Police: Joe Anderson

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, that is not a question: it is a statement. However, I am going to be unable to develop my theme, which is that I am afraid that I cannot comment on ongoing investigations, as the House well understands.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, we are not asking the noble Lord to comment on the investigation. Will he return to the question of justice, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, and reflect on the words of the Liverpool-born Prime Minister William Gladstone, who said that

“justice delayed is justice denied”?

Is it not outrageous that, after all this time, this has been hanging over someone and their family? The expedition of this case is the issue that the noble Lord has raised, not whether it is right or wrong.

Secondly, as far as the politics of Liverpool is concerned, it does not help politics or good governance for a case to fester like this for so long, undoing some of the achievements of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, who, as Secretary of State for the Environment, came to the city of Liverpool in 1981 and said, rightly, that he did not know that conditions such as those existed in this country. He vowed to do something about it, working across the political divide. Anything that impedes those achievements would be a very negative thing for Liverpool and the country as a whole.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I hear what the noble Lord has to say on the subject, but I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation. The noble Lord is, in effect, inviting me to comment on the complexity of the investigation and various other operational aspects of it, in order to make a judgment as to whether it is delayed, denied or whatever. I cannot do that.