Hillsborough Disaster

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I have been listening in appropriate awe to the brilliance of the speeches, particularly from the Members from Sheffield, Liverpool and around Merseyside, which is highly appropriate to the subject. They have delivered in terms of the quality of the argument and the eloquence with which they have put it. I trust that those who edit and those who own The Sun will be listening in to the debate and will be preparing their front pages in anticipation.

I am one of those who, for the past 25 years and more, has never allowed a copy of The Sun into my house. Whether I will again or not I do not know, so perhaps I will not see the apology that is due, but it is due because the evil committed by that newspaper shocked any decent person in this country.

I was asked to speak in this debate by one of my constituents, who pressed me repeatedly. One could hear the trauma in the e-mails that she sent me, repeatedly demanding, first, that I sign in support. I told her that I already had done so and had done in the previous Parliament. Then she said, “I need you to be there. I need you to be representing me at the debate.” I said I would be there. Then she said, “I need you to speak in the debate.” I represent the nearest Nottinghamshire constituency to Hillsborough and have many Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest supporters and a handful of Liverpool supporters in it. I have no idea which team she went to support that day.

I remember listening on my little radio to what was going on that day and recalling the only time I had stood in the Leppings Lane end for a semi-final, which had been a few years before. When I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), I remembered going through that tunnel. I cannot remember whether we were in section 3 or 4, but I remember more and more people coming in until we could scarcely move or breathe. Then, all the little kids, including my brother, who was tiny at the time—I was not much bigger—had to be lifted up, passed on hundreds of people’s hands and put down to the front because there were no crash barriers then. Probably thousands of people had to be moved on to the side of the pitch that day. That was some years before, so the lessons had not been learned.

I can think of other stadiums, not only in Sheffield, where I have been in similar situations. As a kid I used to be put on a stool; I started on a stool that was bigger than I was and then moved to one that was a bit smaller. I have been in stadiums where I stood on my stool, lost it in the first few minutes and did not get it back until after full time, but I went backwards and forwards and my feet never touched the ground.

I recall going to places like Chelsea in the ’80s and seeing the venom directed against ordinary football supporters, particularly visiting supporters, as though they were some sort of scum who should not be there. That was the climate that existed at the time and that was how football fans on all sides would have been seen there. There are many members and supporters of Nottingham Forest in my constituency, and every one of them stands alongside the supporters of Liverpool football club, as do all other supporters across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton said, “There but for the grace of God go we.” Was it the toss of a coin that decided who went in one end and who went in the other, because it will have been no more scientific than that? Every time I have been to semi-finals at the same ground I have ended up in different ends each time. There is no science to it; it is luck. It is only a matter of luck that it was not Nottingham Forest supporters in the Leppings Lane end that day. That is the point.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[John Mann]

My hon. Friend wants to join me in making this point on behalf of football supporters across Nottinghamshire. It could have been our supporters who were there.

[Vernon Coaker]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is really important that the people of Sheffield and, above all, the people of Liverpool, the families of the 96, the supporters of Liverpool football club and all decent people across the country know that the people of Nottinghamshire and Nottingham and the fans of Nottingham Forest stand absolutely with them today in their horror at what happened on that awful day and in their support for the motion before the House?