Hillsborough Disaster

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is great to follow such an impassioned account of football fans’ experience and the beautiful game from my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson). May I also say what an honour it is to sit next to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who made a truly extraordinary speech? I know that we are resolutely not to pay any attention or refer to anything that happens in the Gallery, Mr Speaker—I do not know whether you will strike me down or whether this will merely be struck from the record—but seeing the families and friends of the 96 break into spontaneous applause was quite something. She is a true red and a credit to Merseyside and her team.

It is an honour to be in the House for this debate. It feels like the House of Commons truly has risen to the occasion, bearing in mind the gravity of the responsibility placed on us by the amazing, tenacious and indefatigable campaign from so many seeking justice for the 96 and the truth about what happened on that awful day. I did not intend to speak in this debate, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South suggested that I did. Like many football fans who are Members of Parliament, I look at the tragedy and the way in which the people of Liverpool and the families affected have struggled with this day after day for 22 years and think that it is not my place to speak. My hon. Friend said, and I hope she is right, that football fans across the country should say how solidly we stand behind the people of Liverpool and Liverpool fans in demanding justice and full disclosure after so long.

This is not just about football fans. What happened is an injustice and anybody who wants to see serious injustices exposed, whether they are football fans or not, is behind the call for full disclosure. I know how welcome that is. As has been made clear in the many extraordinary contributions today, the fact that the Home Secretary has come to the House to confirm that she will make the Government documents available to the panel in their entirety and unredacted is very welcome.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

My hon. Friend has rightly said that this campaign touches everyone who seeks justice. A group of my constituents have a particular sense of empathy and solidarity with the families of the 96—the Bloody Sunday families, who have developed a very strong bond with those families. In a different way, they can empathise with exactly what families suffer whenever they have to struggle against indifference, injustice and insult and whenever survivors have to endure calumny and are asked by the powers that be, in the media and elsewhere, to carry some of the blame of that day. This issue touches many people, and the families of the 96 have all our hearts.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

My hon. Friend speaks eloquently and his words will resonate with the families and the many thousands who are watching the debate. The kind of resolution that came after so long in the Bloody Sunday inquiry is what everyone here in the House and the many people watching want to see. They want similar closure through access to the full documentation about what happened on the day of the Hillsborough tragedy.

As has been heard today, every football fan knows where they were on that fateful day. I think I am the third Sheffield Wednesday fan among Members to speak today, and I am delighted to follow such excellent and moving contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). I was a 10-year-old boy at the time of that semi-final, and I note that my dad was serving on Sheffield city council with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East. On that day I was playing football in the garden of my friend who was a Liverpool fan, and I remember the opening reports talking of a riot having occurred. Quite quickly, we got a different picture, but it was striking and it has stayed with me all this time that there was talk about a riot because that was the assumption—that that was what must have happened and caused the disturbance and the spilling over of people.

One of the most powerful speeches I have heard in this place or elsewhere was that of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who put so well how that initial misunderstanding was immediately followed by a campaign of mistruths and lies. Even now, we are still seeking the full truth and the documents that will set out why ambulances were refused entry to the ground. We want to find out what happened with the failings in safety procedures and why Hillsborough did not have a safety certificate. It is good to hear that my club, Sheffield Wednesday, is co-operating fully and I hope that it operates a policy of full disclosure—as should all relevant organisations, whether or not they are covered by the Freedom of Information Act. I hope that all concerned will make available absolutely everything that is required to allow the panel and the families to see exactly what happened.

As 10-year-olds, we are mad about our teams. We are proud of anything that our teams do; it does not matter whether they are any good, which, increasingly, with the fate of Sheffield Wednesday, is probably a good thing. A generation of Wednesday fans and I have grown up with the ground that they love being infamous around the world as a symbol of tragedy. That is a strange thing for any football fan to come to terms with. As young boys, we tried to understand and assimilate the grief that we saw from the football fans around us.

I grew up as a season-ticket holder on the south stand for most of the time and, latterly, on the Kop, sitting next to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East. I hope that the annual visit of Liverpool FC, which, obviously, does not happen any more, will return one day. Annual tributes were paid at the Leppings Lane end. The fact that part of the ground will always be synonymous with tragedy is absolutely right, given the gravity of what happened there, which profoundly affected a generation of fans.

It is worth briefly reflecting on the change that has happened in football, largely as a result of the tragedy. Let us remember that the Football Spectators Act 1989 would have required compulsory identity cards and was only repealed as a result of Hillsborough. There have been so many vivid recollections of the horror of that day, which people who were there experienced and others saw on their TV screens. We remember the spikes at Hillsborough in the Leppings Lane end and across the country. It is worth reflecting on just how different the game is now, the improvements that have been made and the change in attitude, which so many hon. Members have talked about today and which was abhorrent at the time. It is absolutely right that we have been able to move on from those days.

Liverpool FC is important in Barrow and Furness, the constituency that I represent. In Barrow, everyone is a Barrow soccer fan. We are in the conference. People tend to have a second team as well, and there are loads of scousers who go down to Anfield nearly every other week—nearly as many reds as go down to Old Trafford, but that is the case wherever we go. One of Liverpool’s greatest captains, Emlyn Hughes, was a Barrow lad. He was eventually signed in 1964 by Blackpool, Barrow having passed up the chance to sign him. There is a statue of him in pride of place in Barrow, and he was, of course, at the game in 1989, so I want to end with a simple tribute that was left, along with red roses, at the Emlyn Hughes statue in Barrow on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the tragedy. Two people who did not give their names wrote a simple note saying:

“In memory of the 96 who lost their lives at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 from two who were spared that day in the Leppings Lane End. You’ll never walk alone.”