Birmingham Pub Bombings: Legal Aid

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

We may just be talking semantics. I certainly agree that it is important for families with legal aid representation to be able to do what their lawyers think is necessary to conduct their affairs at the inquest properly. If the right hon. Lady is simply saying that the amount of money must be exactly the same for all, I do not think the system would ever work in that way. My own experience of appearing at inquests, as I have in the past, and of appearing in cases is that different rates of pay can be given to different lawyers, but the important thing is that the lawyers should be doing what is necessary, in a competent and effective way, to represent their clients. From what I know of the solicitors who have been granted a legal aid certificate—I am not in a position to say who they are—I do not think that is an issue.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

First, I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for her outstanding speech—she spoke passionately about a grotesque injustice. As the shadow Minister for Policing at the time, I was involved in the discussions on the Policing and Crime Bill and the Hillsborough inquest. It was indicated then that there was sympathy for proper representation for the Birmingham families, based on the Hillsborough model. Why has it taken so long that, just three days before the process starts, there is at last movement? Why can the Minister not give the simple assurance that the Hillsborough principle will be replicated in the Birmingham case?