Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill

Edward Argar Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)]

I will be very brief, but I do want to speak in this debate, because I was the Minister for victims in the Ministry of Justice in 2018 who pushed that consultation that the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) mentions. I want to highlight her consistent advocacy for an independent public advocate, certainly since my time in the Ministry of Justice.

I am afraid I moved on relatively swiftly to the Department of Health and Social Care, so I was not there to publish the response, or indeed to see it, but I want to put on record that the hon. Lady makes some important points. It is right to remind this House and this country at every opportunity of what happened at Hillsborough and what needs to be done to minimise the risk of that ever happening anywhere again.

Transparency is hugely important. We recently saw very concerning scenes at the champions league final in Paris, with an attempt to push particular and unacceptable narratives around that to blame the fans yet again. That will have stirred some horrific memories, particularly for Liverpool fans and people in the hon. Lady’s constituency and elsewhere.

I support the concept of an independent public advocate and I support what the hon. Lady is seeking to do. I think there is more to be done to work through some of the detail of how it would interact with other investigatory bodies and specific powers; it is important that avoiding duplication in interacting with other bodies is handled appropriately. She may well suggest that Committee is the best place to tidy that up, but it is important that those issues are bottomed out before this Bill passes into legislation.

I put on record my support for what the hon. Lady is seeking to do and the underpinning principles behind that, and recognise how important this is to her constituents, to Liverpool fans and more broadly to anyone who could, through no fault of their own, find themselves or their relatives caught in a horrendous tragedy, and would want to know the truth and learn lessons from it. I do not propose to speak for any longer, because I am keen to hear the debate, but I wanted to put that on record.