Public Inquiries: Enchancing Public Trust (Statutory Inquiries Committee Report)

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Friday 25th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, it was a pleasure to serve on this committee, which was brilliantly chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. I echo the tributes to our clerk and policy analyst.

The committee was set up against the background of widespread concern about the effectiveness of statutory inquiries—as well as their efficiency, but I am going to concentrate on their effectiveness. They are growing in number; they take too long; they cost too much; they lack consistency, and, at the end of the day, their recommendations are often not implemented. The committee addressed all these issues, but I will only add my voice to the question of how recommendations made by statutory inquiries should be monitored and enforced. I am afraid I am bound to repeat some of my colleagues and earlier speakers.

The evidence was clear that, at present, recommendations are often implemented inadequately, or indeed not at all. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, pointed out, the result of not learning those lessons could be further disasters. If the Government, having accepted the recommendations of an inquiry, do not actually deliver on them, how should they be held to account? The phrase “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”—who will guard the guardians—occurs to me from my days of learning Latin.

We looked at a range of options for this monitoring. Inquiry chairs might have a continuing role in monitoring implementation. Some chairs have indeed tried, but many might not be available or willing to undertake such a commitment and, of course, there would not be continuity or consistency between different inquiries. We looked at the idea of victims and survivors playing a role in implementation monitoring, and it is interesting we have not heard much about that aspect so far. However, inevitably, that would be informal and might raise questions of objectivity. We looked at the Australian model of independent implementation monitors reporting to Parliament, which works well. But again, these monitors work only on individual inquiries. We considered other things, including the National Audit Office, a national oversight mechanism, or upgrading the role of the Cabinet Office Inquiries Unit. However, as we have already heard, the inevitable conclusion was that effective monitoring needed to be done by Parliament.

It has always been possible for parliamentary Select Committees to review the implementation of inquiry recommendations, but this has happened for only six out of 68 inquiries since 1990. Something more is needed, as proposed in our recommendation for the Liaison Committee of this House. The Government, in their response, note that these are “for Parliament” to address, but that should not let them—or the Minister in her response—off the hook of explaining how they propose to improve the frameworks around inquiries and, in particular, in terms of monitoring. We recommended that the Liaison Committee should both monitor the implementation of our report and look to establish a new committee—either a Joint Committee of both Houses or a Lords committee—to monitor implementation.

I will end with a question and a rallying cry. First, I ask the Minister: how and when will the Government act upon the recommendations they have accepted, including undertaking a wider reform of the frameworks around inquiries as they said in their response? It would be more than a pity if a further committee has to be set up some time in the 2030s to explore why the recommendations of this one have not been implemented.

Secondly, I look to our chair, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, to promote, drive, and co-ordinate a campaign to persuade the powers that be on the Liaison Committee that a new public inquiries committee is not only badly needed but would represent an important way for Parliament and this House to contribute to the greater effectiveness of statutory inquiries, both in meeting the reasonable expectations of the public and, even more, in avoiding the potentially catastrophic result of lessons not being learned from findings.