Orgreave: Public Inquiry into Policing

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is of course right: this cannot be a one-sided inquiry or investigation. I will ensure that we look at both sides of this, but I must tell him that there are some serious allegations to be considered.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

One of the things that occurred in the Hillsborough inquiry was that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and other people exposed the fact that the police were writing similar things about similar incidents. It has already been explained that the South Yorkshire police did exactly the same thing at Orgreave. I went there and saw it for myself. It was one-way traffic by the police, and then the same statement was written over and over again for each of the miners. So I hope the Home Secretary is not going to be hanging about for very long on this. An overt promise was made by the last Home Secretary that, arising out of Hillsborough, the Orgreave case would be linked to it. Let’s have some truth and justice for Orgreave.