Hillsborough: Collapse of Trials

Debate between Alison McGovern and Robert Buckland

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I am profoundly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks and I listened very carefully to what he said. He was a witness to what happened and, no doubt, he has to live with that. All of us in this House would understand and share with him that huge sense of loss to which I referred and that sense of an ongoing injustice. I hope he appreciates that, in the answers I have given, I have set out the steps the Government wish to take on the important work that is being done on many fronts: potential legislative change; the work of Bishop James Jones’s inquiry; and, importantly, the work that quietly but effectively goes on between the Home Office and families directly. I say again that we have to act in accordance with our words, and doing things for, to or about the families is meaningless unless we do it with them—it has to be with them that we will make things better.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab) [V]]

In asking my question today, I am thinking of all those who lost a loved one and all those who were affected in any way by the Hillsborough disaster, and all that they have been through.

I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for their incredible work on this, and I will support them every step of the way as they create a legal legacy for all those affected in the most terrible way by the Hillsborough disaster. Both of them accurately captured the effective silencing in recent years of those who know the truth of Hillsborough during the recent proceedings, which is why I want to ask about the Hillsborough archive, which is crucial to making sure that history correctly records the truth of Hillsborough. Will the Lord Chancellor and appropriate Ministers meet me to discuss the future for that archive?

[Robert Buckland]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes an important point about the archive. There is a general point to be made here which goes back to the initial question. The ongoing criminal procedure meant that a lot of material, for example, material on existing websites, had to be taken down. Obviously, I want that to change—I want it all to go back. Indeed, more work needs to be done to ensure that documents and material are in the public domain. So my answer is: yes, I absolutely will undertake to work with her, because I think it is important that everybody has access to the truth, so that the full story is known by generations yet to come.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Alison McGovern and Robert Buckland

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

That is not necessary. The provisions in schedule 8 are all about the frameworks, not the policy, and this Bill is not a vehicle for policy. This is a framework Bill that allows the law to operate within it. That is the distinction that I seek to draw. While I understand and respect the reasons behind the amendments, they do not deliver the policy outcomes that the hon. Lady and others may want.

[Alison McGovern]

Will the Solicitor General give way?

[The Solicitor General]

I will not give way any further.

It is our policy that we will not be a member of the EEA or the single market after we leave the EU, so introducing an obligation to produce a report on membership of the EEA, as new clauses 9 and 23 seek to do, is simply unnecessary.

I will now try to deal fairly with the Scottish National party amendments 200 and 201, which the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) spoke to. While we do not accept that the amendments are necessary, I welcome the chance to set out clearly the meaning of clause 2. Amendments 200 and 201 seek to provide clarity on precisely what is meant by “passed” in the context of the clause. Some have questioned the effect of clause 2 in relation to an Act that may have been passed by the Scottish Parliament, but which has not yet received Royal Assent when the clause is commenced.

We do not believe that there is an ambiguity. Clause 2(2) states that “EU-derived domestic legislation” is an enactment. As enactments can only mean something that has received Royal Assent, an Act of Scottish Parliament that has only been passed cannot fall within this definition, and it would therefore not be categorised as EU-derived domestic legislation for the purposes of the Bill. The reference to “passed” in clause 2 is therefore a reference to the purpose for which the enactment was passed, not the fact of whether it was passed. I hope I have been able to shed light on that area for the hon. Gentleman, and I invite him to withdraw the amendment.

Turning now to Plaid Cymru’s amendment 87, which is in the name of the hon. Member for Arfon, we do not accept the premise that lies behind the change. In trying to circumvent the provisions of clause 11, the amendment pays no heed to the common approaches that are established by EU law or to the crucial consideration that we—the UK Government and the devolved Administrations—must give to where they may or may not be needed in future. What is more, it undermines our aim to provide people with maximum certainty over the laws that will apply on exit day. The amendment would also be practically unable to achieve its underlying aim. The enactments that it takes out of retained EU law would also be taken outside the scope of the powers that this Bill confers on the devolved Administrations to allow them to prepare them for exit day. It would hamper their ability to address the deficiencies that will arise, and it would leave it likely that the laws would remain broken on the day of exit.

The process of making the statute book work for exit day is a joint endeavour between the different Governments and legislatures of the whole United Kingdom. This is an important project that entails a significant workload before exit day, which is why we are actively engaging with the devolved Administrations to build up a shared understanding of where corrections to the statute book would be needed. On that basis, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

I hope I have dealt with the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), the Chair of the Select Committee on Justice.