we have heard, the IPA role is formally part-time. It is impossible for someone on that kind of Cinderella budget—that kind of shoestring—to carry out the responsibilities that have been placed on them. Under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, the Secretary of State alone decides whether to declare a major incident and deploy the IPA. There is no requirement to consult the IPA or explain a decision not to deploy. That can create a risk of inconsistency and undermine confidence in the role. I wonder whether the Minister will address that specific point about the way in which the IPA is engaged on occasions when it becomes necessary, and whether he agrees with the proposition that has been advanced by everyone that the central purpose should be to prevent investigations into major tragedies.