Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 26th February 2024 Lords Chamber

The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, put his finger on something very important: namely, the way we handle all these sorts of problems, not only the tragedy of this particular case, and the length of time taken by these inquiries. This inquiry was actioned in 2017 and started in 2018, so it has been going for over six years—we won the Second World War in less time—and we still do not have an end date, although we hope it will be this May. The Swedes took one year to do a Covid inquiry; we will take God knows how many years on ours. How long are we taking on Grenfell? How long did we take on Chilcot? It is ridiculous that we take so long on these things. The Government should pay attention to how we handle their length and complexity. At maximum, we should take two years to deal with these issues. That is long enough to come to some clear conclusions and get positive evidence. I hope the Government will take that into account as well as all the other important issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Owen.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee that I was not available to speak at Second Reading. I had not intended to speak and will not delay the Committee long, but I add my plea to my noble friend the Minister that this is finally resolved. The speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the examples given by the noble Baronesses, Lady Featherstone and Lady Campbell, should speak for themselves. As a tribute to Lord Cormack, who campaigned on this issue for so many years, it would be fitting if my noble friend could give us concrete reassurance from the Front Bench that this injustice will, finally, be properly remedied.