Hillsborough

Andrew Miller Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) listed a number of authorities, from the football club that is based at Hillsborough through to the media, that, to say the least, made mistakes, crass errors or whatever one wants to call them. When dealing with the issues the report highlights, the one point it is impossible to get one’s head around is the motives of those people who were involved in this complex series of mistakes. We can, perhaps, understand that the club was desirous of the revenue coming in from hosting such a prestigious game, but the subsequent actions of a number of senior people in the police, the emergency services and the media lead us to the conclusion that their motives were completely scurrilous.

Two of the 41 victims who, it appears, lived beyond 3.15 pm were my constituents, and another of my constituents also died. Let me quote the comments of the brother of one of those constituents. Nick Delaney’s brother, James, died, and he said in response to a local press inquiry about the Attorney-General’s report:

“I’m over the moon. It’s great news. I didn’t expect it to be as quick. I just hope they push it through now. People need to trust the police again”.

That is very true.

The difficulty we face is that because of the complex interaction of all these issues, we know that we cannot promise the Hillsborough victims’ families any form of instant justice. We are going down the right path and, as long as Members in this House continue to work together in a collegiate manner, I am hopeful that we will get somewhere towards achieving justice for the victims and their families.

The coroner’s court has been mentioned. I am hopeful that there will be a fresh coroners hearing, and I certainly think it would be totally inappropriate for that to be in Sheffield. I am open-minded as to where else it should be; somewhere else in the north-west may be appropriate. There is a school of thought that says Liverpool may not be the best place to hold it, but somewhere else in the north-west where the court would be accessible to the victims’ families might be considered as an appropriate venue.

I want to deal briefly with the issues associated with the media. The Home Secretary used a phrase to which we all ought to listen: “after the apology, accountability.” That comment applies particularly to people such as Kelvin MacKenzie. It is mission critical that we re-establish —somehow—confidence in the media. As with the police, the media must have the confidence of the people in the country. I want to refer to what he said, where he said he got it from and what others have said.

Kelvin MacKenzie has, apparently, asked South Yorkshire police to apologise to him for the “vilification” he has received. That seems extraordinary because, as the Home Secretary said, after the apology comes the accountability and he was the accountable person in that newsroom. A police spokesman has said that

“Mr MacKenzie was responsible for the particular headline he chose to run with.”

Irrespective of one source that he got, just as the police need to follow every line of inquiry, so should a respectable journalist. He is now seeking to pass the blame on to his source and he claims to have been

“deeply affected by the affair”.

Interestingly, former Sun reporter Harry Arnold has now broken his long silence. He apparently wrote a substantial part of the story and was “aghast” when he saw the headline “The Truth”. The book that my hon. Friend the Member for Halton quoted from clearly says that that was the feeling within the newsroom. After the apology comes accountability, so I hope that every outlet for Mr MacKenzie’s work reflects on that statement before hiring him again, because he has done a huge disservice to justice by reinforcing the mistakes made on that day.

The mistakes are covered in great detail, graphic detail, horrendous detail in the report, and I, too, praise the work of the Bishop of Liverpool and his team. I also want to put on the record my thanks to the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General for following through the work started by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) when he was a Minister. The fact that this has brought the House together in pursuit of justice will, I hope, lead us to create a culture where events such as these can never happen again in this country. That will never bring back the victims of the Hillsborough tragedy, but I hope that it will be a legacy from which the whole country can benefit.