Child Sex Abuse (Rotherham)

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have had a preliminary discussion with the First Minister about the abuse that has taken place over a number of years in Northern Ireland and I will be looking further into the relationship between the inquiry that we are setting up and the work that has already been started and done in various ways in Northern Ireland on these issues. Looking into that is on my agenda.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary may be interested to know that the chief executive and the executive director of children’s services in Rotherham are coming before the Communities and Local Government Committee next week. It is right that officers as well as politicians in Rotherham are held accountable for what happened.

Professor Jay specifically mentioned in her report several independent investigations and inspections of Rotherham children’s services over the years, a number of which were carried out by Ofsted. Virtually all of them offered general reassurance about what was happening in children’s services, and prior to 2009 talked about improvements. How can we be certain that Ofsted has the skills and abilities to conduct a much better inspection next time?

[Mrs May]

The Secretary of State for Education is looking at the whole question of making sure that inspections at local authority level are aware of the issues that they need to be looking at and deal with those issues properly.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (Business of the House)

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak at the start of what will be a long day’s debate on this important piece of legislation.

I understand why the Minister has tabled the programme motion, but I, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), share some of the concerns about the fact that this problem and challenge first came to light in April, as has been mentioned, when the European Court of Justice struck down the Data Retention (EU Directive) Regulations 2009. I know from my time serving in government that that may not necessarily have come as a surprise to the Government—they may have anticipated such a challenge before April—so since the challenge in April, they have had a considerable time both to prepare a Bill and to introduce one for us to consider in dealing with what I accept is an emergency. In my view, there are good reasons why the legislation must now be passed very quickly, but it is incumbent on the Minister at least to recognise that he could have prepared legislation for the eventuality of the regulations being struck down in the European Court of Justice, and that he could have brought in legislation post-April.

From the new clauses and amendments that we have tabled, the Minister will know that we have some concerns and require some changes. First, we must ensure that provision for a wider review of the Investigation of Regulatory Powers Act 2000 is added to the statute book, with a guarantee that the whole House can understand. Secondly, we must have a regular examination every six months of the operation of any legislation that this House and the other place pass this week. I want to get on to those matters before the day is out, because we will have an opportunity to deal with them today. I am disappointed with the time scales, but the programme motion effectively gives us one and a half days of legislative time to consider such matters. As the Minister said, it is important to get on to discuss those matters.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

On the six-month period, I understand that Opposition Front Benchers have accepted the Government’s argument that the Bill will do no more than clarify the previous situation and will not extend the Government’s powers in any way. If we pass the legislation and subsequently have doubts about whether powers have been extended, will it be possible for the six-month review to look at the legislation, or are we stuck with it once we have it? What are Opposition Front Benchers trying to achieve?

[Mr Hanson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue, which is important on two fronts. We have tabled new clause 2 to provide a six-month review, which would be some time in December this year or in January next year. It would look at how the Act passed by this House and the other place had operated up to that time, as well as at other factors that the Minister may have examined following the European Court of Justice’s consideration and the lapsing of the current legislation.

We will then be into a general election campaign, and my hon. Friend will know that in the event of our being elected to government, we will look at some of the wider issues as a matter of course. I hope that we can accept the Government’s understanding of the emergency and help them to cover that emergency, while also leaving scope for looking at how the Act operates in practice. If other new clauses are agreed to today, we would also then be able to consider the wider issues about which I know right hon. and hon. Members have concerns.

Bluntly, investigations into online child sex abuse, major investigations into terrorism and into organised crime, the prevention of young people from travelling to Syria and many issues relating to attempted terrorist activity have depended on and will continue to depend on the type of access that we need through the Bill.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his intervention, and what he says is absolutely right. He hits the nail right on the head. I know, Mr Speaker, that it is not normally the case that Ministers at the Dispatch Box refer to legal advice that is given to them, but may I say how much I valued the legal advice my right hon. and learned Friend gave when he was our excellent Attorney-General?

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

Yes, but I do need to make some progress so that others can get in.

[Mr Betts]

The key issue is that the Home Secretary says this Bill does not extend powers beyond existing legislation, but I understand there is some doubt whether the Bill impacts differently from the current legislation on web-based e-mails. With regard to further scrutiny of these measures, as we have only limited time to discuss the Bill now, if we pass it and it subsequently becomes apparent that there are doubts whether it extends the powers of Government, what is the Home Secretary’s position? How can she come back to this House to get matters reassessed in that situation? That is a real concern for my constituents. If it is subsequently proved that powers are extended—despite her current assurances, which I accept—there must be some mechanism for dealing with that.

[Mrs May]

There is no change to the definitions that are already in existence in terms of the communications data that it is possible to access. That is why I say the Bill is about just replacing the situation we have at present. On the hon. Gentleman’s second point, I note that the Opposition have tabled an amendment suggesting that there should be a six-monthly review by the appropriate commissioner of the operation of this Bill. We are willing to accept that amendment, so that a process is in place that will reassure people that the Bill does exactly what the Government are saying: it merely replaces the powers already in existence.

[Mr Betts]

If the commissioner finds in the six-monthly review that there are concerns that the legislation is going beyond the current position, is there a mechanism for that to be reported back to this House for further discussion and action?

[Mrs May]

Yes. The commissioner currently reports annually on these matters, and the Opposition proposal, as I understand it, is that he would report on a six-monthly basis. He would, therefore, not just be looking at the situation, but reporting on what was happening. Were he to find that there was any extension of powers, that would be made clear to people. However, I remain of the opinion, because this is what we intend, that the Bill is purely about enabling the powers that we have today to be continued in future.

Romanian and Bulgarian Accession

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The problem is that the last Labour Government made no attempt to collect any information, so nobody knows the number of people claiming benefits when coming into this country in 2004. This Government are now starting to collect that information so that we can build up a better picture at the same time as we are tightening up access to those benefits. We are not able to say what the picture was previously because the last Government failed to collect the figures.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Home Secretary will realise that my constituents are concerned not just about benefits. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) has drawn attention to the challenges posed by the large influx of Roma-Slovak migrants into our constituencies. Does she accept that that poses major challenges to community cohesion and puts significant pressures on housing overcrowding and health and school services in our constituencies? Does she agree that the Government need to develop a strategy to work with councils such as Sheffield to meet those challenges to the benefit of all concerned?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman raises an issue that I know concerns a number of communities around the country; local authorities are seeking to address it. There are a number of ways in which the Government have worked on these issues—in respect of certain groups in London, for example—including by working with the Romanian police, who have been over here to support us on this particular question. We need to ensure that we can maintain community cohesion so that we do not see a rise in the concerns to which the hon. Gentleman refers. The Government will strengthen their ability to ensure that those who are removed for not exercising their treaty rights are not able to return for a year.

Drugs

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Browne]

As I mentioned earlier, I am going to the United States of America and I am visiting both Colorado and Washington state, which are the two states that have voted to legalise cannabis. I was in Denmark last week and the mayor of Copenhagen is keen to legalise cannabis, but the pretty liberal Danish Government are keen to remind the mayor that it is not within his power to legalise cannabis and that it is not a policy that they want to pursue.

The point is that the public policy debate around cannabis is evolving. The potential health harms caused by cannabis are greater than when it was a much less powerful drug. People sometimes talk about cannabis as being the softer end of the drugs market and say that cannabis could be legalised while everything else is kept illegal as if it were a benign drug and all others harmful. If that were once the case, it is less the case now. Cannabis does have cause to concern people.

I move finally on to psychoactive substances, which is a whole new area that is evolving a lot. It is good that we see significant reductions in people consuming heroin and crack cocaine, which are very harmful drugs, but new psychoactive substances are a fast-evolving threat to many people. In the most tragic cases, some people have died after taking such drugs. People sometimes assume—this is interesting for public policy—that because something is legal it is safe. People have quite paternalistic assumptions about the state even when they are not necessarily minded to believe the Government in other areas of public policy. Just because something is legal, that does not mean that it is safe to consume.

Some such drugs get under the barrier by claiming not to be for human consumption and serious harm has been caused to people by consuming so-called novel psychoactive substances. We have tried to adapt how we respond to such substances to take account of their fast-moving nature. As has been mentioned, we have introduced temporary class drug orders and just this week the Government laid such an order in my name that will take effect from 10 June for two groups of NPSs known as NBOMe and Benzo Fury. We are discussing families of drugs, because, as has been said, these chemical compounds can be manipulated and form whole categories of drugs. We therefore do not just ban street names or individual drugs; we ban groupings of drugs to try to stop people breaking the spirit of the law but staying within the letter of the law. The problem, however, is constantly mutating and we want to maintain the academic rigour that enables the ACMD to consider such matters at length while also having the speed to deal with evolving threats more quickly than it otherwise could. That is why we have the temporary orders lasting 12 months and a more considered process following on from that. I do not pretend that this is an area in which any country does not have public policy challenges to consider. How such drugs are couriered and supplied is also a potential new cause for concern, because people order them on the internet and the drug smuggling does not take the familiar, conventional form.

This is a big area of public policy and there are some causes for cautious optimism. Some drug consumption trends in this country are positive. If they were going in the opposite direction, I suggest that there would be far more Members at this debate and a bigger clamour to ask the Government what they were doing about increases in heroin or crack cocaine consumption. We should momentarily reflect on the good news and progress, where it is being made.

However, this is an area of public policy that never stops evolving, and many new drugs are becoming available. The patterns of drug consumption are evolving. It is subject to fashion and trends, and we must be alive to the harms, educate people about them, try to persuade people not to take drugs, look at where we can restrict supply to benefit public health and help people to recover. All of those are part of our strategy. I welcome the contributions of hon. and right hon. Members and I remind open-minded as to how to ensure that we can work as intelligently as possible to reduce the harm to the British public.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs briefly to wind up.

Hillsborough

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I first pay tribute to the families of the 96 who have campaigned with dignity over the past 23 years for truth and justice. I also want to put on the record my admiration for Liverpool fans and football fans from around the world who have supported the campaign from day one, especially Everton fans who, despite being our major rivals, have stood by the Hillsborough families and supported them every inch of the way. I thank them for their efforts.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), who has been the point of contact between the families and MPs since the campaign started. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who took on all comers to make sure that all the files were released and that the truth came out. I pay a special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who has already said how he has been campaigning on this issue for many years both in the House and elsewhere, and to his predecessors and many other MPs, both past and present, who have campaigned on the issue for a very long time. I associate myself with the comments that have been made so far, especially by the Front-Bench representatives, who have been very positive. I am glad that Parliament is standing firm and together to make sure that there is truth and justice on this occasion.

I also want to take this opportunity to remember my old friend, David Hawley. He was a childhood friend and we met by chance after 20 years and arranged to have a drink. Unfortunately, I did not take that offer up quickly enough—I should have done so much quicker—and two weeks later he died at Hillsborough. I can only hope that his wife and family take some comfort from recent events and that they can at least get some peace.

Much has been said about who is to blame for the disaster. We know that many individuals and organisations are to blame, but we also know that the fans were not to blame. We need to do a number of things today. I hope that the Secretary of State will make it clear that the Government will pay the costs of all the coroners’ inquiries, past and present, for the families. The inquiries should be arranged as quickly as possible and, given this week’s exposé by The Independent on Sunday, we need a separate investigation into the role of the Crown Prosecution Service. We also need to see whether some of the legal files held by the Yorkshire police and their lawyers can be released, so that we can see exactly what went on between them.

I want to concentrate on why it took so long for the truth to come out. We know that as soon as the tragedy occurred the authorities decided to carry out a cover-up to protect themselves. They found willing partners in the national media. The cover-up included the police, other emergency services, the football authorities, Sheffield city council, Government Departments, the CPS and possibly others. They were all successful in the cover-up for many years. They decided to blame the fans, not themselves.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend said that Sheffield city council was involved in a cover-up. I hope that he will reconsider that, because I have seen no evidence that anyone at Sheffield city council partook in any cover-up.

[Mr Watts]

I am not making any accusations against members of Sheffield city council, but there was certainly no certificate. I do not know what role Sheffield city council officials played, but I would have thought that they would have had to make some comments. If that ground was not safe, the game should not have gone ahead.

As I have said, I do not want to make individual accusations against members of the emergency services. None of us knows how we would react when faced with the crisis with which they were faced. I do not know how I would have acted as an individual policeman or member of the ambulance service, so it would be wrong for us to pass judgment, given the situation that they found themselves in and the poor leadership that existed.

Many issues regarding the disaster need to be addressed. We need full, independent, transparent, open, fact-based investigations that are carried out professionally, for a change.

There are other issues that I would like to address. Why did the establishment and the media not expose the cover-up before now? I believe that in-built prejudices about the north-west, about football fans and, especially, about Liverpool led them to protect the establishment and to not worry too much about the 96 who found themselves in that position. It is clear to me that the London-based media and establishment believed that all football fans were potential hooligans, who deserved what they got. They believed the police, the emergency services, the establishment and the football authorities without question. They took the view that they were right and that football fans were wrong. I believe that all Liverpool people and fans were seen as trouble makers and, in some cases, thieves and thugs.

I suggest that anyone who does not believe that account reads the book, “Stick It Up Your Punter: The Rise and Fall of the Sun”, which goes through the conversations that went on in the media and parts of the establishment in some detail. After the tragedy, the London-based media and establishment were ready to pounce, led by The Sun and its editor, Kelvin MacKenzie. Once The Sun had ignored the facts, its editor could do what he wanted. He could not wait to put the knife in. Apparently, the first headline that MacKenzie came up with was, “You Scum”. That was later replaced with, “The Truth”. What does that tell us about editors and newspapers? They are happy to publish anything that fits their political and personal prejudices. Kelvin MacKenzie fits that stereotype perfectly.

Kelvin MacKenzie now claims that he was misled. However, he said before the National Heritage Committee that he did not stand by the claims that he made at the time. I hope that hon. Members remember that. He went away from the Select Committee saying, until a couple of weeks ago, that the false allegations were absolutely true and repeated them on a regular basis. He and The Sun obviously will not support my view of how the media dealt with this matter. They will point out that some northern journalists work for their newspapers. I am sure that that is true, but most of them have been away from their northern roots for too long and have become part of the London-centric establishment. I find it incredible that any human being could write such inaccurate, shabby and hurtful stories, or that they could continue to repeat them until only weeks ago.

The national media, including the BBC, are still employing this man. That says an awful lot about what is wrong with our media and the lack of standards that they maintain. I cannot believe that anyone could justify employing such a man. We need a media that will investigate the establishment and hold it to account; that will do the job that they are supposed to do, instead of dealing with tittle-tattle and sex stories; and that will protect the public from the establishment and cover-ups like the one that we have talked about today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I apologise to the House and to hon. Members for being late, but I was chairing a Select Committee and I did let Mr Speaker know.

It is important that we get to the truth—the families have waited for far too long. I support the calls for a new inquest; clearly, the 3.15 pm cut-off was arbitrary and wrong. I do not believe that that inquest should take place in Sheffield, and I think that the Government ought to fund the cost of it. I support the further investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Director of Public Prosecutions. I think what they will do is concentrate on the key issues: the failure of police control and monitoring on the day, which is what Lord Justice Taylor found many years ago; the subsequent evidence coming out of the panel that there was an attempt at a cover-up, including changes to statements; and whether, as a result of those issues, criminal prosecutions or charges of misconduct should follow.

I support the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) that although the police actions on the day were at the heart of this problem, the South Yorkshire police force is now a different organisation with a different culture. It is important that, as local Members, we support it in trying to maintain the trust and confidence of local people in its day-to-day policing activities. As she mentioned, Sheffield Wednesday football club is also a new organisation with new ownership.

I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) that there were failings, and he rightly identifies them and the panel draws people’s attention to them. However, Lord Justice Taylor also dealt with the issue of breakdown between police and club, and paragraph 166 of the interim report stated:

“What is clear, however, is that de facto the police at Hillsborough had accepted responsibility for control of the pens at the Leppings Lane end.”

That is the key issue—the control and responsibility were with the police and they failed absolutely on the day.

In terms of Sheffield city council, I am pleased that the panel found absolutely no new evidence or information that had not been available to Lord Justice Taylor. As leader of the council at the time, I made it clear to all its officers that they were expected to co-operate thoroughly with Taylor’s investigations and inquiries, and to provide all evidence and information—clearly, they did that. Again, as has been identified, including by Taylor, there were failures by the advisory panel and as a result of the non-issuing of a safety certificate. I shall discuss that in a moment.

We must place all this in the context of what football was like at the time. As a football fan, I went to every away ground. I had been to all 92 clubs—to every ground in the country—at one point. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said that he had been at an incident at Sheffield Wednesday where there had been crushing and nobody seemed to act. I went to many grounds where there was crushing and problems, and so did other football fans. That was accepted as commonplace at the time; it was accepted that that was what happened at football matches. Of course it is wrong that that should have been the case, but that is what happened. Lord Justice Taylor said:

“there have been many other occasions when overcrowding has led, at various grounds round the country, to a genuine apprehension of impending disaster through crushing, averted only by good fortune… So, although the operational errors on 15 April were special to one ground and one day, the lack of precautions against overcrowding was not unique. I do not believe that sufficient safety measures were being applied at all other grounds.”

This was a problem of football generally.

Of course I am devastated that the disaster happened at my football club, but I do not believe it was down to a number of individuals believing the ground to be unsafe and carrying on regardless. The horrible truth is that Hillsborough was generally regarded as a safe ground, which was why it was selected, although it proved not to have been so in the event. Of course there should have been a safety certificate—there is no excuse for the failure to provide it—but the evidence was that one was being prepared, which would actually have justified the arrangements of the ground as they were.

One of the fundamental problems that Taylor’s report identified was that although the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 and the green guide, which clubs, local authorities and the police were meant to follow, required an overall capacity for a ground, there was no mandatory requirement for individual parts of the ground to have a special capacity limit—that simply was not a requirement. Furthermore, even if there was a capacity for individual parts of the ground, there was no requirement—this was a crucial problem at Hillsborough—to have mechanisms, electronic or otherwise, to count people into each individual pen. I went to football grounds all around the country and I found that, generally speaking, people went through a turnstile at one end of the ground and there was no counting mechanism for any individual part of that end.

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend points out that many grounds were unsafe, but we are talking specifically about the Hillsborough independent panel’s report. Paragraph 1.54 on page 32 talks about

“serious crushing at the FA Cup Semi-Final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers”

in the semi-final in 1981. If lessons had been learned by the authorities at that time, there would not have been a Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

[Mr Betts]

The problem was that the crushing at that time was regarded as due to the lateral movement of the crowds at the Leppings Lane end, so lateral barriers were put in place in response to that incident. They created the pens that caused the problem and that is the issue. The lateral barriers were a safety measure that proved to be a failure.

Lord Justice Taylor stated—this confirms what the panel said—that the lack of counting mechanisms for individual parts of the Leppings Lane end meant that the responsibility rested with the police to see whether the pens were overfilling. The problem was that on the occasion of the Hillsborough disaster the police did not see the pens overfilling and opened the gates, which led to more people going into the central pen. They then did not respond to the further overcrowding. That was what Lord Justice Taylor found and I do not think any different evidence was given to the panel. There was a complete failure of the system. Of course there should have been counting mechanisms, but grounds across the country did not have them at that time. It was the police’s responsibility to monitor the crowd and take precautionary action and they failed on that occasion.

Lord Justice Taylor’s interim report was comprehensive. He said that it was the police’s responsibility to control and monitor the crowd. They failed in that respect, as he identifies in chapter 10. In chapter 17, he discusses the choice of Hillsborough as a ground and states:

“However, it was not suggested that the choice of venue was causative of this disaster. The only basis on which that could be said would be that, because of its layout, the Leppings Lane end was incapable of being successfully policed for this semi-final. I do not believe that to be so.”

He is saying that despite all the failings—those of the council, of the club and of others—the key issue was that the ground could have been operated safely on that day but for a failure of police control. Along with the issues considered by the panel, that brings us back to the key questions: why have people not been held accountable for those failings, why was there an attempt at a cover-up afterwards and how will we deal with the issues to ensure justice for the families? They are the key points and if we focus on them and on the responsibilities and actions, we will, I hope, get to the truth.

The question of timing is important and I hope that we can make arrangements so that all the necessary evidence can be taken account of properly and quickly. Twenty-three years is an awfully long time, so we ought to ensure that the final conclusions come as quickly as possible.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Hillsborough Disaster

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

First, I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) for being late to the debate. I am sorry that I did not hear his introductory speech. I was chairing a Select Committee meeting, which I could not get out of. I came in for the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg). I thank him for what he said about the people of Sheffield and how they responded to people who were leaving the ground on that day. We have to remember that it was an era before mobile phones. People were desperate to make contact with families and friends. Houses were opened up; people were welcomed in; phones were used and cups of tea were made. That was felt by the people, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton has expressed similar feelings to me in the past about that.

I was at the game on that day. I was leader of Sheffield city council. Normally, when I went to matches at Hillsborough, I was on the Kop. That day, I was in the directors’ box, at the invitation of the club to go to a semi-final; I had been to a number over the years. I remember when things started to happen that, initially, there was a feeling that there might be a bit of disturbance in the crowd. We could see people start some movement. People were trying to clamber over the fences. Eventually, it became apparent that something more serious had happened—an accident of some kind. The thought was that people had been crushed and perhaps fainted. It took an awful, long time for even people sitting there watching the events to realise the horror of what had actually happened. Initially, we were told that 60-odd people had died. Then it became more, of course, as the events unfolded.

I remember simply going back to the directors’ box, being kept abreast of events and just simply sitting with the directors and one or two friends who were there and crying. What else could we do? This was in our city, in my football ground: 96 people had died before our eyes. What else could we do? Next morning, I went back to the ground, after the Prime Minister had been there, with representatives of the three councils—Liverpool, Nottingham and Sheffield—and the clubs to look at the scene where things had happened, and people simply stood and cried again.

This was a tragedy, of course, above all else for the people who died, for their families, for the people who were injured, for Liverpool as a football club and for Liverpool as a city, but it was also a tragedy for Sheffield and Sheffield Wednesday as well. We went a few days later outside the ground to see the scarves, the flowers and the messages from football fans all over the country. This was a tragedy for football and football fans, and it could have happened to any club and many grounds up and down the country, but it happened there on that day. Therefore, although the tragedy is with Liverpool, there is also a desire in Sheffield to have all this information come out in the open. We want to see it out in the open. We want to see as much information as possible out there, so that people can really believe that the cover-ups are at an end and they can reach their own decisions about that information. There are real concerns about the coroner’s inquiry and the artificial cut-off point. In my view, that should never have happened. I hope that this might let some light fall on that.

I was a member of the police authority as well. I will not go into all the details about the police’s actions. That has been covered already. All that I have to say is that, the previous year, I went round when the same two clubs were to play a semi-final at Hillsborough with a senior police officer and looked at the arrangements. My understanding is that they were somewhat different on the day of the disaster than they had been in the previous year.

So, in the end, it is incumbent on us all to make sure that this information is available, particularly for the families and friends and those who were injured to get the certainty that they have lacked all this long time—certainty, when they have not known whether something is there, hidden away, that has not been brought out into the light of day that might better explain exactly what happened, why it happened and whether it could have been avoided and their loved ones could still be alive today if other action had been taken.

I am doing my small part. I have already been approached by the panel. I have papers in the Sheffield archives that I understand are classified as my personal papers, but they relate to my responsibilities as leader of the council. Some of them relate to Hillsborough, and I have indicated that I am quite prepared to have all that information in the public domain. It is incumbent on us all to do our small bit to make sure that the information gets out into the open.

Prevent Strategy

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am happy to look at that issue. That work has started in a number of ways. The National Union of Students has done good work on the role that it can play to prevent radicalisation on campuses by considering issues such as who is speaking on campuses. We will continue to work with the NUS to develop its approach, including to other university societies. We will also work with university vice-chancellors and staff on this issue. It is certainly not our intention suddenly to overburden universities with red tape. However, we hope that universities are prepared to recognise the role that radicalisation on campuses can play and accept that they have a responsibility to look at what is happening on their campuses.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

In the last Parliament, the Communities and Local Government Committee did a report on the previous Government’s Prevent strategy. One criticism that was made to our inquiry, to which the Secretary of State has alluded, is that there was confusion between a strand of the policy that dealt with individuals who were felt to be at risk of becoming involved in terrorism and other policies that were more closely related to social cohesion measures. Is the Home Secretary saying that the first of those issues will be the responsibility of the Home Office and the second the responsibility of the Department for Communities and Local Government? Will there be any links between the two? If there are, how will the policy differ from that of the previous Government?

[Mrs May]

It is our intention that there will be different responsibilities for those matters. We will allow the Department for Communities and Local Government to identify how it wishes to operate its integration strategy. I believe that hon. Members will hear more from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on the wider issues of community cohesion, participation in society and integration in due course. We will bring together a joint board to ensure that all activity takes place against the Government’s overall objectives in this area. I expect that that board will look at the interface between the Prevent strategy and the integration strategy of the Department for Communities and Local Government. We will not label the DCLG work as part of the Prevent strategy, and it will not be part of the counter-terrorism strategy run by the Home Office.