Hillsborough

David Rutley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that people need to study the evidence in the report. The panel had access to all the documentation from the South Yorkshire police that it wanted. It is very important that politicians play their proper role in these things and the independent authorities play their proper role. There will be a lot of evidence that people want to look at before reaching those decisions.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I welcome the publication of the report and the Prime Minister’s statement, like many families in Liverpool and across the north-west, but what lessons will be learned about shaping the scope of future inquests and making sure that they have access to all relevant information?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend asks an important question. I think that to answer it properly I will have to go away and look at all the things that have changed in the nature of establishing inquests and public inquiries, because we have probably made quite a few steps forward. However, to be fair to Lord Taylor and his report, it came down to what the families and others saw as the right conclusion—that a mistake by the police was the principal cause of the problem. One of the deeper problems in this whole case was that after that public inquiry, there was then the questionable inquest and the media narrative that sought to undermine what Lord Taylor had found. My hon. Friend makes the important point that we should try to learn the lessons about how, broadly, to hold inquiries and inquests and how important it is to make sure that they have access to all the information at the time.