Paris Terrorist Attacks

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

In respect of anyone who is a matter of interest to the police, law enforcement or security agencies, a number of powers and measures are available. For those planning or seeking to undertake terrorist attacks, of course, we have strong counter-terrorism legislation here in the United Kingdom, and I think everyone would agree that the best place for a terrorist is, after prosecution, behind bars.

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

Does the Home Secretary understand that the Prime Minister will not get a consensus for increased military intervention unless and until he comes to the public and to this House with a plan involving increased diplomatic, development and military options? When can we see some leadership? The right hon. Lady says that the UK will stand with France. When will this happen?

[Mrs May]

I find the hon. Gentleman’s question a little confusing: we do stand with France and we have stood alongside France. We have been providing France with assistance and co-operation in these matters, and we continue to do so. The hon. Gentleman mentions the issue of whether the UK will take part in military action in Syria. The Prime Minister has been very clear that if and when he comes to this House in relation to such matters, it will be on the basis of a consensus.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

A lot of new technology is coming into force, along with different crimes—we have a completely different crime pattern these days from what we have inherited over the years. Body-worn video cameras in particular are transforming frontline policing. They are a wonderful asset. If police and crime commissioners and their chief constables are not looking at them now, I fully expect most of them to do so in the very near future.

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

I am confused. If the Minister’s decision to suspend the imposition of unprecedented cuts on Cumbria’s police force because he wants them to be £5 million greater is not interfering with frontline policing, I am not sure what is. Will he at least reassure my worried constituents and those across the county that he will not go ahead with the £31 million of cuts, which he somehow managed to forget to announce when he said the figure would be £26 million?

[Mike Penning]

I stood at this Dispatch Box last week and announced that we would stick with the existing funding formula for 2016-17. I did not forget anything—I announced it and was questioned very fully. Crime has fallen in Cumbria, which the whole House will welcome.

Legal Highs

Lord Walney Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) on securing such an important debate at such a critical time, as the Government consider their future approach to the issue.

I start by making the Minister and the House aware of the results of an investigation conducted by the North-West Evening Mail last year as part of its “Ban Them Now” campaign. It sent an undercover investigative reporter to Living World, a pet shop on Duke street in Barrow where legal highs were widely known to have been on sale. The reporter picked up two substances, Sparkle E and Psyclone, and took them to the counter—there was of course the usual disclaimer that they were not for human consumption. The reporter asked the shop assistant what he was supposed to do with them and was told that he should “neck” them, or he could mix them together if he wanted. He was told that one was like ecstasy and the other like cocaine. There was only the merest veneer of legality over a common, out-and-out illegal drugs trade.

The Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), rejected my amendments to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill in Committee, but promised to look further at the issue, rather than rule out action altogether. I plead with the Government to take more effective action to deal with this scourge, which is making young people so vulnerable. We all know that it is almost impossible to drive out the illegal drugs trade completely, but it is horribly complacent to say that because we cannot hope to eradicate something completely, we might as well put up with these head shops. They are making substances available far more easily and attracting many more young people, many of them school pupils, into taking these substances, and those young people simply would not do it if it was made more difficult and such shops were driven out of our high streets.

[Toby Perkins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution. Does he agree that people who have called for the legalisation of drugs on a much broader scale are wrong because, although they say we are criminalising young people who use drugs, the very fact that to use them is a criminal activity prevents many people from going down that route? People can buy those products without any fear of the law, knowing that what they are doing is entirely legal.

[John Woodcock]

That is a great worry. I recognise that the issue is difficult for all our communities, as well as for policy makers, but look at Amsterdam, which has gone down the legalisation route for some drugs. Legalising or semi-legalising cannabis—or whatever its status is—has brought with it hard drug problems, making them far more available in that city. The Minister has said that he is considering regulating head shops. Surely the overwhelming majority of our constituents would be horrified by the idea that we might end up with mini-Amsterdams on high streets throughout the United Kingdom. I guess his review is ongoing, and we would appreciate an update on it, but I hope he will make it clear that he has categorically ruled out that idea. If his coalition partners want to intervene to give him some moral support while he does so, I am sure that that would be welcome across the House.

Have the Government had the chance to consider a suggestion by local police officers that more be done at ports to restrict the chemicals coming into the country from abroad? Rather than waiting until those substances are in the shops on our high streets, we should cut them out before they get there. I hope that the Minister has had the chance to consider my rejected amendment—how have we ended up with a legal system in which our trading standards officers and police officers, who fervently want to take action, are effectively fighting with one or two hands tied behind their backs? They have an overwhelming suspicion that every new substance is neither plant food nor bath salts, but just another repackaging of substances that are either illegal now or will be made so as soon as the law catches up.

Why not give the authorities the opportunity to confiscate the products when they find them and then let legal due process take place? If the owners of head shops really want to try to convince the authorities that these products genuinely are there to feed plants or make bathrooms smell more pleasant, let them do so. However, we are giving every new substance that comes along a three to six-month head start—perhaps the Minister will provide information on how long it takes to ban each substance—before it can be banned and the next one comes along. If every week the authorities can come and clear the shelves and say, “Come and start a new legal process if you want,” that will make it much easier to tackle this scourge on our high streets. There is an opportunity to do something about that, and if the Minister does the right thing, I am sure that the Opposition will want to back him.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) on securing this important debate. I recognise that hon. Members in all parts of the House feel genuine concerns about these matters and, in particular, we have all had constituents contacting us with their concerns about what has happened to their families, so the hon. Gentleman is right to bring the debate before the House.

I agree with hon. Members who have expressed concern about the term “legal highs”. That is not an abstract matter; it is quite important, because, as hon. Members have said, using the word “legal” implies safety, and that is a misconception. Therefore, I am keen to get away from the term “legal highs”, and I try not to use it myself, except to disparage it. I am particularly attracted to “chemical highs”, which I have been peddling recently, but there are other options, such as “untested highs” or “danger highs”. We need to find an alternative phrase that conveys accurately the fact that these substances are not tested and not approved, and are probably not safe. I want to get some consensus on that, although the newspapers are attracted to the phrase “legal highs” and it is difficult to move them.

This is a global problem and no country has solved it—it is important to say that. The review process, which is under way, considered experiences in other countries to find out what works and what does not work, and why it was right to do those things. It is not fair to characterise the Government as not having done much on this matter. We have been pretty active on it, but I stress that there is no obvious silver bullet that cures all the problems that hon. Members have correctly identified.

We recognised the emergence of new psychoactive substances and the trade as serious threats from the beginning and have taken multiple and decisive actions to address them. We consulted the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to inform the action plan published in 2012 to tackle the trade from all angles. We have improved the UK’s drugs early warning system to enable real-time information sharing on emerging drugs between health and law enforcement, the advisory committee and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. We also created the Home Office forensic early warning system to detect and monitor the emergence of those substances in the UK, inform our response in legislation and provide support to the advisory committee and UK law enforcement. We have introduced temporary drug control legislation so that, together with the advisory council, we have been able to take swift action to protect the public from emerging new substances that we know have the potential to cause serious harm.

As one colleague said today, we are in a race against the chemist. The reality is, as in the rest of the world, we are chasing behind what appears on our streets, almost on a weekly basis, from chemical laboratories that are outside our jurisdiction and outside our control. We have tried to be swift in identifying substances as having appeared. More than 350 new psychoactive substances and their derivatives are now banned in the UK, mainly through our use of generic definitions banning entire families of drugs and related compounds under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Bizarrely, we have even banned substances that do not exist, because we have anticipated where the chemist will go next.

As a result, the majority—about 80%—of new psychoactive substances seen in the EU for the first time are already controlled drugs in the UK. Working with UK law enforcement, including trading standards, to support the use of existing powers to disrupt supply in our communities and online, we have seen some successes. For example, a week of concerted action last November resulted in 44 arrests and, I think, 73 seizures, including large amounts of those substances.

We have issued guidance to local authorities on the use of existing powers. I will not pretend that those powers are comprehensive and that everything that is available is all that we need, but there are powers that have been used successfully by local authorities. The General Product Safety Regulations 2005, which should not be underestimated, have been successfully deployed in Northern Ireland. There is also trading standards legislation in relation to misdescriptions. If somebody markets something as bath salts or plant food, that is a misdescription and trading standards can take action on that basis. That might be more difficult if something is called “research chemicals”, but if it is wilfully misdescribed action can be taken.

[John Woodcock]

Is the Minister still actively considering our suggestion to allow the police and trading standards officers to confiscate first and then have the legal process? If he is not, will he explain why that is not a good route to go down?

[Norman Baker]

I will come to the steps that are being taken, but I want to stress at this point, since the hon. Gentleman has raised it, that a process is in place. We have appointed an expert panel based on the best brains in the country from various disciplines: law enforcement, those who have knowledge of drugs, those from the health regimes, those who understand the psychiatry of those who might use drugs and so on. The panel has been charged by me with finding the best way forward to minimise harms from those substances. That is its objective. It is therefore not for me to second-guess what the panel will come up with. The clear objective is to minimise harm, and I look to the panel for recommendations. I will come to the process in a moment. It would be wrong for me to rule anything in or out until the panel has had an opportunity to reflect and take professional advice as it is doing so. No doubt the hon. Gentleman’s points will be considered by the panel, along with everything else.

[Norman Baker]

Time is pressing. I have been in post since October or thereabouts. The review panel was appointed in December and has almost concluded its work. I expect to have its final report on my desk in a couple of weeks’ time. The Government will reflect on the conclusions and we will publish our intentions shortly thereafter. That is our intention. I want to get a move on. There is no intention to delay matters. However, there is also no wish to end up with bad legislation that is rushed and might have unforeseen consequences. I stress that no country in the world has cracked the issue successfully. We have to look across the world at different practices to see what might apply best to our own situation.

[John Woodcock]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anne Marie Morris]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Baker]

As I said, the expert panel is looking at a range of matters, including descriptions and how substances are promoted and sold. If they are wilfully misdescribed—if the label states “bath salts” and the substance is not bath salts—action can be taken. If the label states, “Not fit for human consumption”, that is no doubt accurate and therefore more difficult. I assure my hon. Friend that that is not the only way into the issue.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referred in complimentary terms to the action of festival organisers. I want to say for the record that I wrote to festival organisers to ask them to take that action, so if he was implying that the Government was not taking action that would not be accurate. The festival organisers responded positively to the efforts that we made in writing to them. Indeed, my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), wrote last year—successfully—and they took action as a consequence of his letter. We are taking action where we can on those important fronts.

Border Force has enhanced its capability to detect those substances—the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness made a point about ports—coming into the country with the introduction of new portable FirstDefender devices.

I absolutely take the point made by Members about prevention and education. I have given a strong steer to the expert panel that it should consider very carefully what can be done on education and prevention. I look forward to the panel’s recommendations on that particular front. Even so, in the meantime, our prevention message, especially to young people, that the products cannot be assumed to be safe has been consistent and clear. Our FRANK website messaging continues to be updated with information on the risks, consequences and harms of those substances, using the best and latest available information and advice.

We have researched user trends to inform further work on reducing demand, including online. In summer 2013, the Home Office ran targeted communications activity over the festival period to help to prevent the use of those substances and to raise awareness of their risks and harms. That was aimed at particularly 15 to 18-year-olds. With the media involved, we think that more than half of that age group got the message that we sent out last year.

There were 74,000-plus unique visitors to the campaign page on our website, and we saw an 84% increase in website traffic as a consequence. A survey of visitors to the website showed that our social marketing campaign has been effective in shifting attitudes and that a new campaign could achieve similar results, so we are planning to run similar activity again this summer.

We have worked with the Department for Education and UK law enforcement on guidance issued to schools so that drug education includes those substances, along with other harmful drug use, but I want to see what more we can do on that front.

[John Woodcock]

I thank the Minister for giving way a second time. To go back to the review, when he says nothing is ruled in or out and that he is looking abroad, does that mean he has not ruled out the option of licensing head shops, which I asked him about in my speech?

[Norman Baker]

I want to make it plain that I am not taking the decision to rule things in or out. I have given the panel a challenge to come up with what it believes to be the best way to minimise harms. It would be an odd remit if we started telling the panel in advance what it should conclude. It has looked at the various options; none is without problems. I think the hon. Gentleman refers to the New Zealand position, where having a regulated market has caused problems. There are problems in the US with the analogue system, which is potentially becoming a lawyers’ paradise, and there are problems in Ireland, where the trade has largely gone underground.

Hillsborough

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I fully accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. I know that the investigatory teams are aware of the importance of meeting Lord Justice Goldring’s timetable in relation to the support they are giving him as coroner. Indeed, up to now they have met all his deadlines. They are clear that, in order for him to do his job, any requests put to them should be dealt with in the timetable that he has set.

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

The Home Secretary has made a welcome commitment to look again at the issue of the police withholding evidence. Does she not agree, however, that the fact that the notebooks, and other alarming acts, have only just been uncovered, despite all the previous investigations over many years, shows that the current system of police accountability and scrutiny is not fit for purpose, despite having been strengthened? She must know that she would get support from right across the House if she were to announce a radical overhaul of the system.

[Mrs May]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s concern about this matter, but the Government have already acted in a number of ways in relation to this question. We have enhanced the powers of the IPCC to deal with these issues, and we will be giving it more resources to enable it to investigate all serious and sensitive complaints against the police itself, rather than passing them back to police forces. That is an important change. Also, I have already announced to the House a number of steps that are being taken in relation to the wider question of police integrity. The findings of the Hillsborough panel have raised a very real question in people’s minds about police integrity, and I welcome the steps by the College of Policing to introduce a code of ethics. A number of steps are being taken to improve that issue, so that people will feel that they can have full confidence in the police. The vast majority of police officers work day in, day out for our protection and to cut crime, and they work honestly and with integrity. However, when there are those who do not, it taints the picture that people have of the others. It is our duty to encourage and enhance people’s confidence in their police.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

I will happily look into that, and I share my hon. Friend’s view that that is entirely inappropriate marketing.

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

When does the Minister expect the review to be concluded, and will he consider giving police officers and trading standards officers more powers so that they can put an immediate stop on a new substance and put the onus on nefarious traders to prove that it is a hair product, plant food or whatever nonsense they call it?

[Norman Baker]

We have a quick response already—faster than nearly every other country in the European Union—but I agree that we need to look further at that. The review is under way, as I mentioned, and will be concluded in the summer, coterminously with the international comparator study that my predecessor started, so we will also be able to examine how other countries are dealing with the challenge of new psychoactive substances.

Psychoactive Substances

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information. Of course, his knowledge of European matters is second to none in this House—[Interruption.] I did not say whether or not I approved of it.

The proposed regulation has features that might be appropriate if harmonisation of a legitimate internal market was genuinely required, but when applied to the control of these substances by member states, the proposal greatly exceeds any action required at EU level and thus does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity. For those few psychoactive substances that have legitimate uses, which amount to fewer than 2% of the more than 300 substances identified by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction since 2005, our framework is already flexible enough to place controls on those substances to restrict recreational use without hindering genuine use in industry.

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

Does the Minister believe that the European Commission’s impact assessment is mistaken? It states that member states would be able to apply national measures before the introduction of any EU-level measures and go further than what is foreseen by EU measures. It suggests that the UK would not be fettered. He clearly disagrees. Why?

[Norman Baker]

I do not think that is correct. Certainly, with regard to those substances classified as severe, with the top rank of measures, we would not be able to countermand the EU description applied to the substance unless the European Commission agreed to do so on application from the member state, so I do not think that is correct.

Violence against Women and Girls

Lord Walney Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford). This morning, I was not intending to speak—not because I was disinterested or uninterested, but because it seemed to me appropriate that this debate should be led by women. I have, however, been inspired by the clarity, compassion, cross-party consensus and expressions of support for the importance of this debate. My decision to speak was also provoked by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who is not in his place. I share with him a great interest in horseracing and I have a great affection for him. I thought he made some good points, but I profoundly disagree with him on one or two central points.

I have rearranged the day in order to speak up for many of my hon. Friends whose absence should not be misconstrued as lack of interest in this important subject. I want to put on record my personal commitment to this issue; I also want to speak on behalf of women and girls in my constituency and elsewhere who perhaps fear that men are not listening, and to speak up for a modern, compassionate, progressive conservative strain of thinking, which takes this issue very seriously and applauds the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary for their leadership on it.

It seemed to me that the central point made my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley was to insist on an equality of treatment and to deny the need for any gender-based policy approach. That denies something very fundamental: that men and women are different and, in respect of sexual and physical violence, are not equal.

Around the world—here, too, but especially in the developing world—we are witnessing a shaming prevalence of violence against women and girls, which we have a duty to tackle. I do not pretend to be an expert, but one does not need to be an expert to see the urgency of the problem. If we look around the world, we can see that the emancipation of women and the education of girls has been a profound force for good in our society and in human progress. On the subject of the education of girls, I know from my own area of science that we have a huge problem and a huge challenge in Britain to ensure that more of our girls are educated in a way that allows them to take part in the great opportunities of the modern economy.

Around the world, too, we have a huge problem of sexual violence, which has been a long-standing part of too many conflicts. We heard earlier from those more eloquent than me about the problems of genital mutilation, forced marriages, sexual slavery and the human trafficking of boys and girls. We are all mindful, too, of the appalling story of gang rape in India, which I think has triggered huge public interest and has fired people’s sense of moral outrage. In a world whose economic globalisation we celebrate day on day, we all face a challenge to take responsibility for other impacts of globalisation that are perhaps less visibly, immediately or directly seen as our responsibility. We need to take both those sides of globalisation together.

My main point, however, is that we have a serious problem here in the UK. In recent decades, we have seen an epidemic of sexual and violent crime, the casualisation of media attitudes to sex and violence, an explosion of pornography, and in recent years casual online sexualisation and prostitution and huge problems relating to stalking and even classroom abuse, as we heard in the eloquent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison). It is the casualness of all this that is worth highlighting. Such things are not any more considered by our media or our commentariat to be serious crimes. That, I think, is the most serious crime of all.

We should all be shamed that London has become a global centre of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Far from this being, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley suggested, a distraction from the serious business of Government, I suggest that it is a vital and topical issue that affects more than half of our population.

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

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his eloquent speech, reminding us all that not every male member of the Conservative party is blinkered or bonkers on this subject. Does he share with me the hope that better health and sex education in school can help prevent the real blight of sexting? As a Member of Parliament and as a parent, I must confess that, like others, I am only just beginning to understand the gravity of that situation.

[George Freeman]

I agree. The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, which I feel personally, too, as the father of an 11-year-old daughter. I also think, however, that as a Parliament and a Government we need to be brave enough to realise that advice on sex must be put within some kind of moral framework. We need to be brave enough to acknowledge that young children require of us some guidance about what is right and wrong. Difficult territory though it is, there is no excuse for simply suggesting that there is no sense of appropriate conduct that we should be conveying.

This is a vital and topical issue which affects more than half our population, and it is an issue of global and local significance. I believe that our generation in this great institution must address it, and that we all have a duty to take it seriously. As I said earlier, I am the father of an 11-year-old daughter, but I also speak as the husband of a wife and as the son of a mother. We are all, in one way or another, linked to this issue, and, as a compassionate Conservative, I am proud that this generation, and this Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, have provided such leadership on it. The Prime Minister said recently:

“I want to see an end to violence against women and girls in all its forms. I’m proud to add my voice to all those who stand up to oppose it. Too often these horrific crimes have gone unpunished. We want this to change and that is why we have criminalised forced marriage, widened the definition of domestic violence and made stalking illegal.”

I believe that, as a result of cross-party consensus, our generation may be able to look back on what we have achieved and be proud of it. I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on arranging the debate, which, given its significance, I should have preferred to take place on a Monday rather than a Thursday. I also congratulate the sponsors of the motion, and those who are speaking about this important topic this afternoon.

Abu Qatada

Lord Walney Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In view of the intense interest in this subject on both sides of the House, I have allowed the urgent question exchanges to run longer than is customary. I am happy to try to accommodate remaining colleagues, but I appeal now for extreme brevity.

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

May I suggest that if the Home Secretary wants to avoid being asked the same question again and again, she might answer it at the first time of asking? She has repeatedly said she is clear that the deadline was 16 April. She has not said, however, whether she was made aware that there could be uncertainty about that in the European Court. Was she made aware of that?

[Mrs May]

The deadline was 16 April. The European Court is the only arbiter. Indeed, it is not the European Court itself, but the panel of the Grand Chamber, which is the only arbiter of the deadline issue.

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.”

Metropolitan Police Service

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am not aware that there was a Guardian dossier. There was information that was generally available to the public, as I understand it. There is an issue here about the role of the Home Office that Opposition Members sometimes fail to grasp. It is not the job of politicians to tell the police who to investigate or arrest. It would be a very sorry day for our police and our democracy if we ever went down that road.

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

Did the Home Secretary raise any concerns to anyone about bringing Andy Coulson into the heart of Government and, if not, does she now regret that failure to speak up?

[Mrs May]

I have made clear the difference between the Metropolitan police and the Government. The Prime Minister has answered the point about Andy Coulson. He did that last week and he made it absolutely clear that he gave Andy Coulson a second chance. That did not work out and Andy Coulson resigned again.