Public Advocate Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Friday 29th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to commend my noble friend Lord Wills for his work on the Bill and for bringing it forward to us. He and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, have concisely and clearly laid out why this legislation is necessary and that while there may be tweaks to the content and to the way it finally emerges, the need to get this right for the future is unarguable.

We make progress slowly. As my noble friend Lord Wills generously suggested, as Home Secretary I oversaw modest improvements to the coroner’s court system and greater transparency, with the considerable help of the late Paul Goggins, who as a Minister and Member of Parliament was an exemplar of how to get things done and to do so with care and thought for others—which is at the root of my noble friend Lord Wills’s proposition. At the very moment when people are hurt the most—in one sense disabled the most from being able to be advocates on their own behalf and for those loved ones they have lost—we need to assist them to be able to articulate that hurt and to seek redress. More important than redress itself is to be able to investigate and put right those aspects which can be identified as having gone very badly wrong so that others do not have to suffer in that way. Therefore an advocate is needed most at the moment of greatest hurt.

I suggest that it would be remiss of us to allow this proposition to fall, particularly during its process, on the grounds of cost. I know—and am learning as I go along—that we do not deal with finance in this House, but there are costs involved in picking up issues much later in the day, a number of which have been listed by the noble Lord, Lord Wills. When an inquiry is held, a process is set in train to bring comfort and redress, and to provide knowledge about what happened and what needs to be put right. The cost of that is much greater down the line than if that process is brought into play quickly and easily. The terrible hurt and trauma involved for the individuals who have fought with tenacity for what they see as justice, as well as setting the scene for others for the future, following the Hillsborough disaster —a fight that has been ongoing for 27 years—as well as other instances that have been listed, can be avoided.

It has been said to me that people are losing loved ones in tragic circumstances on a daily basis, and we should be cognisant of the fact—I am very mindful of this—that numbers are not always a reflection of that. Therefore, it will be important to get the terms right regarding when an advocate should be brought in to represent those who are bereaved, to speak on behalf of those who can no longer speak for themselves, and to unlock the systems which those of us who have been in government are all too familiar with. There is a tendency—I plead as guilty to it as anyone else—not to want to close things down but to hear what suits the moment best.

Until last May, I represented the area around the Hillsborough stadium in the city of Sheffield. I am deeply mindful that in the aftermath of the disaster, even with the Taylor inquiries, people did not know the truth and therefore were subject to listening to what others were saying, sometimes making unjustifiable judgments. We have to avoid that. The quicker an advocate can come on to the scene—the noble Lord, Lord McNally, mentioned Lady Justice Hallett—the more likely it is that we will get to the truth quickly and avoid myth and countermyth and the terrible hurt that goes with that.

It is really important that we pick up what is an excellent idea and hone it into a mechanism that will work for the future. I hope we will ensure that we do not put people through years and years of distress, and very often anger, because systems do not work and because those in power and those with influence—who, understandably, are getting on with their job—are felt not to be listening and learning. If we can avoid that, we will do a great deal for individuals who are in that situation but we will also ensure that our democracy works better.