Hillsborough

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

You can rely on your noble friends, particularly your former colleague as the Minister of Justice, to tackle you on this subject. I am not a lawyer but I assume that the Queen’s court—the coroner’s court—has the power to seek all evidence. Its needs are the most important aspect of the inquiry while the coroner’s investigations continue. Clearly, information will be made available to the coroner’s court or discovered through the coroner’s inquiry that will inform investigations by other bodies. I would hope that that would be the case because the whole point of the inquest is to establish the truth about those 96 deaths, as well as to help clear the obfuscation that has long surrounded this issue.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept from me, as a former chairman of a—sadly—former Football League club, that the attitude of the police a quarter of a century ago towards the Liverpool supporters was coloured at least partly by the fact that there was a strong belief then that those who watched football were somehow less worthy of the sort of policing that most members of the public would accept—that football supporters were there to be marched and corralled and generally to be poorly treated by police officers from a senior level downwards? Will he also accept from me that, regrettably, these days that sort of attitude persists in certain aspects of policing towards those wishing to do no more than go and watch a football match?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Amazingly enough, as somebody who has an interesting life, I have relatively limited experience of attending first-class football matches. However, in fact I went to see Arsenal play Wigan in the final home game of last season. I have to say that I found it a really delightful experience and I saw none of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, has suggested. The policing was discreet and the stewards were in place but working with people rather than against them, and I think that that characterises it—it certainly characterises other sporting events that I have been to. However, I shall have to ask the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, what it was like to go to a football match 25 years ago, and he will be able to tell me of the change there has been in recent years. I am sure he would vouch for the fact that there has been considerable change both in policing and in the way that crowds, who in most cases are now seated in purpose-built stadia, are treated. It is to be hoped that, because of those measures, there will not be a repetition of what happened at Hillsborough.