Legal Aid: Birmingham Pub Bombings

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jess Phillips]

I would be an emeritus professor in street smarts.

I feel that the Legal Aid Agency or the Government will eventually renege on this point. I associate myself with all the requests made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield, but we have had to go around the hamster wheel again to ask whether, if the Legal Aid Agency is not the route for families, justice can be served through extra funding that the Government allocate from elsewhere.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good point. Most people can remember where they were on the day when this tragedy happened. It is interesting that the Government can find the money when they want to do something, but when ordinary families want to take legal action and get justice, the Government cannot find the money. I always thought it was the Government’s duty to protect people, and one way to do that is through securing justice for them. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Jess Phillips]

Quite. I cannot remember where I was on that day, because I was not yet born, yet it has stayed in the history of the city that I come from and have lived in all my life. If Birmingham were cut, it would bleed still with this unsolved disaster. After years of quite rightly hearing about the miscarriages of justice for those who were convicted of the crimes, the victims in the story have been lost, and it is now time for their story to be told.

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend—the Government will perfectly easily fund the side that fights against this. I have no doubt that the coroner will have all the resources that are needed. Why can they always find it for one side and not the other? This is not a case of people making vexatious claims that will open the door to everybody being able to make a load of claims against the state really easily. If these families have proved anything, it is that this is no picnic. It is not easy. There is nothing easy about this process, and that suggestion should be disregarded as a reason why what seems to be an austerity measure is affecting them so much.

I finish my remarks by paying a massive tribute to the families in this case. I am often proud to be from Birmingham—in fact, almost daily. These families make me incredibly proud of my city’s resolve in keeping on going.