Public Advocate Bill [HL]

Lord Wood of Anfield Excerpts

Friday 29th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to be brief. I applaud my noble friend Lord Wills for this excellent proposal and I urge people on all sides of the House to support it.

The proposal draws its inspiration from one of the few positive developments to have emerged from the shameful saga of the events following the Hillsborough disaster—the Hillsborough Independent Panel. As my noble friend Lord Wills made clear, it is not a proposal to replace the existing mechanisms that we use to respond to public disasters, but to augment that process with an independent, adequately resourced advocate for bereaved families.

The grief suffered by the families, friends and loved ones of the 96 who lost their lives at Hillsborough is unimaginable for the vast majority of us. But what is extraordinary, and shameful, is that over a quarter of a century later the families of the 96 are still waiting for final justice and for the final truth to emerge. For much of that time, those in positions of power—through a combination of negligence, obfuscation, intransigence and professional self-interest—have combined to prevent the full facts of what happened coming to light.

However, if there are any silver linings in this grim, appalling episode in our national life, it is that eventually the Hillsborough Independent Panel system emerged as an ally of and advocate for the bereaved. It was able to circumvent the constraints of freedom of information and data protection legislation, and became trusted by the families both to listen to their experiences and to be an advocate in their search for the truth inside government and other public authorities.

I do not think we can understate how intimidating it is for families thrust by tragedy into the public limelight to deal with public authorities, government and the state, or how huge the information gap is when you are outside the system, unable to access it, and, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, when you don’t know what you don’t know, as well as when you don’t have the first clue how to access what you know that you don’t know, or how the myriad laws, rules, provisions and jurisdictional boundaries make navigating the system impossible for those who are not experts on process, government lawyers or senior professionals.

And all that is assuming that the various agencies of the state—from central to local government, the police, officials staffing inquiries, civil servants and employees of other public bodies—show co-operation, judgment, sensitivity and objectivity towards the families concerned. But sadly, as we know from the Hillsborough tragedy, that cannot always be assumed, so families may face not just the might of the state but parts of the state that have interests of their own to protect—those, which, I am afraid, cannot be assumed to be honest brokers and which can come across as adversaries, with resources far greater than those of the families.

The value of a state-provided advocate in the event of future public disasters is clear: to act on behalf of the bereaved as an adviser during the investigation and inquest; to get access to documentation that the families would not be able to access and to report on the contents; and to require resources, commission advice and issue reports. These are functions that cannot simply be provided by collective legal representation. As my noble friend Lord Wills set out, there is a precedent here, although as my noble friend Lord Blunkett made clear, work will obviously need to be done on clarifying when this would and would not apply.

What makes this proposal so necessary is not just the experience of the Hillsborough families but the experience of families who have suffered so much in previous public disasters. We know that the barriers to establishing the truth about the circumstances of disasters have been experienced by other families in other tragedies. I shall take just one example: the Aberfan tragedy in Wales in 1966, when a coal slip killed 116 children and 28 adults. This was a tragedy caused in part by the negligence of public authorities, yet the families faced a stunning combination of insensitivity and professional self-protection in the inquiry process that resulted from it. At one point, the Charity Commission, in 1967, gave advice to the Aberfan Disaster Fund on financial compensation for the families who had lost children. It said that before any payment was made, each case should be reviewed to ascertain whether the parents had been close to their children and were likely to be suffering mentally. One bereaved mother wrote to the chairman of the National Coal Board, Lord Robens, about the way that she felt the inquest had treated her and other families. She wrote that the response of the NCB and other authorities,

“adds to the feeling that our children, whatever they meant to us and whatever value they may have been as citizens, are now dead, and being so, value little to this country, and also value little to those who caused them to die. They are now it seems and within the letter of the law to be written off, as cheaply as possible and the matter closed ... Is there no room for social conscience?”.

There is little we can do about the unnecessary suffering caused by the impenetrability of government and public authorities for those who have suffered in disasters such as the Aberfan tragedy, but there is something we can do for those among us all who may lose someone they love in future tragedies. As my title betrays, I am a lifelong Liverpool football fan. I myself tried to get a ticket for the Hillsborough game when I was 21, and I have a son who, I think, has a lifetime ahead of him of attending Liverpool games. Imagine losing someone you love in those circumstances and feeling helpless in the face of searching for the real reasons, because of the way our government and our public bodies work. Why would we wish that on anyone?

This is a sensible, practical proposal. It needs more work but is definitely in the right territory. It builds on something that has worked in the case of Hillsborough and may help in future to prevent the type of suffering that has been inflicted on Hillsborough victims’ families for over 26 years—practically my entire adult life. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Wills on this proposal and urge all Members of your Lordships’ House to support it.