Sir Edward Heath: Operation Conifer

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I will start by saying what a privilege it is to take part in this short debate. I will also say, as a proud Labour politician and Front-Bencher, that this debate goes to the heart of our politics. No matter which party anybody belongs too, they deserve respect and justice—that is the important point that should be made.

We started with a brilliant speech from the noble Lord, Lord Lexden—really stunning. It is a privilege to be in Parliament sometimes when speeches like that are made that challenge the state—and challenge all of us to see whether we have got it right. Before I lose it in some of the other points I want to make, I want to go to the heart of what the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said when he called for a public inquiry. He made a direct request that the new Home Secretary should be given a copy of the Hansard report of this debate and should consider the request for a public inquiry that was made by him and supported by other noble Lords who spoke. Most importantly, he asked the Minister to respond and reply to that request, with reasons that lay out why the Government think a public inquiry is necessary or why they have concluded that it is not. That is at the heart of the request. All the contributions made here by many noble Lords were moving and important.

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave. I was a very young Labour politician in 1970; I did all I could to stop Ted Heath being elected, and failed. The important point the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave, made is that we must do something about wild accusations being made against public figures, often without any basis at all. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, referred to this. Have we not woken up—as a system—to the fact that we have to have Ministers who challenge the advice they get, who say to people “This is what we are being told numerous times by Members of Parliament, Peers and members of the public who are coming to us and bringing forward real questions about what the state is doing and what it has got wrong and asking why it can’t respond”? How many more times, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, do we have to have a Post Office? How many more times, as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said, do we have to have another Hillsborough, or a Bloody Sunday, or many of the other scandals that we have seen? It takes decades, request after request and demand after demand before the state wakes up and answers the questions that are posed to it.

Why does it take so long? If the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, is wrong, why not expose that information and evidence, and have it out in public so that we can see it and come to a determination? Surely a former Prime Minister of this country deserves the justice that would be brought about by looking at all the evidence to determine how it is.

We simply cannot have the situation in the report— I was reading it again as the debate went on and looked through it, and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, pointed it out to us. I do not know the world everyone lives in but, to me certainly, as soon as you say you will interview someone under caution, then, in the court of public opinion, the person has something to answer. That is the reality of it: the aspersions cast on the reputation of a man.

Of course, the police say, “This doesn’t mean they are guilty; it doesn’t mean anything”, but the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, as a former Director of Public Prosecutions, was absolutely right to point out that, as soon as that is said, people say, “No smoke without fire”, “Nothing to see here—oh, really?”, et cetera. A former Prime Minister of this country—in fact, anybody, from somebody living on an estate somewhere to someone holding the highest office—deserves better than that. It is simply not good enough, and something needs to be done.

What are we depending on? I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is in his place. He made a very important point in the Question that the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, had towards the end of October— I will be corrected if I get this wrong. He pointed out that the case rests on a fantasist who is now in jail. A former Prime Minister of our country is suffering this slur to his reputation on the basis, originally, as I understand it, of a man who is now in jail for perverting the course of justice. Is that really what we want to base this on? The second leg of it is a former chief constable who was moved to Cleveland, then made to leave because of misconduct. A disgraced former chief constable and somebody now in jail for perverting the course of justice are the two major pillars upon which this is based. Is that really satisfactory to all of us?

Wiltshire Police investigated itself. How can that be seen to be right? I cannot remember which noble Lord pointed out that justice not only has to be done but be seen to be done. I suggest that, having one disgraced person in jail and one disgraced former chief constable as the main pillars of that, a police force which is investigating itself, whatever the rights and wrongs of a public inquiry, surely brings us all to the point where we question how the state has operated with respect to a former Prime Minister.

I finish by repeating the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden: let us see the Minister take this debate to the new Home Secretary, ask him to reconsider and come back to this Chamber with his decision. Surely a former Prime Minister deserves at least that.