Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 14th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Russell]

I join my many colleagues in paying tribute to the Hillsborough families—those in the Gallery today, and those who, for very understandable reasons, felt that they could not be here. Your quest for justice is truly inspirational to all of us, and I thank you so very much for your perseverance and everything you have done. I do not doubt that it will make the country a better place.

Many people have raised concerns about the duty of candour in this legislation, and its application to the security services. I am sure that when the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) raised this issue in the Chamber, he did so in good faith, but no one who has raised those concerns has been able to point to any case in which the existing law protecting the security services and the secret information that they hold has actually failed, or to any problems resulting from the existing arrangements. Those concerns seem to be entirely hypothetical. Giving the security services a huge carve-out from the duty of candour when there were known problems with, for example, the evidence given to the inquiry on the Manchester Arena bombing seems completely unsustainable and unreasonable. There is literally no evidence to suggest that this Bill presents any risk to national security. I join my colleagues in saying that if there were evidence to suggest that the existing arrangements had ever failed us, many of us would think again about the drafting of this Bill, as it has been presented by the Government. We would all put the country first, but I cannot see anything that should prevent this law from going ahead as drafted.

It is so important to get to the truth, and I hope that the duty of candour will help to move things forward significantly. We owe it to the Hillsborough families, and the many families affected by the many other disasters that we sadly hear about too often in this place, to ask the other question: what comes next? That is why I rise to speak in support of new clauses 5 and 6, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), through which he calls for a national oversight mechanism that follows up on the actions taken by public authorities in response to the conclusions and recommendations of inquests and inquiries. We must get to the truth, and we must have recommendations on how to avoid future catastrophes, disasters and unnecessary risk, but we then have to do something to stop those things happening again.

At the moment, prevention of future death reports and inquiry reports are all too often not followed up—or not followed up consistently across the board. All too often, including after the Ockenden report and the maternity scandals, systemic change has not followed from inquiry recommendations, despite the considerable resources and effort put in by individuals to improve systems. We think about justice for the Hillsborough families, the Grenfell families and many other families who have sadly lost loved ones in terrible circumstances, but we must make sure that we bring into play the mechanisms that ensure proper follow-up after all these disasters. We must follow through on inquiry outcomes, and ensure that the right mechanisms are in place.

I thank very much everyone who has worked to get us to where we are today—the many families, but also the Members of Parliament who have worked across party and for a great deal of time on bringing this legislation forward. Let us keep this work going.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

It is a true privilege to have been present for this debate, and to have heard some of the most incredible contributions that I have ever heard in this place.

I will be mercifully brief. I recognise that it is to the Prime Minister’s considerable credit that he has fulfilled his manifesto commitment and got the Bill to this point within a year of his remarks at the Labour party conference in Liverpool last year. I also put on record my recognition of my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) for his persistent work on this subject for many years. Principally, however, it is the families of Hillsborough victims, the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, Pete Weatherby KC, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) and many others who have to be recognised for not letting the matter rest, and for their tireless determination to get us to where we are today. We must not forget the Manchester Arena victims, the Grenfell families, the Chinook families, the contaminated blood families, the British nuclear test veterans, and all those who have been part of this campaign.

The duty of candour on the NHS did not deliver for the families of my constituents Christie Harnett, Nadia Sharif and Emily Moore, and many others who died in the scandal at the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys mental health trust. I have welcomed confirmation of a public inquiry, and the information that applications have been received to chair it, but families need that inquiry to be up and running. I hope that the Health Secretary can progress that urgently this summer.

We are being asked to support dozens of Government amendments today that were tabled with little notice, and without our having been able to scrutinise them in detail, but I am led by the families to support those amendments. I recognise the calls for oversight and monitoring mechanisms, such as those set out in new clause 5, tabled by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), and in new clause 1, by my old friend and doughty campaigner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle). Those measures would assure us that the new Government amendments will function effectively and, among other things, allow us to hold to account police officers and members of the armed forces and the security services, as we are led to believe.

I sense that many Members across this House would like to hear more from our Front Benchers about commitments made to ensuring oversight and monitoring. Perhaps the Minister can address that when she responds to the debate. The expectation of honesty and transparency is not, and never can be, a threat to national security. Will the Minister set out how the application of the duty of candour and the prevention of carve-outs will be applied to the work of the Northern Ireland Legacy Commission, which is being established by the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill? Perhaps the Minister can confirm that the Government will table amendments to that Bill, or can otherwise provide guarantees that the measures in the Bill cover the families who have suffered so much in Northern Ireland.

The common characteristics of these appalling human tragedies are the most unimaginable trauma, pain and grief, and the demands are the same. They are for truth, justice and accountability, and today provides the means to deliver on those demands. I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member from Liverpool, West Derby: if anything tells us why we come to this place to change the country for the better, surely it is what we are doing today, and I very much welcome this landmark legislation.