Public Inquiries: Enchancing Public Trust (Statutory Inquiries Committee Report)

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Friday 25th April 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Norton of Louth]

That this House takes note of the Report from the Statutory Inquiries Committee Enhancing Public Trust (HL Paper 9).

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, it is a particular honour to move this Motion. The Select Committee on Statutory Inquiries was appointed last year as a special inquiry committee to review the report of the committee appointed in 2014 to engage in post-legislative scrutiny of the Inquiries Act 2005. The committee met throughout the year and I pay special tribute to its members for their commitment and support; to the clerk, Andrea Dowsett, for her superb clerkship; and to our policy analyst, Matthew Burton, whose capacity for data research was outstanding

Public inquiries are a notable feature of public life. Whenever there is a tragedy in which people suffer some catastrophic loss, be it physical or financial, there are calls for a public inquiry to investigate the circumstances and report on the causes—and, not unusually, to recommend what needs to be done to avoid a repetition. Ministers are empowered under the 2005 Act to establish inquiries with the power to take evidence under oath, although it is also possible to set up non-statutory inquiries, be they in the form of independent departmental reviews, independent panels or ad hoc inquiries.

Public inquiries are notable nowadays for the number, as well as the range, of subjects being examined. At their best, they undertake forensic examinations and establish the facts, the lessons to be drawn and the necessary actions to prevent a recurrence. They can also provide catharsis for those most closely affected by a tragedy. That may apply as much to non-statutory inquiries as to statutory ones. Implementing their recommendations may prevent further tragedies.

However, the fact that they are long drawn-out and costly attracts public criticism. As the Government noted in their response to the report:

“In the financial year 2023/24, the direct public cost of live UK inquiries was more than £130 million”


and, of those

“that have produced their final report in the last five years”,

it

“took on average nearly five years to”

produce a report. Also drawing notable criticism—a point to which I shall return—is the fact that they can produce recommendations that are not acted on.

Awareness that public inquiries are not engendering public trust to the extent that they are designed to do provides the underpinnings to our inquiry. To provide a clear focus, we addressed the extent to which public inquiries could be rendered more efficient in process and more effective in implementation. Although those calling for inquiries tend to favour statutory and judge-led inquiries, it was clear from the evidence that there was no optimum template for an inquiry. Non-statutory inquiries can produce benefits not found in statutory inquiries. They can engender candour and provide a means for greater and more informal involvement by victims and survivors. Judges may be good at being detached and able to weigh evidence, but they may be more used to adversarial than inquisitorial proceedings. On occasion, appointing a specialist in the field may prove more appropriate. It may also be appropriate to appoint a panel rather than a single chair.

However, the most notable and most troubling feature, and one that clearly most engaged witnesses who had been involved in inquiries, be it as chairs or officials or as victims and survivors, was that there is no means of ensuring that recommendations are acted on—and, indeed, no means of monitoring what has happened to recommendations. Once an inquiry has reported, it ceases to exist. It relies on others to act. The problem is that there may be no action. This clearly has the potential to undermine trust in the process, a potential that appears to have been realised.

The most egregious failure is where recommendations that could result in preventing a repetition of a disaster are not implemented. We heard of instances where, if recommendations had been acted on, deaths may have been avoided. It was clear from the evidence we received that if inquiries were to fulfil the purposes for which they were established, there had to be some change both to the process of establishing them and to monitoring what happens once they have reported. We therefore made recommendations, both in our own right and as a follow-up to recommendations made in the 2014 report.

To render the process more efficient, we recommended, where appropriate, consulting and involving victims and survivors in determining the terms of reference and providing guidance to those setting up inquiries on options for involving such groups. We recommended including in the terms of reference an indicative deadline for the final inquiry report, with ministerial approval possible to extend the deadline, and including a requirement that inquiries provide regular public updates on their work and consider issuing interim reports, especially in cases where inquiries are expected to be lengthy.

We also favoured enhancing the role of the Cabinet Office inquiries unit to ensure the sharing of best practice. All too often, chairs are left to reinvent the wheel when it comes to setting up an inquiry. We regarded sharing best practice and learning from past inquiries as essential. We therefore recommended that inquiry terms of reference include an obligation to produce a lessons learned paper and a working paper on what worked well and what could be improved—these to be submitted to the inquiries unit. All this will require the inquiries unit to be adequately resourced. We wanted to see the wider creation of a community of practice for all public inquiries.

These recommendations, we believe, will enhance the efficiency of inquiries. In terms of effectiveness, it is crucial that an inquiry’s recommendations are the start, not the end of a process. Presently, too many reports constitute the end product, with no action taken on many or any of the recommendations and with no systematic means of monitoring the Government’s actions in the light of the report.

The Government are legally obliged to respond to a report from an inquiry established under the 2005 Act, but they are not required to accept any recommendations or to provide a detailed explanation as to why not. When an inquiry into a tragedy makes recommendations designed to prevent a recurrence and no action is taken on those recommendations, not only is it a body blow to victims and survivors but it undermines public trust and calls into question the point of holding inquiries.

We, therefore, focused on how inquiry recommendations can be monitored and, if necessary, pursued when no action is taken by government. We recommended the appointment of a Joint Select Committee on public inquiries. If a Joint Committee is not agreed by both Houses, we propose the appointment by this House of a sessional Select Committee. As we record in the report, a parliamentary committee is superior to other options because it plays to the strengths of the existing committee system.

We recommend that its functions include monitoring the implementation of accepted public inquiry and major inquest recommendations and maintaining a publicly available online tracker. It would be able to conduct thematic research and meta-analysis of recommendations, enabling it to identify systemic policy failures and prevent future disasters. As a result of its work, it would also be able to make recommendations to the Inquiries Unit on best practice for establishing and running inquiries. If necessary, of course, it could hold its own parliamentary inquiry. The 1999 House of Lords inquiry into the 1994 Chinook helicopter crash shows that a parliamentary inquiry can fulfil the same purpose as a public inquiry and bring redress, even when the Government decline to establish a statutory inquiry.

Vesting power in a single committee would reduce duplication and ensure more systematic and comprehensive scrutiny than if spread among committees. It would, as we record, be constitutionally sounder to vest Parliament with this responsibility to hold the Government to account than to vest it in an independent arm’s-length body. If it is a sessional committee of this House, it will play to the strengths of the House in terms of its membership.

The fundamental point is the need to have a body to monitor and report on the implementation of recommendations accepted by the Government. If it is a parliamentary committee, it will also have the capacity to pursue Ministers if they fail to act. There are obvious resource implications, but, as I have stressed, the need to achieve public trust in public inquiries is paramount.

Given our remit, we also tracked what happened to the recommendations made in the 2014 report. Of the 33 recommendations, which we list in Appendix 4, the Government at the time accepted 19. However, as far as we can tell, none has been implemented. In its response to the 2014 report, the Government committed, where appropriate, to legislate when parliamentary time allowed—but it has not been allowed, so there has been no change. In our report, we reiterate 26 of the recommendations made by the committee.

The Government’s response to our report was much delayed, for reasons that are unclear, but in content it is very welcome. In a meeting I had with the Minister for the Cabinet Office, he made clear that the Government took the issue seriously. That is reflected in their response. It is especially pleasing to see the word “accept” appear so many times. Of the recommendations that derived from our investigation, they have accepted all those related to the efficiency of inquiries. They have also accepted nine of the 26 recommendations that we reiterated from the 2014 report; one has been partially accepted and eight are marked as under consideration.

On effectiveness, the Government acknowledge that our key recommendation—that a parliamentary committee be established—is a matter for Parliament. However, they state that, given the importance of the issues identified by the committee, they are

“actively considering whether there is scope for wider reforms to the frameworks within which inquiries are set up, run and concluded”.

They expand on that point, including examining

“how best to ensure more effective transparency and accountability around the response to inquiry recommendations and the implementation of those which are accepted”.

Given that, it will be especially valuable today to hear from the Minister on how far the Government have advanced in undertaking their examination and when we may expect their active consideration to bear fruit.

Such plans do not detract from the need for a parliamentary committee on public inquiries, for both the constitutional and practical reasons embodied in our report. The two developments—the reform of the inquiries process by the Government and the establishment of a parliamentary committee—are complementary, not conflicting, and together can help to deliver public inquiries that enhance public trust. For that neat reason, we need to pursue the Government on their proposals for reform and to press both Houses to establish a Joint Committee.

We have the potential to ensure that public inquiries more effectively meet the needs of victims and survivors and enhance public trust in the process. It is incumbent on us to realise that potential. I commend the report to the House, and I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken. It has been an excellent debate. I am especially grateful to the Minister for her detailed response. I appreciate enormously what she said about a Joint Committee, and I know we look forward to her updates on the progress of the implementation of the commitments that the Government have made in their response to the committee’s report.

I am also grateful to fellow members of the committee, not least those who have spoken today. The report is very much the product of a collective endeavour, drawing on a range of experience and expertise. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said—the Minister endorsed this—the report demonstrates the strength of this House. I commend the resilience of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who I believe is speaking in her third debate of the day.

I commend the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, on the importance of the independence of the chair of an inquiry. That points to the need for a very effective process for the selection of the chair. I hear what he said about the responsibility of the Commons Select Committees—he would like to give them responsibility for monitoring inquiry report recommendations—but I fear the problem is that the Select Committees in the other place are already overburdened with the tasks that they have to undertake, and I think finding time to do this would be a little too much.

My noble friend Lady Finn made some important points about the 2005 Act. As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, stressed, statutory inquiries should not be seen as the gold standard. There is a range on offer and it really is horses for courses, selecting the method that is most appropriate to deal with the particular problem.

As I said in opening, reports from public inquiries should be seen as the start of a process, not the end of one, and that applies to Select Committee reports. This report is the basis for action to ensure that public inquiries deliver on what is expected of them. That entails some action on the part of the Government. It also entails action on the part of this House—ideally, as we have discussed, on the part of both Houses, and the Minister will have heard the near-unanimous view of the House on that subject.

I think we are agreed that public inquiries need to be more efficient and more effective; I hear the rallying cry of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. We owe it to victims and survivors to deliver these outcomes.

Motion agreed.