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

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Friday 25th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I too had the pleasure of serving on this committee and add my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, chair of the committee, and Andrea Dowsett, clerk to the committee, and her team for conducting this inquiry—as exemplary as an inquiry into inquiries should be.

Over some 40 years of practice at the Bar, I have appeared as counsel in inquiries, usually for the bereaved and injured. I seek to make four points—two by way of footnote and two of more substance. The first footnote is that we had a discussion in the committee about the role of an inquisitorial, as opposed to adversarial, process. This is uncontroversial: an inquiry is obviously an inquisitorial process, conducted by the chair with his or her counsel within the terms of reference; as opposed to an adversarial process, which occurs in the courts and tribunals of the country, where the parties define the issues, and decide what evidence to call, what questions to ask and so on.

However, I turn to the slight misunderstanding there was among some witnesses, who appeared to think that cross-examination was a technique appropriate only in an adversarial process. I remind the House that the techniques of examination-in-chief, cross-examination and re-examination are used in forensic inquiries of all kinds. In an inquiry nowadays, although the rules usually say that the questions are put by counsel for the inquiry, we heard evidence that pointed to a discretion on the part of chairs to allow counsel for parties to ask questions under some circumstances. I remind the House of that area of discretion.

The second footnote is to take up a point made by my noble friend Lord Grantchester about the duty of candour. He explained the utility of that duty in various fora. I remind the House that the duty of candour emerged in the administrative law context of judicial review. All it means is that public authorities have a duty to lay all the cards on the table and not just those that support the decision that is being impugned in the proceedings. It would be advantageous to adopt that in future public inquiries.

My third point is to endorse recommendation 6 of the committee, which is that the Liaison Committee of this House should supervise the implementation of the recommendations of the committee. This leads me to my fourth and final point. Recommendation 7, that there should be a joint public inquiries committee to supervise the implementation of the recommendations of public inquiries, seems such a good suggestion. However, I am unclear about the mechanism for the establishment of such a committee. Will the Government do everything that they can to implement whatever that mechanism is so that we end up with such a Joint Committee?