Daniel Morgan: Independent Panel Report

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & Programme motion
Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when she will publish the report of the independent panel into the death of Daniel Morgan.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Daniel Morgan’s murder in 1987 was a tragedy compounded over decades by the absence of a successful conviction in the case. Our thoughts remain with Mr Morgan’s family. They have had to wait an incredibly long time for answers and it is essential that they get them. As the House will be aware, the Daniel Morgan independent panel was set up in 2013 by the then Home Secretary. The panel was commissioned to leave no stone unturned and the review has taken eight years.

The terms of the review set out that the independent panel will present its final report to the Home Secretary, who will make arrangements for its publication to Parliament. The chair of the panel has informed the Government that the report is now complete and that she has undertaken all her required checks. This is an important milestone. Once the panel provides the Home Secretary with the report, my right hon. Friend will make arrangements to lay the report in Parliament, as is her duty according to the terms of reference. The Home Office has asked the chair of the panel to agree a process for sharing the report with the Department in order to proceed with its publication.

Finally, I return to Mr Morgan and his family. After 34 years of heartbreak, it is the sincere hope and expectation of the Home Secretary, and indeed all of us, that Mr Morgan’s family will receive answers to the many questions that surround the terrible circumstances of his death through the publication of this report.

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry, but it was not a tragedy; it was a crime. Daniel was axed to death in a car park on 10 March 1987—34 years ago—and thanks to corruption in the police and interference by News UK, the family have had no justice. That shames all of us. The Government have already cancelled the Leveson 2 inquiry, which was promised to Daniel’s family as a means of investigating that corruption, but now the Home Secretary has blocked publication of the independent panel report, saying that she wants to review it. She has no power in law to do that. It is not covered by the Inquiries Act 2005. Her own terms of reference allow her only to make arrangements for its publication to Parliament.

Daniel’s brother Alastair told me, “This has only added to our pain”. He urges the Home Secretary speedily to reconsider her position and to put an end to this unnecessary situation, so will the Minister agree a date with the independent panel and Daniel’s family today for publication this week, and will she undertake to publish the report in full—without deletion, amendment or redaction—because people are worried that she is not going to do that?

It is not difficult to see why powerful people with very close friends at News International might want to delay or even prevent this publication, so has the Home Secretary, or any of her advisers or officials, had any formal or informal discussion or correspondence on this matter with News UK, with Rebekah Brooks or with Rupert Murdoch? Will she publish the minutes of her and her Department’s meetings with representatives of News UK over the past 12 months? If not, will not people conclude that the cover-up is still going on, and that the Conservative party is not the party of law and order, but the party of the cover-up?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions and for bringing this urgent question to the House, because he has set out some of the reasons why this case is so very important. Indeed, we note that this review, which was directed by the then Home Secretary in good faith eight years ago, has taken as long as it has to work through the evidence.

The allegation that publication has been blocked is not correct. One cannot block the publication of a report if one has not yet received it. The Home Office has not received the report. As I said in response to the urgent question, the Home Office is working with the chair of the panel to agree a date for publication. [Interruption.] There is some chuntering from a sedentary position.

In terms of the contents of the report, I spoke only this afternoon to the Home Secretary about this matter. There is a very real wish—on both sides of the House, I think—to see this report published and to see answers for the family. As I say, she will be looking at this report. [Interruption.]

[Victoria Atkins]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The reason the process for publication has been set out as it has is that it is in the report’s terms of reference from 2013, with paragraph 6 stating:

“The Independent Panel will present its final Report to the Home Secretary who will make arrangements for its publication to Parliament.”

The Home Secretary will be entering into that agreement in good faith and the report will be published.

I know there has been a question about redaction, editing and so on—that will not happen. The only caveat —I say this because I am aware of my duties at the Dispatch Box—is that, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the Home Secretary, like any other Home Secretary, has responsibilities, both in terms of national security and the Human Rights Act—

[Chris Bryant]

Oh!

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman dismisses national security with a wave of the hand, but these are the responsibilities any Home Secretary must abide by. That is the only caveat. Once those duties have been discharged, this report will be published. Again, we welcome the report and we look forward to receiving it from the panel when it is passed to the Home Office, and then the report will be published.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I want to bring the hon. Lady’s attention back to this urgent question, which is about the report that the panel has drawn up following eight years of research and investigation. We want the report to be published and the truth to come out. When we receive the report, we will, in accordance with the terms of the inquiry, publish it and make arrangements for it to be laid before Parliament. There is nothing further that I can add to that because we have not yet received the report. We await it, along with everyone else, and look forward to the panel providing us with it.

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that I should not comment on what has just happened, because that would be to keep the debate going—I have got a genuine point of order coming—but I would briefly point out that national security can be used to cover anything, even a mention of the Metropolitan police.

My serious point of order—I hope the Minister listens to it—is that there are, I think, at least eight named day written parliamentary questions on the Order Paper for answer tomorrow. The Home Office has been particularly bad at replying on the named day to named day parliamentary questions of late, and it would be enormously helpful to re-establishing trust if the Minister could ensure that they are all answered tomorrow. I do not know whether you have any means, Madam Deputy Speaker, of relaying that information to the Minister.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, very clever in his making of a real point of order and seeking to continue the argument that has just taken place during his urgent question. I will ignore the part of his point of order that was not a point of order, and answer him quite simply by saying that I have relayed the points that he has made to the Minister by means of raising my eyebrows, and the Minister, by means of nodding her head in a most ladylike and professional fashion, has shown me that she has heard the point of order.

The serious part of the hon. Gentleman’s point of order is that when questions are submitted for a named day, the Department to which they are submitted ought to pay attention to that and not merely to ignore it. Mr Speaker has said many times over these last few months that many questions are taking too long to be answered. I have every confidence that the hon. Gentleman’s questions will be answered on the correct day and that, if they are not, he will raise the matter again, and whoever is in the Chair will look upon the matter with great seriousness.

I now very briefly suspend the House, this time for only two minutes, in order that arrangements can be made for the next item of business.