Gerald Howarth
Main Page: Gerald Howarth (Conservative - Aldershot)Department Debates - View all Gerald Howarth's debates with the Home Office
(8 years ago)
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Brandon Lewis
The hon. Lady has in effect outlined why it has been so important to have those reforms in how policing works and that local accountability over the last three decades. Her point about Hillsborough is right, and criminal proceedings may well come out of that with the IPCC, but that is because the reforms and changes through the IPCC and further reforms in the Policing and Crime Bill and the PCCs have changed the landscape of policing. It has changed dramatically in the last 30 years, and that forms a part of the Home Secretary’s right decision that it is not in the public interest to have a public inquiry.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
In 1984 I sat on these Benches representing the coalmining communities of Cannock and Burntwood. At that time my constituents working at Lea Hall and Littleton collieries were being subjected to the kind of intimidation that my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) has mentioned, including the throwing of bags of urine by striking south Wales miners as my constituents attempted to go to work. So does my hon. Friend the Minister accept that Orgreave was in fact a violent attempt to prevent the British Steel Corporation from going about its lawful business and furthermore a naked political attempt to bring down the Government of Margaret Thatcher, and that since then trade union relations and industrial relations have been transformed out of all recognition, to the betterment of this country?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend highlights the strength of feeling on both sides about issues that happened decades ago, and also highlights again that, hugely importantly, the police have reformed. There are still reforms going forward that we need to see through, and I hope we will all be working together in the years ahead to deliver them.