Hillsborough

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I first pay tribute to the families of the 96 who have campaigned with dignity over the past 23 years for truth and justice. I also want to put on the record my admiration for Liverpool fans and football fans from around the world who have supported the campaign from day one, especially Everton fans who, despite being our major rivals, have stood by the Hillsborough families and supported them every inch of the way. I thank them for their efforts.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), who has been the point of contact between the families and MPs since the campaign started. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who took on all comers to make sure that all the files were released and that the truth came out. I pay a special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who has already said how he has been campaigning on this issue for many years both in the House and elsewhere, and to his predecessors and many other MPs, both past and present, who have campaigned on the issue for a very long time. I associate myself with the comments that have been made so far, especially by the Front-Bench representatives, who have been very positive. I am glad that Parliament is standing firm and together to make sure that there is truth and justice on this occasion.

I also want to take this opportunity to remember my old friend, David Hawley. He was a childhood friend and we met by chance after 20 years and arranged to have a drink. Unfortunately, I did not take that offer up quickly enough—I should have done so much quicker—and two weeks later he died at Hillsborough. I can only hope that his wife and family take some comfort from recent events and that they can at least get some peace.

Much has been said about who is to blame for the disaster. We know that many individuals and organisations are to blame, but we also know that the fans were not to blame. We need to do a number of things today. I hope that the Secretary of State will make it clear that the Government will pay the costs of all the coroners’ inquiries, past and present, for the families. The inquiries should be arranged as quickly as possible and, given this week’s exposé by The Independent on Sunday, we need a separate investigation into the role of the Crown Prosecution Service. We also need to see whether some of the legal files held by the Yorkshire police and their lawyers can be released, so that we can see exactly what went on between them.

I want to concentrate on why it took so long for the truth to come out. We know that as soon as the tragedy occurred the authorities decided to carry out a cover-up to protect themselves. They found willing partners in the national media. The cover-up included the police, other emergency services, the football authorities, Sheffield city council, Government Departments, the CPS and possibly others. They were all successful in the cover-up for many years. They decided to blame the fans, not themselves.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend said that Sheffield city council was involved in a cover-up. I hope that he will reconsider that, because I have seen no evidence that anyone at Sheffield city council partook in any cover-up.

[Mr Watts]

I am not making any accusations against members of Sheffield city council, but there was certainly no certificate. I do not know what role Sheffield city council officials played, but I would have thought that they would have had to make some comments. If that ground was not safe, the game should not have gone ahead.

As I have said, I do not want to make individual accusations against members of the emergency services. None of us knows how we would react when faced with the crisis with which they were faced. I do not know how I would have acted as an individual policeman or member of the ambulance service, so it would be wrong for us to pass judgment, given the situation that they found themselves in and the poor leadership that existed.

Many issues regarding the disaster need to be addressed. We need full, independent, transparent, open, fact-based investigations that are carried out professionally, for a change.

There are other issues that I would like to address. Why did the establishment and the media not expose the cover-up before now? I believe that in-built prejudices about the north-west, about football fans and, especially, about Liverpool led them to protect the establishment and to not worry too much about the 96 who found themselves in that position. It is clear to me that the London-based media and establishment believed that all football fans were potential hooligans, who deserved what they got. They believed the police, the emergency services, the establishment and the football authorities without question. They took the view that they were right and that football fans were wrong. I believe that all Liverpool people and fans were seen as trouble makers and, in some cases, thieves and thugs.

I suggest that anyone who does not believe that account reads the book, “Stick It Up Your Punter: The Rise and Fall of the Sun”, which goes through the conversations that went on in the media and parts of the establishment in some detail. After the tragedy, the London-based media and establishment were ready to pounce, led by The Sun and its editor, Kelvin MacKenzie. Once The Sun had ignored the facts, its editor could do what he wanted. He could not wait to put the knife in. Apparently, the first headline that MacKenzie came up with was, “You Scum”. That was later replaced with, “The Truth”. What does that tell us about editors and newspapers? They are happy to publish anything that fits their political and personal prejudices. Kelvin MacKenzie fits that stereotype perfectly.

Kelvin MacKenzie now claims that he was misled. However, he said before the National Heritage Committee that he did not stand by the claims that he made at the time. I hope that hon. Members remember that. He went away from the Select Committee saying, until a couple of weeks ago, that the false allegations were absolutely true and repeated them on a regular basis. He and The Sun obviously will not support my view of how the media dealt with this matter. They will point out that some northern journalists work for their newspapers. I am sure that that is true, but most of them have been away from their northern roots for too long and have become part of the London-centric establishment. I find it incredible that any human being could write such inaccurate, shabby and hurtful stories, or that they could continue to repeat them until only weeks ago.

The national media, including the BBC, are still employing this man. That says an awful lot about what is wrong with our media and the lack of standards that they maintain. I cannot believe that anyone could justify employing such a man. We need a media that will investigate the establishment and hold it to account; that will do the job that they are supposed to do, instead of dealing with tittle-tattle and sex stories; and that will protect the public from the establishment and cover-ups like the one that we have talked about today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I apologise to the House and to hon. Members for being late, but I was chairing a Select Committee and I did let Mr Speaker know.

It is important that we get to the truth—the families have waited for far too long. I support the calls for a new inquest; clearly, the 3.15 pm cut-off was arbitrary and wrong. I do not believe that that inquest should take place in Sheffield, and I think that the Government ought to fund the cost of it. I support the further investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Director of Public Prosecutions. I think what they will do is concentrate on the key issues: the failure of police control and monitoring on the day, which is what Lord Justice Taylor found many years ago; the subsequent evidence coming out of the panel that there was an attempt at a cover-up, including changes to statements; and whether, as a result of those issues, criminal prosecutions or charges of misconduct should follow.

I support the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) that although the police actions on the day were at the heart of this problem, the South Yorkshire police force is now a different organisation with a different culture. It is important that, as local Members, we support it in trying to maintain the trust and confidence of local people in its day-to-day policing activities. As she mentioned, Sheffield Wednesday football club is also a new organisation with new ownership.

I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) that there were failings, and he rightly identifies them and the panel draws people’s attention to them. However, Lord Justice Taylor also dealt with the issue of breakdown between police and club, and paragraph 166 of the interim report stated:

“What is clear, however, is that de facto the police at Hillsborough had accepted responsibility for control of the pens at the Leppings Lane end.”

That is the key issue—the control and responsibility were with the police and they failed absolutely on the day.

In terms of Sheffield city council, I am pleased that the panel found absolutely no new evidence or information that had not been available to Lord Justice Taylor. As leader of the council at the time, I made it clear to all its officers that they were expected to co-operate thoroughly with Taylor’s investigations and inquiries, and to provide all evidence and information—clearly, they did that. Again, as has been identified, including by Taylor, there were failures by the advisory panel and as a result of the non-issuing of a safety certificate. I shall discuss that in a moment.

We must place all this in the context of what football was like at the time. As a football fan, I went to every away ground. I had been to all 92 clubs—to every ground in the country—at one point. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said that he had been at an incident at Sheffield Wednesday where there had been crushing and nobody seemed to act. I went to many grounds where there was crushing and problems, and so did other football fans. That was accepted as commonplace at the time; it was accepted that that was what happened at football matches. Of course it is wrong that that should have been the case, but that is what happened. Lord Justice Taylor said:

“there have been many other occasions when overcrowding has led, at various grounds round the country, to a genuine apprehension of impending disaster through crushing, averted only by good fortune… So, although the operational errors on 15 April were special to one ground and one day, the lack of precautions against overcrowding was not unique. I do not believe that sufficient safety measures were being applied at all other grounds.”

This was a problem of football generally.

Of course I am devastated that the disaster happened at my football club, but I do not believe it was down to a number of individuals believing the ground to be unsafe and carrying on regardless. The horrible truth is that Hillsborough was generally regarded as a safe ground, which was why it was selected, although it proved not to have been so in the event. Of course there should have been a safety certificate—there is no excuse for the failure to provide it—but the evidence was that one was being prepared, which would actually have justified the arrangements of the ground as they were.

One of the fundamental problems that Taylor’s report identified was that although the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 and the green guide, which clubs, local authorities and the police were meant to follow, required an overall capacity for a ground, there was no mandatory requirement for individual parts of the ground to have a special capacity limit—that simply was not a requirement. Furthermore, even if there was a capacity for individual parts of the ground, there was no requirement—this was a crucial problem at Hillsborough—to have mechanisms, electronic or otherwise, to count people into each individual pen. I went to football grounds all around the country and I found that, generally speaking, people went through a turnstile at one end of the ground and there was no counting mechanism for any individual part of that end.

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend points out that many grounds were unsafe, but we are talking specifically about the Hillsborough independent panel’s report. Paragraph 1.54 on page 32 talks about

“serious crushing at the FA Cup Semi-Final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers”

in the semi-final in 1981. If lessons had been learned by the authorities at that time, there would not have been a Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

[Mr Betts]

The problem was that the crushing at that time was regarded as due to the lateral movement of the crowds at the Leppings Lane end, so lateral barriers were put in place in response to that incident. They created the pens that caused the problem and that is the issue. The lateral barriers were a safety measure that proved to be a failure.

Lord Justice Taylor stated—this confirms what the panel said—that the lack of counting mechanisms for individual parts of the Leppings Lane end meant that the responsibility rested with the police to see whether the pens were overfilling. The problem was that on the occasion of the Hillsborough disaster the police did not see the pens overfilling and opened the gates, which led to more people going into the central pen. They then did not respond to the further overcrowding. That was what Lord Justice Taylor found and I do not think any different evidence was given to the panel. There was a complete failure of the system. Of course there should have been counting mechanisms, but grounds across the country did not have them at that time. It was the police’s responsibility to monitor the crowd and take precautionary action and they failed on that occasion.

Lord Justice Taylor’s interim report was comprehensive. He said that it was the police’s responsibility to control and monitor the crowd. They failed in that respect, as he identifies in chapter 10. In chapter 17, he discusses the choice of Hillsborough as a ground and states:

“However, it was not suggested that the choice of venue was causative of this disaster. The only basis on which that could be said would be that, because of its layout, the Leppings Lane end was incapable of being successfully policed for this semi-final. I do not believe that to be so.”

He is saying that despite all the failings—those of the council, of the club and of others—the key issue was that the ground could have been operated safely on that day but for a failure of police control. Along with the issues considered by the panel, that brings us back to the key questions: why have people not been held accountable for those failings, why was there an attempt at a cover-up afterwards and how will we deal with the issues to ensure justice for the families? They are the key points and if we focus on them and on the responsibilities and actions, we will, I hope, get to the truth.

The question of timing is important and I hope that we can make arrangements so that all the necessary evidence can be taken account of properly and quickly. Twenty-three years is an awfully long time, so we ought to ensure that the final conclusions come as quickly as possible.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—