Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) on securing this important debate about working conditions in the 1970s. It is about a time when, in that three-year period, 571 people were killed and 224,000 were injured on building sites. It is about an industrial campaign to ensure that those working conditions changed. It is about a trial that led to the results that my hon. Friend outlined. It is about a campaign, to which I pay tribute, that has lasted now for 40 years to get documents into the public domain to ensure that people have the full facts on why action was taken and why the judgment was made.

The motion states simply that the Government should release the papers referring to all aspects of the trial and the case. The motion is a fair one. I say to both the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) that the judgment of this House can be made, as can the judgment of the public, on the information contained in that simple motion, which calls on the Government to reverse their position as a matter of urgency and to release the papers.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hanson]

I will not give way. A lot of Members want to speak and time is pressing.

This is a simple motion, but for my constituents it is not a simple matter, nor has it been for the past 40 years. For my constituent Arthur Murray it meant six months in prison and a lifetime of concern about the impact of that sentence. For my constituent John McKinsie Jones it meant nine months in prison and concern about his employability, his future and his peace of mind. For my constituent Terry Renshaw it meant a four-month suspended sentence for two years, which has had an impact on his life. They are currently bringing a case for the Criminal Cases Review Commission to consider their convictions to see if they were sound. The material that is not in the public domain could well be relevant to the case, and that is why they want it to be released.

I have written to the Secretary of State for Justice on several occasions. When I was a Minister in the Justice Department, I pressed, as a constituency MP, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), to release the information. The judgment was made, under the Labour Government, to release the information in 2012. Being the kind, open soul that I am, I wrote to the then Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), in 2010 to ask whether he could confirm that it would be released in 2012. He wrote back to me on 8 November 2010, saying that the “blanket” covering was still in place until 2012. I wrote to him again on 23 March 2011, and he said he was reviewing the matter and would make a decision. I wrote again on 20 November 2012, and was told by the now Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling):

“On 19 December 2011 Kenneth Clarke signed a new instrument which records that he has given his approval for the retention of the records”.

The retained records include:

“a paragraph from a memorandum from Sir Michael Hanley, Director General of the Security Service to Sir John at the Cabinet Office…a copy of the report which was enclosed with the…memorandum…a paragraph from…Sir John Hunt to a Mr Armstrong dated 13 January”

and

“a paragraph from a memorandum to Sir John Hunt relating to this report”.

It is important that this information be in the public domain. The Government are currently reviewing the 30-year rule and reducing it to 20 years, yet in this case, when there is 40 years of information, they are seeking to extend the period, and so withhold the information, until 2022. That seems unfair.

My colleague Terry Renshaw has been a councillor for years, he has served on the police authority, he is a lecturer, he has been mayor of the town I live in, he is a respected citizen, yet even today they will not let him into the United States of America because of that conviction. My constituent Arthur Murray, a decent man, served six months in prison, and made the point to me that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) made about John Platt-Mills, who said:

“The trial of the Shrewsbury Pickets is the only case I know where the government has ordered a prosecution in defiance of the advice of senior police and prosecution authorities.”

My constituent John McKinsie Jones said only last year:

“I have lived for almost 40 years with the stigma of being arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned for conspiracy. My family were devastated… Like a lot of the other pickets I had never been in trouble in my life. We were completely innocent of these charges. We were branded as criminals by the media. We were blacklisted”.

This debate is about the lives of people in my constituency; it is about the lives of people who dedicated their lives to the trade union movement and who were only doing their jobs. I want these papers released. I might have to leave before the end of the debate, because of a long-standing constituency engagement this evening, but this debate has my support, and my constituents have my support.

[Sir Bob Russell]

rose—