Hillsborough

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on it. When I said “new evidence”, I suppose I meant “newly published evidence”. The inquiry has not uncovered things that did not previously exist—they existed but were not published, so their publication is what is new today. The really important point he makes will take careful consideration, and those in government at the time will want to think this through and provide their own answers. The sense I get from the limited look I have had at the report is that advice went to Ministers that the behaviour was “depressingly familiar” and that the chief constable should resign. The question then is whether the output of that advice resulted in enough action by that Government and subsequent ones to blow away the false narrative that was building up. That is a very important question that people will want to consider.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has done a good thing today and he has done it well. Surely to God the role of the media should have been to uncover the corruption and the lies, and not to try to mask the corruption in the police or effectively to perpetuate it. I know the Prime Minister is very reluctant to tell people who should make apologies, but I have tried so many times on television and radio programmes to get Kelvin MacKenzie just to say the simple word “sorry” unambiguously, because every ambiguous apology hurts more than saying nothing. Surely to God The Sun tomorrow should just say sorry. Surely to God Kelvin MacKenzie, if he is to go on any media outlet at all, should be saying sorry. For that matter, surely The Spectator should say sorry too.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. We should not forget that some media publications stood up for the families, examined the issue and helped to get to the truth. We should therefore not try to blacken the name of everyone in one go. Clearly, The Sun has always been up there because of that appalling article—“The Truth”—and the appalling things written in it. My view is that Kelvin MacKenzie needs to take responsibility for that and he should be very clear about it, but it is for others to decide. My understanding is that The Sun and the police have apologised in the past. Lots of apologies have been made, but the point is that we now have a definitive guide to what happened. Now is the time for not only the proper, heartfelt “I’m sorry”, but the “Here’s what I got wrong and here’s what I regret.” It is like what we say when we deal with our children: sorry is not good enough unless people understand what they screwed up in the first place.