Public Advocate Bill [HL]

Lord Bellamy Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)]

My Lords, I first echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and associate myself with his commendation of the persistence, determination and integrity with which the noble Lord, Lord Wills, has introduced this Bill and has for many years pursued his commitment to the creation of a public advocate, engaging with the Government and colleagues on this issue over a prolonged period. Indeed, in that connection, I commend how the noble Lord, Lord Wills, other noble Lords and those in the other place have worked to support the Hillsborough families in their long campaign for justice.

It is imperative that lessons are learned from the experiences that the Hillsborough families have gone through. The Government are not saying that we could not have another Hillsborough; I think it most unlikely, but we have to assume that things will happen in the future. Therefore, we have to learn the lessons from the Hillsborough experience, including from the two earlier public inquiries and the long process by which we have, finally, nearly reached the end of that particular investigative process.

We have to think hard about the points that have rightly been made on transparency, which is often the key issue. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, just said, the cover-up is the crucial difficulty and, very often, the major obstacle to getting at the truth, learning lessons and, most importantly, finding closure for the families. Transparency is extraordinarily important and giving victims and the bereaved agency is equally, if not more, important. Here you have families, ordinary people, living their lives. What on earth do they do? How do they get organised? Who is to speak for them? How do they respond to great tragedies? Of course, this is about not only Hillsborough but Grenfell, the Manchester Arena bombing and other instances of that kind.

That is why the Government are introducing a proposal to set up an independent public advocate structure. There is no disagreement about the end; the disagreement is about the means to do it. I am not sure that today is the day to prejudge the debate that we will have on the Victims and Prisoners Bill, but the Government are clearly listening to all the points that have been made today to see how this can, mostly, work to best advantage.

For the record, I shall briefly set out the role of the independent public advocate as envisaged in the Bill. First, it is to provide practical support for victims, enabling them to understand their rights and signposting them to support services. Secondly, it is to give them a voice: in other words, to give them the agency they need by advocating on their behalf—this is, after all, an advocate, someone who speaks on their behalf. As the Government see it, one function of such an advocate will be to insist on the maximum amount of transparency achievable in the circumstances. It seems an obvious role for such an advocate to give a voice to the wider communities.

It is envisaged that there will be a permanent full-time staff; it is not envisaged that there will be a single person who is “the public advocate”. There will be a panel of persons who will be called upon from time to time, ad hoc, when these tragedies arise to play that role. The public advocate will also be acting in the wider interests of the public, because they are, after all, the public advocate; they will act in the interests of victims, the bereaved and the wider public on all those matters. That is the outline of the Bill, and I am sure when we come to debate the Victims and Prisoners Bill in more detail, there will be amendments and matters for further debate that we can go into in great detail.

As far as the current Bill, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is concerned, it is a remarkable effort. However, to put it briefly, there are three areas where the Government are unconvinced. The first is the way that the data controller powers are supposed to work and whether that would add another layer of complexity to what is already a very complex process of helping bereaved families and getting to the bottom of the story. If one takes, for example, what might be regarded as model inquiries—the Grenfell inquiry conducted by Sir Martin Moore-Bick and the recent Manchester Arena inquiry—they have both worked extremely well and one would not want to overcomplicate this process and give rise to unforeseen conflicts with existing investigative authorities.

The second area is the trigger process the Bill envisages, which is to find 51% of the representatives of the deceased and injured. That is quite a difficult process, in the Government’s view. It may be more efficient, as the present Bill provides, to allow the Secretary of State to proactively engage, appoint an IPA and start supporting victims and getting everything organised as soon as possible.

A third major area of not exactly disagreement but differing views, at the moment, is whether there should be a single permanent person—like the DPP; “I am the Public Advocate”—or whether you need a secretariat that is always there but a panel of people to draw upon, depending on the nature of the inquiry. You might not necessarily need a lawyer; you might need somebody with medical qualifications or specialist qualifications of another sort. All those are issues that need to be explored in more detail.

The Government’s present view is that the proposed IPA will have a more tailored and a more agile response to these specific kinds of major incidents and will allow us to draw on a register of on-call advocates with a range of different experience and expertise.

As I said, as far as the end goal is concerned, there is very little between us. It is simply a question of discussing the means in more detail, which I hope we will do and which I look forward with great interest to doing in the course of considering the Victims and Prisoners Bill.

[Lord Wills (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been a short debate, but I hope it has been another stage in making a profound difference to the lives of those who, in the future, may be involved in public tragedies, which, as the Minister said, are inevitable. I also hope it will make a difference to those who, out of a clear blue sky, find their lives transformed by a terrible public tragedy.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his powerful expression of the need for transparency and better support for the bereaved. I am grateful, as I always am, for the support of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, who reminded us all from direct personal experience that these are human beings at the centre of this. We have to remember that it is people such as his friend whom we have to try to support through this process.

I am also grateful to the Minister for his thoughtful, sympathetic approach to the issues raised by the Bill. I am encouraged—I hope I am not being misled—that he talks about focusing on the means rather than the end, on which we are all agreed. I find it most encouraging because it suggests that the Government’s mind is still open on the important points we have discussed. I hope I am not wrong in interpreting his remarks in that way.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I have to say that I give no commitment of any kind. I would not want anyone to read between the lines. All I am saying is that the Government will listen very carefully to the points being made.

[Lord Wills (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister; I would not dream of expecting him to make any commitments today, but I am grateful for his willingness to listen, because it suggests a willingness to accept amendments that go in a slightly different direction. He rightly points out that this is not the time to debate the Victims and Prisoners Bill, but I draw his attention to his remarks about the complexity of the processes in my Bill. I will not die in a ditch over the drafting of my original Bill; I said seven years ago and am happy to repeat now that I am perfectly willing to accept that it is flawed and needs improvement in many detailed ways. It has never been my intention that it should proceed verbatim, as it were.

However, I worry that, underlying his remarks, he may think there is something innovative about a lot of this, as his remarks about the data controller suggested. I therefore draw his attention to the fact that there are two existing, very successful models that my Bill draws on and which are at its heart. I urge the Government to examine them. The first is the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation; if the Government look again at the remit for that institution, it is very analogous to what is envisaged in my Bill. I urge them to think about adopting this proposal in the Victims and Prisoners Bill, in line with that.

The Minister talked about the complexity of the data controller’s role. It is not actually complex at all; it is literally on the model I initially devised for the Hillsborough Independent Panel—my second example—which everybody agrees was a tremendous success. However, its success was not due to the conception; the primary reason for its success was the extraordinary chairmanship of the right reverend Bishop of Liverpool and all its members bringing specific expertise. I also pay tribute to the Home Office official who provided the secretariat for that panel; it was outstanding work that showed just how wonderful our Civil Service can be. At a time when it is regularly traduced as “The Blob” and all the rest of it, one should look at the work of Home Office officials such as them and just be grateful that they work in public service.

There are existing successful models which this institution in my Bill is based on. I hope that, as we move forward in a co-operative, cross-party way—we have done so until now and I very much hope we can continue in that frame of mind—the Government will bear those models in mind. I look forward to exploring all these issues in due course as the Victims and Prisoners Bill comes before your Lordships’ House. In the meantime, I remain very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part and to the Minister, and I ask that your Lordships give this Bill a Second Reading.