Victims and Prisoners Bill

Maria Eagle Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady does an important public service in raising that point and I thank her for doing so. Let the message go out from this Chamber: “Do not be put off coming forward, giving your evidence and reporting allegations of serious sexual harm because of concerns about therapy notes. Get the therapy support that you need.” I want that message to go out loud and clear.

We are going to change the law to make it crystal clear that there will be no routine access to therapy notes; there will be access only when it is absolutely necessary and proportionate, and not by the defence, but principally in the very rare circumstances where a prosecutor needs to look at it. The message goes out that victims should come forward and co-operate with the criminal justice system, if they can.

Part 2 of the Bill provides better support for victims and the bereaved after major disasters such as terror attacks. The House will recall the awful events at Hillsborough and the most recent fire at Grenfell Tower, as well as the Manchester Arena bombing. The impact of those terrible tragedies is still felt to this day, especially by the families and friends of the victims. I know there is consensus on both sides of the House that survivors and families of victims caught up in such disasters must be given every support. No one should be left to feel their way in the dark as they grieve.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), the noble Lord Wills and many others for their tireless campaigning on the issue. Indeed, one of the most moving debates that I have ever had the privilege of listening to was one to which the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood contributed on this topic.

The Bill will introduce the UK’s first ever independent public advocate—an advocate to give a voice to those who have too often felt voiceless. The IPA will be a strong advocate for victims, the bereaved and whole communities affected. It will allow us to hear everyone, including those who, in the darkest moments of their grief, may understandably find it impossible to speak up for themselves and their legitimate concerns.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Alex Chalk]

I will just develop the point and then of course I will let the right hon. Lady come in.

From the earliest days after a disaster, the IPA will work on behalf of victims. It will be a crucial conduit between them and key public authorities, and it will focus resolutely on what survivors and the bereaved actually need, not just what others in authority might assume they need. The IPA will also help victims and the bereaved to navigate complex processes that most people would find deeply stressful and upsetting, such as investigations, inquests and public inquiries. On a practical level, it will give victims, the bereaved and the affected community a robust way of engaging the public authorities and Government—for example, by asking the coroner or the police for more information about inquests and investigations, or by pressing local government and central Government on their policies for victims.

[Maria Eagle]

I welcome the right hon. and learned Gentleman to his new role. I wonder whether he will be open to the idea—from those of us who have been working on this for some time—of strengthening the provisions in the Bill to improve them?

[Alex Chalk]

In preparation for today’s debate, I read the right hon. Lady’s Bill and have considered it with care. Of course, I am open to further discussions with her; she has lived and breathed this issue for a long time, and it is absolutely right that I consider those points. I think that there are—well, let us leave it at that and discuss those matters in due course.

[Maria Eagle]

Yes, fine.

[Alex Chalk]

Thank you.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, on which I also sit. I agreed with much of what he said, particularly in respect of part 3 and some of the weaknesses in part 1, but I will begin with part 2. I suppose people would expect me to do that, given that it is about the independent public advocate, which I have been campaigning on and have had views about in this House for many years.

I welcome, again, the new Secretary of State to his place, despite the fact that having a whirlwind of appointments and eight Justice Secretaries in eight years does sometimes leave certain potential issues with continuity and ensuring that things happen in a sensible way, apart from the differences in approach and personality that one might come across. I know he cares about this particular issue. He responded to the Backbench Business debate—he made reference to it in his remarks—that I managed to secure following the final collapse of the Hillsborough criminal trials. That is some time ago now. There has been no reason since then—apart from perhaps turbulence in the Government, I say gently—for not dealing with this. The final collapse of the criminal trials was the last impediment to dealing with the recommendations in Bishop James Jones’s 2017 report, “The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power” in which he was asked to come up with—and did come up with—recommendations to learn the lessons of Hillsborough.

Bishop Jones was asked and commissioned to do that by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), whom I am pleased to commend for the work and effort she put in over the years when she had responsibility for dealing with the aftermath of Hillsborough. She developed a real understanding of some of these issues. The Secretary of State will be talking to various predecessors—people who have done his job and others who relate to it—and he could do a lot worse than sit down with the right hon. Lady. I am not trying to organise his diary—or hers, which would probably be more difficult—but she has a real insight from his side of the House into some of these issues. I recommend, if he gets the chance, that he sits down with her.

When the right hon. and learned Gentleman replied to the debate after the collapse of the last of the criminal trials arising out of the circumstances of Hillsborough, which is over 18 months ago now, he did promise, after being asked by me, to get out the response to Bishop James’s 2017 report by last Christmas; that was his hope. That has slipped for various reasons. The latest we have been told by Ministers on the Floor of the House is that it will be published in its full glory by this spring. I just say to him that we are nearly into summer and we still have not seen sight or sound of the response. I have read the Government’s response to the Justice Committee’s report into coroners. We were told that many of its recommendations would be dealt with in the overarching response to Bishop James’s report into the lessons to be learnt from Hillsborough. There are some outstanding recommendations, on which the Select Committee had what I would call a straight bat response from the Government. Perhaps they too can be dealt with when that response is completed.

I welcome very much the Government’s intent to legislate and the fact that part 2 is in the Bill. I would have preferred a stand-alone Bill, but that is neither here nor there. The fact that there are clauses in the Bill that relate to establishing an independent public advocate is very welcome; better late than never. The whole purpose of the independent public advocate is not to just add a further hoop for families to jump through, or a further stage that families need to go through at the beginning of the process. It is to stop the aftermath of public disasters going so badly wrong, as the aftermath of Hillsborough did.

It is more than 34 years since that disaster happened. We all remember that it was televised—there are hours and hours of film of that disaster. It is not as if it happened in secret and that what had really gone on had to be winkled out; it was televised live at the time. It cannot be right that it should have taken such a long time for those families to have properly acknowledged what happened to their loved ones, and for the very many thousands of traumatised survivors who witnessed that horror—they were not just from Liverpool, because there were two teams playing in that semi-final—to have properly acknowledged what happened. For that to have gone on for so long, with any controversy at all about what happened, when Lord Justice Taylor, within three months of the original disaster, set out in his interim report substantially correctly, although not totally correctly, the full causes and reasons, shows how badly things can go wrong in public disasters when there are interested parties who try to deflect the blame, and when state organisations, whether it be the police or others, try to make sure that their reputation is not trashed by responsibility being pinned on them and are willing to do anything and use any amount of resource to blame somebody else. That is what happened. So it is no surprise that things can go badly awry.

One could just say that Hillsborough was a terrible example, and it was. The circumstances of every disaster are different, but there are common elements. One common element is that, where state-funded organisations —the arms of the state—are involved, they appear to think that their reputation matters more than the truth. They appear to think that any amount of budget that they have over the years can and ought to be used to defend that reputation, and they often appear to think that it is perfectly alright to blame the victims, to blame others—to blame anybody but themselves. That is what we have to stop.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend has been an amazing campaigner on this, but does she agree that one of the commonalities between Hillsborough, Orgreave and child sexual exploitation in Rotherham was South Yorkshire police, so when these patterns are formed, the Government need to do something to step in?

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend is correct. Where that does happen, if there is no accountability for what goes wrong, especially where there is venality—which there was at Orgreave and which was shown again at Hillsborough by South Yorkshire police— and if there is no reckoning, that kind of behaviour will not be corrected. One value of making sure that the aftermath of disasters does not go so terribly wrong is that one can keep organisations that may be tempted to behave in that way on the straight and narrow. I remember that, after the King’s Cross fire, the person responsible for London Regional Transport, who was found to be responsible for the cover-up that happened, was sacked. That then makes a big difference to the way in which the organisations involved deal with the aftermath of a disaster.

The whole purpose of having an independent public advocate is to try to ensure that, in the aftermath of such disasters, things do not go wrong. I am glad to see that the Secretary of State has re-read my Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill, because I know he will have read it before. I have been introducing the Bill in this House since 2016, and it has been introduced in the House of Lords by my friend the noble Lord Wills. My Bill proposes what finally worked for Hillsborough—the Hillsborough independent panel. It was a non-legal process, because almost all the legal processes and cases failed, but it was used to shine a light of transparency on what actually happened and to stop cover-ups. If the cover-up at Hillsborough could have been stopped from the beginning, we would not be 34 years down the line trying to untangle all of the intervening processes. The Hillsborough independent panel would not have had to look at millions of documents; it could have looked at far fewer if it had been doing its work within, say, two or three years.

In addition, any organisation seeking to use its powers and its people to organise cover-ups would know that the rock was going to be lifted up, that a torch was going to be shone upon what was under it and that it would not get away with the kind of cover-ups openly organised by South Yorkshire Police after Hillsborough to subvert the findings of the public inquiry, the Taylor Interim Report, which clearly blamed the police, made remarks about the way the police have behaved and said that they should not have behaved like that.

The police then set about simply using the inquests to change the impression of the interim report—and didn’t they succeed in that? From then on, no legal process worked until the Hillsborough independent panel, 23 years later, was able to get a full acceptance of the truth by close examination of documents. If we had the power to do that effectively at an early stage in the aftermath of disasters, it would save millions of pounds and prevent things from going wrong for years and budgets from being reduced and diverted into looking at legal proceedings.

We see some of the same things happening elsewhere. Grenfell has already been going on for too long without a proper understanding of precisely what happened, who was to blame and what went wrong. I have constituents who lost a child in the Manchester Arena bombing; even with the inquests and the inquiry put together to run concurrently, it has still been over five years since the bombing. These processes can extend for many years.

There will unfortunately be more disasters. Although we can try to minimise their occurrence, they are by their nature events that go wrong in combination, in a way that means terrible things happen. However, if we have a way to stop their aftermath going as wrong as those of some of the disasters over the years, we will not only be doing a real service to the victims and survivors of those disasters, who have got quite enough to be dealing with having lost their loved ones, but saving a lot of money in the end for the state.

The investigations into Hillsborough over the years have cost millions upon millions of pounds. The budget of any public advocate would be a lot lower than that and, if they were able to stop things going wrong, we would be doing ourselves a favour. I value very much the fact that provisions are now published and the Secretary of State is intent upon legislating, but there are two main reasons why the Government proposals will not work as my Bill intends.

The Government proposals deny agency to bereaved families in calling the advocate into action. One of the things anybody who is bereaved in a public disaster will say is that they stop being an ordinary person out of the public limelight and, at a time when they are having to cope with the grief of losing a loved one, suddenly the spotlight of the entire nation is upon them and their family as they try to grieve. Things are done to the family; things are set up outwith their capacity to arrange them, such as the inquest, to which they are often not party so they certainly do not get legal aid, and the inquiry, at which perhaps they might not necessarily get representation. All those things happen around them while they are in a fog of grief, wondering what is going on. They feel powerless; they feel “done-to”. They do not feel that they have any capacity to influence or be a part of what is happening, or to speak any kind of truth to any kind of power. They often feel like spare parts, third parties, not involved. Yet the families of a disaster are the most deeply involved, because they have lost the most, so it is tremendously important to give them collective agency to decide that the advocate should be involved, rather than saying, “Oh, and here is another thing we are going to do for you and give to you, whether you want it or not, and you will not have any part in deciding.” My Bill does that; the Secretary of State’s proposals do not.

There also has to be a power to be not just a sign-poster. I do not object to the provisions in the Bill enabling the advocate to help, signpost and do those kinds of things for bereaved families—that can be helpful—but it cannot be only that. I know that the Hillsborough families had people trying to signpost them to things, and that did not work with what was going on at that time in respect of that particular disaster. The point of the proposals in my Bill, which are not currently in the Government Bill, is to enable the advocate to establish a Hillsborough panel-type arrangement to guarantee transparency, ensuring that the advocate is therefore a data controller and has the documentation that they need. It should be an awful lot less than the Hillsborough independent panel had to collect, because not as much time will have passed and one would expect it to be done at an earlier stage in the aftermath of any disaster.

If amendments enabling the advocate to be a data controller and to establish an independent panel were accepted, giving the families agency to decide for themselves whether they want the involvement of the public advocate, that would enable the provision to do what I want it to do—prevent the aftermath of disasters from going so disastrously wrong for bereaved families. I have dealt with a number of these kinds of issues in my constituency over the 26 years that I have been a Member of this House—I feel old enough—and if we were able to do that, we could prevent things from going wrong and would not therefore have any instances whereby, 34 years later, we in this Chamber are still discussing what went on, as we do with what happened at Hillsborough in 1989. We should not have to do that. Those families should have peace, but they still do not have it.

I believe very strongly that, if we can prevent that kind of thing from happening to other families who are, through no fault of their own, caught up in disasters that they did not want to be caught up in, resulting in bereavement and pain, we would do the whole country a service. That would help a small number of people, it would not cost that much, and it would save a lot of public money over time, but the provisions, as currently drafted, will not be effective enough to do that.

I see the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) in his place. I also had meetings with him about these provisions, and he was very helpful. I hope that the Secretary of State will keep an open mind and will think that we are all on the same side. We want something effective to be done; we do not want to add some kind of process that will not make things better enough, thereby missing an opportunity to make things better than they are.

I do not care who legislates for that. If it is a Labour Government, I will nag them just as much as I have been discussing it with Conservative Ministers, of whom I have met an awful lot over the past few years—many of them are in the Chamber now, in fact. I hope that, between us all, we can take this forward, because it would be a cheap way of ensuring that we save a lot of public money over time, and would really help the families of those who are needlessly and through no fault of their own caught up in future public disasters—we hope that they will be few, but disasters happen. It would provide the Hillsborough families with the comfort of knowing that the horrendous experience they have gone through over 34-plus years will not be suffered by anyone else unlucky enough to be caught up in a public disaster.

Now is our chance to tackle this issue, so I ask the Secretary of State please not to defend every word of the current drafting and to have a more open mind about what we can achieve. There is a real opportunity for us, cross party, to make a big difference to the lives of a small number of people who will have enough to deal with when their family gets caught up in a disaster and they lose somebody. We can really make a difference, and I hope the Secretary of State will be open to doing so. I am perfectly happy to talk to him and to the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), about how best to do that. We need this legislation now. Let us make sure we are better prepared if another disaster happens.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Second sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Siobhan Baillie]

Q The revised victims code sets out a duty for the Crown Prosecution Service to offer a meeting ahead of trial to certain victims. Do you think that that change will help with victim attrition, particularly in rape cases?

DCC Barnett: I think it is a really positive step forward. One of the real challenges with the delivery of victim rights is when we get to post charge. At that point, you start to bring in a number of different agencies. It goes back to the earlier point around how information flows and communications are delivered; if you are not careful, it can become a very confusing time for victims. I think it is our responsibility as agencies to streamline that process as much as possible and make the communications as effective as possible.

A victim should not have to worry about who, at a particular time, they are entitled to see or who should be supporting them. The notion of the CPS having those visits is really positive. I think they are a good engagement to have, but I think they need to be carefully operationalised around the other contacts and support that might be available to a victim, so that it does not become too confusing or an overload.

Caroline Henry: It is really important that wherever we can we have an independent sexual violence adviser to support and help with CPS contacts—to hold people’s hand as they go through the system.

Sophie Linden: Obviously I really welcome that, but I think it is just part of what needs to happen. At the moment, as I am sure you are all well aware, the victim has interaction with the police, the CPS and the courts. What you really need to look at is how that becomes a seamless service with one point of contact. In London—I am speaking on behalf of London now—we are exploring the victim care hub, which would bring all that together so that there is one point of contact and the victim is able to get updates and understand what is happening right across the piece.

Of course, the individual agencies have their specific roles to play, but the Bill could help that to happen. For it to happen, there has to be the relevant data sharing and there has to be the ability to track the victim through the system—not through policing, then the CPS and then the courts. At the moment you are tracking the crime, you are tracking the case and then you are tracking into court, and those things do not meet. You therefore have different points of contact for the victim, and you need to be able to either—at a minimum—interrogate the different databases or look at how you bring all that together. I think the Bill could make it easier for the agencies to share that data.

DCC Barnett: I would really support that. We look at this—again, I think the Bill does this—as a process of separate agencies, each with its own touch points to a victim’s experience of the criminal justice process, as opposed to looking at it from a victim’s perspective. Where do they get the information that they need? Where do they get the support that they need, whether that is reporting the crime with no further action or whether it goes right the way through to waiting for their court dates, what it means to give evidence in court, the outcome, parole consideration and so on?

Caroline Henry: I would just add that the victims who choose not to go down the criminal justice route or to report to the police still need support from all the agencies.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Q The original draft Victims Bill—the Justice Committee, of which I am a member, did some pre-legislative scrutiny of it—just had what is now part 1. There was no extra money involved; it was cost-neutral in that sense. We know now that there is at least another £80 million a year available, because that is what part 3 will cost. Do you think the balance is right, given that we are putting all the extra money into part 3 provisions—the parole provisions—or would the balance be better if some of that money were spent on assisting with implementing part 1?

Caroline Henry: I would absolutely like some of it in part 1, but we do need to remember that if you stop people reoffending, you are actually stopping us getting more victims as well. Parole and preventing and managing reoffending are really important.

Sophie Linden: I would always go for additional. But in terms of the duty to collaborate, at the moment it is a duty to collaborate literally on a strategy—there is no additional funding for the services and the gaps that might flow from that in the way that there was for the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and the duty to collaborate around safe accommodation. There was significant additional money provided for that, which was welcomed.

Also, in terms of code compliance and the analysts that are being talked about by the Ministry of Justice—we are having discussions with them—at the moment my understanding is that it is a one-size-fits-all of two analysts per force area. Now, forces are vastly different in size and—just speaking on behalf of London, West Midlands, Greater Manchester or any other force with more complex arrangements—there are different numbers of organisations that they are going to have to make sure are complying. So this is just not going to be right—you cannot have one size fits all.

Then we have to really look at whether this funding really adds up to what is needed. For example, in London we recently did a needs assessment on sexual violence services. That cost us £110,000. If you add that up for other forces, this is not going to meet what is needed in terms of additional burdens.

DCC Barnett: I would support that in terms of looking again at part 1. With the duty to provide the data, we have a nervousness around the cost implications for forces. A lot of the measures are based on dip samples and having a really close assessment of what has been undertaken. There is no provision at the moment for additional resource to do that or to assist in taking forward the insight that that information gives us. This is an opportunity to work with PCCs to understand the roles that are accommodated and how the data is used.

The other point that I would make is about the demand for our witness care units and witness care officers, who have a lot of responsibility under the code to deliver the information to victims on what is happening with their case post charge and post first hearing. They are under a lot of pressure, given the time it takes for cases to come to court and the additional complexities and vulnerabilities of victims. Anything that helps us with managing those pressures and giving additional training and support, in terms of resourcing, would always be welcome.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Do you think that the proposed changes to parole in part 3 will enhance victims’ rights, or are you concerned that they might raise expectations that will be dashed in practice?

Sophie Linden: I think they could, but it will be dependent on proper support for victims. It is a difficult thing. There has to be a proper assessment of what victims’ needs are for them to be able to participate. There needs to be proper support for victims to do that, and then there will have to be funding to provide those support services.

DCC Barnett: I would agree. I think it is a very well-intended notion, but there are some risks around the impact on victims as well as around raising expectations.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Finally, you have been focusing on part 1, which is where a lot of the work you do is focused. If part 1 is enacted as drafted, will that improve victims’ experiences, or will it not make much difference? What is your assessment of the overall picture of part 1?

Sophie Linden: I think it could improve, but it is not strong enough. My overarching view is that it needs strengthening, but we welcome the Bill. It needs significant strengthening in the way that I have talked about, in terms of compliance, enforcement, proper data sharing, duty to provide the data and then the ability to access other agencies’ databases, at a minimum. It would be better if we could track a victim through the system, rather than tracking them through policing, then the CPS, then the courts. I hope that there will be significant amendments to strengthen the Bill.

Caroline Henry: It is great that work has been done together already. I would like to thank the Ministry of Justice and yourselves for letting the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners be involved with putting the Bill together. I do think that it will definitely improve things for victims, because it puts things on a statutory footing. That is what we need.

DCC Barnett: If I speak on behalf of the policing role, I think it does put it on a statutory footing, and it is a real opportunity to continue the work we have been doing over recent years to strengthen our overall performance within forces around the service that we deliver to victims. The question mark for me relates to making sure we take the opportunity within the Bill, whether that is through a strengthening arrangement around compliance or the accountability piece, so that we can understand how the victim traverses the criminal justice system and their experience of it. It must not just be—as I think it is at the moment—front-loaded around the code and the policing activities. It has to be seen as a whole. That is an opportunity in the Bill, and if we take that, overall service should improve.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Q I know that the PCC for Thames Valley strongly supports compliance with the victims code sitting with PCCs. I think you have both indicated, Ms Linden and Ms Henry, that you do too. This morning, Dame Vera Baird spoke to us. She suggested that there should perhaps be a local version of victims’ commissioners in each PCC area; London effectively has that, I know. Ms Henry, what do you think about that as a proposal? Surely you are the victims’ champion. Would it not therefore cut across your responsibilities as a PCC?

Caroline Henry: Personally, I feel that I have a directly elected mandate to be the champion for victims in Nottinghamshire and to make sure that they get the justice and support they need. That is what my office does, so I am happy that my office will continue to support victims. I do not think we need a separate victims’ champion; I think it could be confusing locally if that happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

Q Clause 36 enables the Secretary of State to take a decision that is referred to them by the Parole Board. Can you think of any circumstances in which a Parole Board might refer a decision to the Secretary of State in place of making a decision itself?

Martin Jones: In my seven years of experience running the Parole Board, I cannot think of a single case where we would say that we cannot make that decision. We would say that is our job—take the evidence presented to us, do a risk assessment and decide whether that person is safe to be released—on some incredibly difficult, complex and sometimes controversial cases. I cannot imagine a circumstance in which a Parole Board would not deal with that.

The only circumstance I could possibly imagine is where we did not believe we had the full information to enable us to make the decision—perhaps on a terrorist case where there is sensitive information. But over the last three years, particularly following London Bridge, we have worked very closely with the Department and other agencies to ensure that the Parole Board always sees the most sensitive information in those cases, to make the right decision. That includes ways of seeing very sensitive information without disclosing the full information to the prisoner. That is really important to ensure that the public are kept safe.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Clause 46 enables the Secretary of State to prescribe what description of member should handle a particular case. It relates to this idea that there ought to be more members with a law enforcement background and that that would give a different perspective. Do you think it would affect the independence of the Parole Board and its practical capacity to get panels together to deal with the cases if there was a prescription about who had to be on each panel?

Martin Jones: First of all, it is important to be clear that we already have police officers on the Parole Board. They are an incredibly important part of our decision making, alongside all the other experience—the judges, the psychologists, the psychiatrists and others. We have had a look at the release rates by different types, and in reality our members are trained and we bring in people who are driven by the evidence, not by their vocation.

I think there is a problem in saying that a particular person must be on the panel for a particular group of cases. Certainly, it adds an additional layer of operational complexity to us to ensure that we have enough police officers. If you look at the numbers in the explanatory memorandum, it is about 2,000 cases a year; we would need quite a lot of police officers on the Parole Board to ensure that those cases are appropriately panelled.

Ultimately, it goes back to the fact that the Parole Board is a court in law. In reality, it is best for the court to decide who are the appropriate people on cases, depending on the complexity. Sometimes, we might have a case in which somebody was convicted as a child and has severe learning difficulties. It might be more important to have someone with that experience on a panel, rather than a police officer.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Finally, clause 47 provides a statutory power for the Secretary of State to dismiss the chair of the Parole Board. Does that present an issue with the independence of the board, as far as you are concerned?

Martin Jones: My concern would be about the nature of the decisions we are asked to make. Parliament has decided that we should decide upon the release of people convicted of the most serious offences. Ordinarily, the classic would be someone serving a life sentence for murder or other very serious offences of rape, terrorism and other things. None of those decisions are easy; none are decisions that will not have caused potential public anxiety and huge damage to the victim.

If you look at the numbers, we make around 16,000 decisions a year about whether people are safe to be released. We release about one in four, so 4,000 people each year. We probably get a controversy and lots of media attention in around five of those decisions, so it is a tiny number of cases. I have been working in public service for 30 years, and I understand why you get that attention on particular decisions if they are high profile, but I think there is a danger in trying to take aim at the chair of the Parole Board, who has had nothing at all to do with the decision in that case. Indeed, under the Bill they would not even decide who should sit on that case, but they could be told that they should be removed.

I would say that, of course, it must be right that if someone is not up to the job, there should be a way of removing them from that job. I think we would all expect that, living in public life. There is already a protocol in place that would allow a Secretary of State to follow a process in a fair way to remove the chair of the Parole Board if they believe they are not fulfilling their functions. My concern is that if it is used simply because the Parole Board has made a controversial decision, that potentially impacts on the independence of the Parole Board.

[The Chair]

That brings to a close the questions for this session. Thank you for coming this afternoon and answering questions.

Examination of Witness

Jan Lamping gave evidence.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Third sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Mr Sutton, would you like to say anything?

Ken Sutton: Thank you for the invitation. I headed up the secretariat that supported the Hillsborough Independent Panel and worked with Bishop James Jones in that capacity, as I have done ever since. I hope that my experience can shed some light on the independent public advocate.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Q164 It is good to see you, Mr Sutton, and the Right Rev. James Jones; you were my constituent when you were Bishop of Liverpool, and we have had dealings over many years through our work on Hillsborough. It is good to see you both. The Hillsborough Independent Panel was set up in 2010 and completed its work by 2012. It did a fantastic job of looking through many documents and setting out the truth that families had been searching for since 1989. Bishop, why was the panel able to do what numerous legal proceedings over the years appeared to fail to do? What was it about how you went about your work that meant that it was successful in difficult circumstances?

Rt Rev James Jones: We had to gain the trust of the families, understandably. At the outset, families were not instantly persuaded that the panel, which was set up by the Government, would do what we were charged with doing, which was to access all the documents available from public authorities, analyse those documents with a team of experts, and write an account, so that there would be greater public understanding of what happened on that day. In the end, I think we gained the confidence of the families, and due to their tenacity and the expertise of the various panel members, we were able to shed light on what happened on the day and in the aftermath.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Did the panel have particular powers that ensured that the job could be done while maintaining the trust of the families, who of course, after 21 years, were disinclined to trust public authorities and investigations because so many of them previously had not come through with the facts?

Ken Sutton: I think the success of the panel did not come from its powers; as a non-statutory form of inquiry, we did not have any powers. I think the success of the panel was built on the relationship that the panel members and the secretariat established with the Hillsborough families from the start of the work. At the heart of that—I think this is very relevant to today—was the fact that the panel listened to the families. That may sound like a very simple statement, but the experience of the Hillsborough families and others was that they were not listened to. Individual Hillsborough families made the point to the panel, and to me, that they felt listened to for the first time when the panel was established. There is a clue there for the work of the independent public advocate going forward: they should, first and foremost, be listening to the families affected.

Rt Rev James Jones: To add to what Ken has said, Maria, the title of the second report, which was about learning from the families’ experiences, was “The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power”. That is exactly how the families felt that public authorities were treating them over those years.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Bishop James, you have said on record that you support the establishment of an independent public advocate. What would that person or persons do that would add to what happens in the aftermath of a disaster, which is that there are inquiries, possibly public ones, inquests if there have been fatalities, and possibly ongoing legal cases thereafter? What would the establishment of an independent public advocate add to that landscape?

Rt Rev James Jones: Contrary to the Government’s proposal, I believe that there should be a standing independent public advocate. Why? Because in the immediate aftermath of a public tragedy, people are grief-stricken and traumatised. They are unprepared and disorientated, and they no longer feel in control of their life. It is in that immediate moment that they need an advocate—somebody who will represent them to Government and signpost them to the agencies that are available to support them in that moment of trauma.

[Maria Eagle]

Q You have said that there should be a standing advocate, but do you have a view about who should call on the advocate to get involved in any particular circumstances? Should it be the standing advocate themselves? Should it be done only if the families ask for it? Or should the Secretary of State perhaps be the person to decide? Do you have a view about that?

Rt Rev James Jones: I do. I think the independent public advocate should have the right to engage with the families, but the families should also have a right to call upon the IPA if the IPA has not taken that initiative. My view is that the independence of the IPA has to be at the moment of decision. Unless the IPA is free to make the decision about engaging with the family or families, then I think the IPA is just a public advocate, and not an independent public advocate.

[Maria Eagle]

Q So independence is very important to the way in which you see these things. You will have had a chance to look at the Bill and its proposals. Do you think that Bill provides enough independence?

Rt Rev James Jones: I am afraid I do not. I welcome the Government’s initiative, and I welcome their determination to continue to listen to various parties as they shape this appointment. However, I do not think that that independence is sufficiently guaranteed by the Bill as it stands; I think it can be guaranteed only if it is a standing appointment.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Are there powers or other roles that you think the advocate should have, apart from those you have already set out? For example, the Hillsborough Independent Panel had the power of data control, and could collect and look after all the information, which you duly did, before it was published. Do you recall that some of the Hillsborough families could be cynical about whether things were going to be revealed—until they were—because of the use of freedom of information, and because the Government could avoid handing out certain documents, which would give rise to suspicions about what was being held back? In the circumstances of Hillsborough, after many years, there were a lot of suspicions. Do you think that the independent public advocate has a role—and if so, what—in ensuring that those suspicions do not arise?

Rt Rev James Jones: I do think the IPA has a role, but I think there is a difference between the IPA and the Hillsborough Independent Panel. I will leave it to Ken to differentiate those two things. As to your question about what specific responsibilities the IPA should have, I would list them as follows. First and foremost, the IPA should be able to instruct all implicated agencies to keep, and not to destroy, public records. We should not have to wait until a panel or public inquiry is set up to instruct those agencies to keep all records. Secondly, I think the IPA could call on all implicated agencies to adopt the charter for families bereaved through public tragedy, which in essence calls on those agencies not to put their reputation ahead of the interests of the families of the victims and the survivors.

I think, too, the IPA can advise the Government on the setting up of an appropriate review, be that a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, an independent panel or a different form of review or commission. I think, too, the IPA is in a good position to advise the Government on the terms of reference for such an inquiry or panel. One problem that I have observed over the years is that terms of reference are often cobbled together at very short notice, at the last minute, and are not adequate to the task.

The IPA could also advise the Government on the sponsoring Department. I draw attention to the infected blood inquiry: the families were very concerned about the fact that the sponsoring Department was the Department of Health, which was implicated in many of the allegations. Indeed, I was asked by the families whether I would petition the Prime Minister to transfer the sponsorship of that inquiry from the Department of Health to the Cabinet Office, which Theresa May, when she was Prime Minister, did, to the satisfaction of the families. The IPA could also have a role in scrutinising whether lessons really have been learned from the inquest or inquiry, so that those lessons can be embedded across Government and prevent future tragedies.

Ken Sutton: It was crucial to the success of the Hillsborough Independent Panel in the task that the bishop has described that it was, and was seen to be, impartial and certainly not merely an advocate for the families. Had that not been the case, we would not have had the success in publishing the documents that were published, because we would not have had the trust of the public authorities in exercising that role. I think it is important to distinguish the role of the panel from the role of an independent public advocate, going forward.

There is one other point that I think is relevant. I had the privilege of consulting the Hillsborough families about the membership of the panel, but I was very conscious that I was doing that 20 years after Hillsborough. If we were talking about a similar disaster now, where an advocate was needed, that is not the conversation that would be relevant to the families at the time of the disaster. The Bill is in some danger of creating a conversation with families that is not the right conversation to have at the moment of bereavement. I worry that the well-intentioned idea of consulting the families about prospective advocates would be more damaging than helpful at that time, and that it is wrongly placed in the process.

That is why I agree with the bishop that the better option would be for the independent public advocate to be appointed in advance, so they can discuss with the families the help that they can bring, and be immediately available for that purpose. That does not rule out there being a panel of advocates; I can well see that the independent public advocate might want to bring in a panel, or advise on other panel members being appropriate. That might be relevant for reasons to do with skills, if there are other panel members, geography, or possibly the multiplicity of incidents, if there is more than one at the same time, which is conceivable in the terrorist context. There is some learning from the Hillsborough Independent Panel, but it is important to distinguish that what the panel did is not what the independent public advocate would be doing.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Do you think that the independent public advocate should have the power to appoint a panel like the Hillsborough Independent Panel to try to do the job that the panel did, which was to get at the truth, albeit many years later?

Ken Sutton: Honestly, I do not think it is a matter of powers; I think the independent public advocate will have a voice. The importance for me is the authority of the person in taking forward this work. That person would have the authority, and maybe in legislation could be entitled to express a view on what form of inquiry should go on alongside their work.

If I put myself momentarily in the shoes of South Yorkshire police, I would not have wanted or welcomed the panel being created through an independent public advocate who is there, by definition, for the families. The decision on an inquiry has to be for the Government, but the independent public advocate, having talked with the families in the immediate aftermath, would be well placed to offer advice on the form that that inquiry should take.

[The Chair]

Could I just interrupt for a moment? We do not have a lot of time and we have quite long answers. Does anybody else want to ask a question? Would you mind if I interrupt, because I want to get other people in? Sir Oliver Heald and then Sarah Champion. Please can we have short answers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

Q Lord Wills, welcome. You have been promoting a Bill in the House of Lords to establish a public advocate since 2014, I think. What are the differences between your Bill and the one that this Committee is scrutinising? Do you think that the current draft will achieve any of the aims that you were seeking to achieve with your Bill?

Lord Wills: I thank the Committee for inviting me to give evidence today. Let me start with the good bits of the Bill. The Government have endorsed the concept of an independent public advocate and have seen through the promise they made in the 2017 Queen’s Speech. I am grateful for that, and grateful to all the Ministers and officials who contributed.

In my view, however, the Bill is flawed in two main areas. When the Justice Secretary introduced the Bill on Second Reading, he said that

“in order to deliver justice, victims must be treated not as mere spectators of the criminal justice system, but as core participants in it.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 583.]

Exactly right—but that is not what the proposals for the independent public advocate do. They do not give the families effective agency.

As I understand it, the Bill gives the Secretary of State unfettered powers to appoint an independent public advocate or not to do so, and unfettered powers to dismiss an independent public advocate. It also gives the Secretary of State sole right to require the independent public advocate to produce a report. As I understand the Government’s proposals, the independent public advocate will not have the right enjoyed by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, for example, to be an independent office that has the right to produce reports on its own initiative. In that way, the Bill does not fulfil the original intention of my Bill, which was to give bereaved families and surviving victims of public disasters effective agency.

Secondly, and crucially, the Bill does not give the independent public advocate the power to convene something like the Hillsborough independent panel, which after two public inquiries and, for the families, decades of campaigning was the first time that full transparency was achieved in finding out why Hillsborough happened, and what happened in the crucial hours and days after, when, as the bishop so rightly said, a false narrative was being created that was enormously distressing for the families, who were already suffering unimaginable grief.

[Maria Eagle]

Q You have said that the families should have agency and that transparency is important. Are things missing from the current draft that, if they were included, would improve matters and bring it a bit closer to the view you formed when drafting your own Bill?

Lord Wills: I recognise that, as Ken Sutton said, in the end the Government have to have the final say. My original Bill denied them that. I can see the case for the Government having the ultimate say, but there is a halfway position between that and this Bill as drafted. This Bill could and should fetter the Secretary of State and the Government in such a way that they must, for example, have regard to the wishes of the families, to the public interest, to full transparency and so on. That would be quite a significant fetter on Executive power, and I would like to see it incorporated in this Bill. It would not give the families full agency, but that itself is complicated: there is a question of which families and how you define the families, which is for the detailed drafting of this Bill. It would give the Secretary of State some sort of discretion, but we have to go further than this Bill does in giving the families better agency.

[Maria Eagle]

Q You were a Justice Minister when the Hillsborough independent panel was established, and you had to grapple with some of the issues about how it would work. My understanding is that that experience led you to believe that wider reform was needed. What lessons from your experience of helping to establish the parameters of the Hillsborough independent panel were reflected in your Bill? What gaps in how other disasters have been dealt with was your Bill designed to plug? What can we do to this Bill to make sure it does that wider job?

Lord Wills: It is important to remember that at the time the Hillsborough independent panel was established, there had already been two public inquiries chaired by distinguished judges, both of which were flawed in different ways and both of which had failed to prevent the false narrative that the bishop referred to—the cover-up by the police, the brutal commentary in some of the popular press—from taking root, causing enormous trauma for the bereaved families. What I was concerned about was making sure that finally, in any kind of panel and if any documents were to be released, the families should have full transparency. There were issues with that to do with data protection regulations. We thought we would get round them by putting the panel in the position of data controllers, so they would have the power to review all the relevant documentation and would then be able to publish their report. As it happened, they did publish a very large number of the documents they reviewed, although not all; a few were redacted. Crucially, I think the fact that the panel had seen everything gave the families confidence that they were getting something very, very close to the full transparency that they had been denied up until that point. That was a crucial lesson.

The other point that might be worth making is that setting up the Hillsborough independent panel, which is now seen as a great success due to the work of the bishop and Ken Sutton—indeed, all the panel—was not easy. Politicians and Ministers often have mixed motives, and while everyone was extremely sympathetic to the families, pretty much the entire Cabinet, for various reasons, was against my efforts to set up the panel in the way that I did. Fortunately, the one member of the Cabinet who did support me was the one who really mattered, and that was the Prime Minister.

[Maria Eagle]

Thank you.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Q Lord Wills, do you agree with the idea of having a standing appointment rather than an appointment for a particular incident? Could you also explain how you see the independent public advocate? Is it an impartial person, as described by Ken Sutton, about the panel? What sort of person would it be in terms of qualifications and skills? Do you agree that this person should not be able to take part in legal activity? In other words, if they were at an inquest they would be there as an interested person but represented by a separate lawyer. Do you want to comment on that?

Lord Wills: Yes, I believe it should be a standing appointment, for the reasons that the bishop set out extremely well. In the turmoil of the aftermath of a big public disaster, it is important that someone is on the ground immediately to support the families. I do believe that, and I think it is a perfectly achievable position to have. A secretariat could be drawn together at short notice—a standing secretariat, as it were. It would be doing work within the civil service, but when a public disaster happened it could be brought to bear to act as a secretariat for the independent public advocate.

I hate to think of what might happen. If you imagine a big terrorist incident, for example, the Government would be in turmoil anyway, and then they would have to find the time and space to go through all the selection processes, find out people’s availability and negotiate terms of reference. In the meantime, the poor families are left without anyone to support them, as they always have been up until now. It rather defeats the object of this whole exercise. So I am in favour of having a standing appointment.

As for who the independent public advocate should be, when I originally drafted my private Member’s Bill I had it in mind that it would almost certainly be a lawyer of some sort, and they would function in a similar but not identical way to the reviewer of terrorism legislation. In other words, they would be a distinguished lawyer with a lot of experience in these sorts of areas. Every public disaster is different and it would be very difficult to find someone who had expert knowledge in every possible area, but the broad parameters would be the same.

The main point would be to be able to guide the families through all the various processes that might be taking place, and above all to secure full transparency about what had happened and produce a report on it. As I say, I had it in mind that it would be a lawyer. They are usually extremely useful in these circumstances— I do not speak as a lawyer—but it is not impossible to imagine that it could be someone else with a similar sort of expertise.

Forgive me: there was another part to your question, but I have forgotten it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Our next witnesses are Nick Hurd, the independent adviser to the Prime Minister on Grenfell, and Tim Suter, a solicitor at the Manchester Arena inquiry and the Hillsborough inquest. Welcome, Nick; you are appearing via Zoom. Who wants to lead off the questions? Is it Maria again?

[Maria Eagle]

I am happy to, but I do not wish to monopolise.

[The Chair]

No, let’s hear from—

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

The expert.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Thank you, Chair. Thank you for appearing, Mr Hurd and Mr Suter. Mr Hurd, will you set out what problems you came across in your role as adviser to the Prime Minister on Grenfell? As a former Minister and in that role, you must have had a lot of contact with families affected by disaster. In those roles, what has your experience been of the main problems in the aftermath of a terrible public disaster like that, which affects so many people, and what should we do to address them?

Nick Hurd: Thank you for the welcome, Chair, and thank you for the question, Ms Eagle. Every disaster has its own specific context. I will take a minute to clarify my role in Grenfell and how it came about before answering your question.

The specific context of the Grenfell disaster was that, at the time, I was Minister for Policing and the Fire Service. I had some involvement in the co-ordination of the response in the aftermath, which was inadequate. The combination of the disaster and the response resulted in a situation in which there was zero trust—negative trust—between the communities affected and the state in the form of both the local authority, which many blamed for the disaster, and the national Government, which many blamed for the inadequate response to the disaster. I was asked by the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, to play a special role. It might have had some parallels with the role that Tessa Jowell played in a different context, that of 7/7. My role was to build a bridge of communication between the communities affected—the bereaved, survivors and residents close to the tower—and the state, in particular the central Government, who were more involved in the aftermath than they had expected to be. That was the specific context: I was not an independent advocate, but a Minister trying to build bridges of trust and communication.

To answer your question, I think that the central point is the one that Michael Wills made. The central difficulty that I faced was the lack of trust that the community felt and their lack of agency. In the specific context of Grenfell, many felt that they were victims of the state, and they found it difficult to believe that the state had an interest in supporting them or that they had any agency or voice in that process. In hindsight, that was one of the biggest challenges that we faced. I support the emphasis that Michael Wills put on it.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Thank you. I will come to you in a minute, Mr Suter, because your role was slightly different. Mr Hurd, what do you think about transparency? Grenfell has not lasted 34 years like Hillsborough did, but time has passed and there is still a feeling that a lot is not known about what went on, inquiries are still ongoing and there has not been a definitive outcome. Do you feel that the independent public advocate as proposed in the Bill—or a version of that advocate if the proposals are amended—could offer something positive to stop the lack of trust and prevent families from feeling excluded, “done to” and that they are not being told the truth, which often happens in the aftermath of disasters?

Nick Hurd: If set up in the right way and with the right individual, the role could be very valuable in helping families to believe that there is someone on their side, given that of course they do not understand the system—why should they?—and feel that it is not listening to them and is not on their side. In principle, I am supportive.

I would enter a caveat around expectation, however. To the point that I think you were making, sometimes it takes a long time to get to the truth and to justice, which is the word that is used in the Grenfell context; “accountability” is a softer word. That process takes time. In the case of Grenfell, the public inquiry is generally extremely well regarded for the rigour of its processes and how it is led, but it is inevitably going to take quite a long time to get to the point of ultimate truth and accountability. I doubt that there is very much that an independent public advocate can do to speed up the process in the context of formal public inquiries and inquests. I would have a concern about expectation management and about how the thing is set up in a way that the system is required to respond to an independent public advocate.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Thank you. Mr Suter, you have acted as solicitor to the Manchester Arena inquiry and have had professional involvement in the aftermath of a number of disasters. Do you have any general observations about the proposal for an independent public advocate? Given your experience, would it be helpful in your professional opinion?

Tim Suter: Thank you for the question, and thank you to the Committee for inviting me along today. Let me just give you some context about my experience. I am a solicitor, and for the last 15 years I have helped those conducting inquests, inquiries and investigations. You referred to the new inquest into the Hillsborough disaster; I was the solicitor to that, and I am the current solicitor to the Manchester Arena inquiry. I also assisted the inquests into the Birmingham pub bombings and the 7/7 inquests. Through those and other investigations, I have had lots of experience and exposure to the difficult issues that those cases have to investigate, but also to the bereavement and anguish that those who are at the heart of those investigations go through. It is clear to me that the role of an IPA is very valuable. To be frank, I think there is some confusion in the Bill about the role that the IPA could and should fulfil, but at its core I fully support the need for an IPA.

As people gave their evidence, I jotted down words that absolutely ring true for me—references to “anguish”, “impotence”, “distrust”, “patronising” and “lack of access to power”. I have experienced all those things. On the flip side, there was talk of “agency”, “voice”, “empathy”, “the truth” and “compassion”. At its heart, that is the purpose of an inquisitorial process such as an inquest or inquiry. If the IPA can help with that in the right way, I think it is absolutely right.

[Maria Eagle]

Q You might not have read the details of the Bill, but if you have, do you have a view about whether the current draft would do that job? If you have concerns about it, do you have any views, given your experience, about what the Bill ought to say in order to make a difference?

Tim Suter: I think the bishop summarised it very well in referring to a standing IPA. In my mind, I have characterised it as a standing office—the office of the IPA—whereby there is almost a chief IPA who is appointed. That would be a process that happens as soon as the Bill receives Royal Assent. It would be properly resourced; or it may not be resourced, but it should be absolutely firm that the resources for the chief IPA to fulfil their job are available. I think they should have the power to appoint IPAs in the light of a particular disaster. They may or may not be involved themselves; it depends on the nature of the disaster.

There are some issues in the Bill as well about the terms of appointment and the resignation of the IPA. I did not really understand why that is there. It needs to be much more forceful and brought almost into line with how the 2005 Act is framed, which is much clearer about the appointment process and the need for that appointment only to be terminated in very particular circumstances.

I have some questions—perhaps points of granularity—about how an IPA is going to advocate on behalf of those under 18. For the Manchester Arena inquiry, many of those affected were under 18. No one should be excluded just because of age from the vital work that an IPA would do. For me, that came across as needing a little bit more work and analysis. There was an intriguing reference to “no immunity” in the Bill as well, which I thought seemed a little out of kilter—perhaps I just do not know the detail. Why does the Bill refer directly to the IPA having no immunity? Then you go through to the process of reporting; as far as I can see, a report is not necessarily laid before Parliament, where it would get the protection of parliamentary privilege. All of felt that it needed to be reviewed with a little bit more scrutiny.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Having a standing appointment or an office would mean that you could have speedy action. I was asking the previous witnesses whether they thought the role should be an impartial one, as the Hillsborough panel inquiry was. What sort of skills and qualifications should the person have? Do you agree that that person should not be able to undertake legal activity? For example, at an inquest, they would be an interested party and could be represented, but they would not be doing the representation themselves.

Nick Hurd: Oliver, good to see you. I have not thought it about very deeply.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Fourth sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

We cannot have a dialogue here.

[The Chair]

We are very grateful to you—this is a very moving testimony and you have had the most appalling experience—but we cannot have a general conversation; we have to have set questions. Can I now ask Maria Miller to ask her questions?

Jenni Hicks: Yes, sorry about that.

[The Chair]

Sorry—Maria Eagle. I do not know why; I was thinking of someone else.

[Maria Eagle]

It is fine. I have been called some names in my time—usually Angela.

[The Chair]

It is quite a moving afternoon, so it is difficult to concentrate.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Absolutely. May I begin by thanking Jenni Hicks for coming today? I will just say to the Committee that she is my constituent. She was one of the first people who came to see me when I was elected in 1997, and here we still are, trying to sort things out.

Jenni Hicks: That is why I automatically asked Maria. I do apologise.

[Maria Eagle]

I am just making it clear that I do know the witness.

Jenni Hicks: Maria is the only person that I know here.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Jenni, you have set out your appalling experience, and I know that you could say a lot more about what has happened over the years. If an independent public advocate had been in place at the time of Hillsborough, what difference might that have made to your experience as a family?

Jenni Hicks: I am hoping that an independent public advocate and their team would be able to have sight of the documentation that is needed to get to the truth. There has got to be transparency. We did not have that transparency until 2012—it took 23 years for us to have transparency about how our loved ones died. That is the difference that I am hoping it would make. That is such an important part.

Obviously, the independent public advocate would be able to guide people towards help in other ways, but for a major public disaster like the Hillsborough disaster, which was surrounded by a lot of lies and corruption, just to have transparency about the truth of what really happened was vital. We would never have known the truth without that. That is what was so good about the Hillsborough Independent Panel: it operated through transparency and sight of the documentation that it needed to come to its conclusions.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Am I right in thinking that, from an early stage with Hillsborough, the legal proceedings became very adversarial and the public authorities started trying to blame anybody else but themselves, which in this instance was your relatives and the survivors of the disaster?

Jenni Hicks: Yes.

[Maria Eagle]

Q What impact did that have on you as a bereaved family member? What impact did that have on the other families?

Jenni Hicks: It was horrendous. It was cruel. We were put through such an inhumane process. Not only had we lost our loved ones—in my case, my two daughters—but we did not have the truth about how they died. It was surrounded by lies.

I was there on the day. We were there as a family, and my ex-husband was there on the pitch with the girls, so we knew that the propaganda was lies. We were up against organisations like the police and the Government—like I said in my statement, those were huge, huge obstacles at the time—but we still carried on fighting, because we knew in our hearts what the truth was. Finally, 23 years later, we did have that truth, but it was a long, hard and gruelling process. It is not something that I would want anybody else ever, ever to have to go through.

It is bad enough to find yourself as part of a disaster and to be bereaved by a disaster. Then, when you cannot even get to the truth about what happened—or you know the truth and you know that lies are being put out there—it is not good. Nobody should ever, ever have to be put through that process again. I would like it to be a legacy for the 97 people who died that nobody else has to suffer like the Hillsborough families did.

[Maria Eagle]

Q You fought over so many years against almost impossible odds and you have made progress. However, with the public authorities over the years and the court cases that have happened, have you ever felt supported as family members? One of the things about a public advocate is that they can provide some support to families. Was that anything that you got in your early experience following the disaster?

Jenni Hicks: No.

[Maria Eagle]

Q So you felt on your own.

Jenni Hicks: Yes. We felt on our own with this huge fight to find out what had really happened, or in our case—because we were at the match and knew what had happened—it was to find the evidence of the truth. We basically knew the truth but we could not get hold of the evidence; nobody could. It was not until the Hillsborough Independent Panel that we had that evidence, finally, and we finally—as I say, four years after HIP—had the correct inquest verdicts. The first inquest put a 3.15 cut-off in, so a lot of the vital evidence after 3.15 pm could not be heard. There was absolutely nothing we could do about it. It is very, very frustrating.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Finally from me, Jenni, because I am sure colleagues will want to ask questions, do you think it is important that families caught up in this way in future disasters have some kind of capacity to have an impact and have agency, and can get an independent public advocate involved—if one is there, if the statute passes—and get somebody involved who is seen as on their side and can help them?

Jenni Hicks: Yes, that is vitally important. That is why I am supporting it. That is why I am here today speaking about it—because I think it is vitally important that we have this facility, but that we have it correctly and they do keep their independence. When you are caught up in disasters, particularly if there is propaganda surrounding it, you need to be able to trust—you would need trust in a public advocate in a team. By having to report to a Minister, you are thinking, “Well, who is in charge of this? Is it the public advocate or is it the Minister?” I do not think that would go down very well.

[Maria Eagle]

Thank you.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Q Thank you for coming today and sharing your experiences. I know how painful that will have been. I was at the University of Sheffield at the time of the Hillsborough disaster and one of my friends also died in that tragedy. I recognise very much from what you are saying the experience that other friends and families had at that time. I pay huge tribute to you for the massive amount of work that you have done to try to make sure there is justice for the families and friends of those who were bereaved. Thank you for everything you have done.

Jenni Hicks: Thank you, but it was not just me. It was me and the rest of the families, and the whole city of Liverpool, which suffered a huge injustice that day.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear from Kimia Zabihyan of Grenfell Next of Kin. I think we are having some technical problems with Dr Stuart Murray, so we have just one witness for this quarter of an hour session.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Thank you for coming along. I realise that there are lots of other places you could be, so we are very grateful that you have come along to give us your evidence. Could you tell us a little about your story and how you have been affected by what happened at Grenfell?

Kimia Zabihyan: Actually, I started off on the ground as a volunteer. There were many, many people who came to the area affected by the tower. I have my roots in that borough and I grew up there, so it touched me very deeply, but the thing that struck me the most was seeing pictures of the missing people. Many of them looked like people who were familiar to me, because they looked like my family members. It really felt very personal, because 85% of the people who died in the tragedy were black and brown people. I felt that it was really important to make sure that there was advocacy for that, particularly given that most of the people who died were recent migrants.

It is very different from the Hillsborough experience and many other experiences—the Marchioness, for instance. This was the first national tragedy that predominantly affected black and brown people, and it became very obvious that the system responding to the moment was entirely white. That created dissonance, and it felt as though there was room to advocate for those people, because the majority of them did not have roots in this country; they were recent migrants.

Immediately, we were told, “Don’t talk about race. Let’s just deny that whole part of it, because it will turn off public sympathy.” These were the things that I was experiencing and seeing as someone from that background and that heritage who is very blessed with the advantage and privilege of a good education, life experience and work experience. It felt really important to play a role, so that was really what brought me there and kept me there. I am still there after six years.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Over that period of time, you will have engaged with many, if not all, of the bereaved families, I imagine. Could you explain to the Committee your sense of what the first few years in this process have been like for those families? What would the value of an independent public advocate have been, if one had been in place at the time this happened? What would have been the value of having that role available to the families in the immediate aftermath of the disaster?

Kimia Zabihyan: That is a really big question. Actually, it is not just those few years; we are still in exactly the same place. We are still stuck in the same place because we do not have an independent public advocate and there is no recognised role for it, really, even though I am called an advocate by all the systems and I engage with all the systems. Ultimately, it has been one of choice, and in a way you are trapped by it, because you know that if you step away, there is nothing in its place. There is nothing to take that place.

With those families who have lost immediate family members, several things happen. In the first instance, it will be a disaster by its very nature, because it is not expected. There is chaos—absolute chaos. The people who know pretty quickly that their family—their child, mother, father, husband or wife—is missing are in shock. What happens is that immediately there is a separation; they become invisible, because they are sort of protected by the police—quite rightly—and the victim support units etcetera, so they are literally invisible on the scene.

We had survivors on the scene and we had systems engaging with survivors, but we did not have anything in place for the actual bereaved—nothing. None of the policies addressed their needs and their specific characteristics, which in this case were essentially rooted in their otherness, if you like. Their otherness became even more othered, and they became even more marginalised. The system responded with policies for the tragedy, but it was very much through one particular prism, which was through only the survivor prism. To this day, we still do not have any policies that actually address the specifics of the next of kin of the deceased, because there was never that public advocacy role.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Do you think it is important that if there is a public advocate—if this legislation goes through, suitably amended until everybody thinks it is perfect and what is needed—the families affected have some agency and the public advocate can create transparency, or do you think it is more important to signpost to other services at an early stage?

Kimia Zabihyan: No, not at all. I am passionate about the fact that there needs to be a public advocacy role, to the point where I have basically been doing it pro bono for six years, because I cannot believe that we do not have such a thing in place. Coming back to some of the questions you were asking Jenni Hicks earlier, it is really important to have that whole system set up, because disasters do not make appointments—they happen. You need to have a system and structure in place that can just be instigated as part of a resilience plan or disaster response. It needs to be extremely diverse, and it needs to have people who are awkward and definitely on the side of the victims.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Do you think that the current proposal sets out a public advocate who is independent enough, or would you like to see it more independent of the Minister than in the current draft? At the moment, the Minister can appoint, set terms of reference, arrange remuneration and dismiss.

Kimia Zabihyan: It is very difficult, because what does independence really mean? You can call a person independent, but actually they are really not that independent. The pool of people you need to be looking at are people who have a huge amount of integrity and a footprint in speaking truth to power. If a person has that sort of credibility, it does not matter who they are reporting to.

The disadvantage of their being completely separate from our democratic system is that essentially they are toothless, so this independent person just becomes another report that is given to the Minister. It does not have any weight; it does not have any power. It needs to be someone who has the power to make policy interventions and decisions, at ministerial level—appointed by the PM even, not Ministers.

With Grenfell, we had a conveyor belt of Ministers. We had three name changes and six Ministers. The Department started off as the Department for Communities and Local Government, then it became the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and then the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and Ministers do not really mean anything, because they come and go. It has to be at Prime Minister level.

More importantly, “independent” can mean different things to different people. It was interesting watching the covid inquiry the other day, when Sir Oliver Letwin talked a little about that. It is about having people in the room who ask the awkward questions and are able to make a difference. We do not want someone else who just writes another report that goes nowhere. That is why it can take 30-something years.

We need to do that for our democracy and for our efficiency. You would be amazed at how much money has been wasted in the Grenfell response and recovery—ridiculous amounts of money—because the whole system is so inefficient.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Finally from me, what powers do you think the independent public advocate, as you envisage it, should have to be able effectively to do the job that you see it doing?

Kimia Zabihyan: To give you an example, very early on, when it became apparent that the majority of the people who had died were ethnic minorities in this country, because this is London and it happened in London—Grenfell will not be the last time this happens—the system did not know how to respond to that. The next of kin tended to live abroad, so we had to locate them and arrange for visas and what have you to bring them to the UK for the processes of identification, DNA tests and that sort of thing.

At the time, we were very lucky, because Amber Rudd came down and got it very quickly. She absolutely got it very quickly. The one thing that happened really promptly was that she allowed for that; she made sure that we had processes to identify the next of kin, get them on a plane and make sure they had visas—or even, sometimes, just to get them on a plane and issue the visa as soon as they arrived at the airport. People were coming from conflict zones, places where there might not be an embassy or places where they would not even be allowed past the first security gate. We had people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and all sorts of places that were quite awkward.

The assumption that the system makes is a sort of myopic, white middle-class assumption about who victims are and therefore what the responses should be. The IPA or the panel has to be really quite progressive, sophisticated and understanding, and it has to have the experience that the world does not really function like that any more.

That was an example of something that worked—just doing something very practical—but only Amber Rudd had the power to do that, because she was the Home Secretary. We are now at a stage where we are trying to execute things that respond to the need of the next of kin, but time passes and the system moves at a different pace—it is on a different timeline. Six years for those in the system is, “Oh, we’ve sorted everything; we’re at the six-year mark,” whereas for the people who are affected, the six-year mark does not mean anything, because they are still at ground zero trying to get policies or attention for issues that speak to their particular characteristic.

If we have a panel or an independent advocate who can speak to Ministers and make policies that address the specificity of the victims, that will serve not only the victims, but our democracy. It will also save a ton of money.

[Maria Eagle]

Thank you.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Q What are your thoughts on the definitions in the Bill for victims, major incidents, harm and serious harm? I do not know if you have read the Bill.

Kimia Zabihyan: I have, but I can only speak of my own experiences. The majority of my experience has been with the immediate family members, and they were the ones who defined what is a disaster, or a national disaster. It is the sort of tombstone imperative: once you get a certain number of fatalities, it is a thing. That was made very clear to me by someone very senior in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, who said, “You do realise that if less than 10 people had died in the tower, we wouldn’t even be obliged to rehouse everybody.” They would have just gone on the housing list. They might have got lots of points, but they would have had to wait on the housing list for appropriate accommodation. It is because of the number of fatalities that the thing becomes a thing, yet they are denied that power, or respect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rob Butler]

Q Are you not arguing, essentially, that there does need to be a panel of people with a range of skills? To come back a little bit on your criticism—if I can put it that way—of the possibility of delay, is it not the case that each individual situation will need specific qualities and the specific skills of individual people? It is inevitable that it will need a little bit of time to find the right people to deal with the right incident. None the less, if we know of a pool of suitably qualified and experienced people who are ready to serve, that would be ideal.

Sophie Cartwright: Part of the function of the IPA is said to be a signposting role, but if it is not in place in the immediate aftermath and then there is this delay in putting it in place, I cannot quite see what the function is, if it is not to replace the role of legal representation, which it is not intended to do.

If it is not in place to deal with the immediate aftermath, for support and signposting, I do not see what its functions really are in terms of challenging public authorities, unless it is going to be a role that is linked to the changes on the duty of candour, which is being massively championed on the back of the work of Bishop James Jones, and that sort of role for challenging public authorities.

It is about clarity on what the function of the IPA is intended to be. At the moment, I do not see, practically, as the role is envisaged through the Bill, that it is going to be meaningful or what the IPA is intended to achieve by way of support and signposting for victims of major incidents, if it is not in place and ready to go. That is the concern, particularly when under clause 25 there have to be terms of appointments and then agreement, which is inevitably going to have delays. To what extent, then, is it really discharging what was intended to be its signposting and supportive role, if it is not there at the get-go of a major incident?

[Maria Eagle]

Q I do not know whether you managed to hear Lord Michael Wills’s evidence from earlier today. He had a private Member’s Bill in the House of Lords in 2014 to introduce an IPA. He envisaged it, in part, as something that the families could call upon so that they felt that they had agency and there was something they could do at the early stages that would stop them just feeling like everything was being done to them and they had no role. But he also envisaged a role of ensuring transparency. For example, he envisaged his version being able to establish a Hillsborough Independent Panel-like arrangement, to gather in documents and give an account of the truth of what happened. Do you see that that might be a function that the independent public advocate could usefully pursue, if the Bill were amended to enable it?

Sophie Cartwright: Yes, that certainly seems to me to be a measurable and proportionate role for an IPA. It should be something that exists so that, when incidents happen, families know that the body exists and know where to go, rather than thinking, “Who is the IPA? Who has been appointed, and who will it be?” and the experience being dependent on who that IPA is.

If it is a body that exists, where families know that they can go as part of that search for the truth or to seek advice, I absolutely see that as more what was intended when the IPA was initially proposed. Certainly, the genesis of the IPA was very much the experience of Hillsborough. There has been a lot of discussion around it having a role holding core public authorities to account. I do not necessarily know how practically that would work when there is an inquest and a coroner is discharging their investigatory duty or—if there were to be an inquiry—how a chairman would discharge their role as the chairman. There has to be some thought around that to ensure that it does not trespass within the investigatory roles and the statutory functions of other investigators post major incidents.

The original concern was that public authorities had not shown candour in their approach to investigations, so that may be a function of the IPA. Certainly, when the IPA role was first announced in March by Mr Raab, a lot of the support seemed to be around saying, “This should be a role for the IPA around Hillsborough’s duty of candour.” I really cannot comment more broadly on that, but that was what was intended originally when the IPA was first proposed, which would fit with the evidence that you heard this morning. I apologise that I have not had access to that evidence in advance of speaking to you today.

[Maria Eagle]

Q Drawing on your own experience in relation to the Manchester Arena bombing, I am sure you will have had discussions with affected family members. Do you see anything in the Bill in respect of the independent public advocate as envisaged that would have assisted those people you have subsequently came across when dealing with the Manchester Arena bombing? Do you think that there is something in the Bill that would have made things easier for them to deal with the aftermath of that terrible experience?

Sophie Cartwright: If the IPA had existed then as a place where the families could go for help, then certainly. The IPA could have a function to assist with that immediate intrusion that can occur to families. A lot of the families and witnesses that gave evidence to the inquiry talked about the massive intrusion on them by the press after the major incidents. If the IPA had a role to hear families’ concerns around press intrusion, and it liaised with editors and the like to stop that form of intrusion before lawyers were in place, I can definitely see that being an avenue to go down.

There was also a lot of concern from a number of family members about the blue light-type agencies, which immediately afterwards were putting out their own media and documentaries about events. I know that for a lot of the families the content of that material caused real concern. Again, the IPA could be somewhere they could go to speak about that and raise concerns, and the IPA could then be enabled to speak to the relevant representatives of those public authorities to ventilate the families’ concerns about that material, as well as to help explain the process to them.

After the Manchester Arena bombing, a lot of good work was done by the coroners and family liaison officers involved. I think having another place where victims could go to seek support in the immediate aftermath would be good. Anything that allows victims an avenue to try and understand what is happening is definitely for the good.

[Janet Daby]

Q You have mentioned that there needs to be more clarity and purpose around the IPA. With that in mind, how long do you think an IPA should be involved following a major incident?

Sophie Cartwright: If it remains as intended at the moment, that is not really clear, because obviously the terms of appointment will depend on the agreement with the Secretary of State. If there is to be a report-writing function that captures the victim’s views, it is going to be a longer-term thing. It certainly seems to be a role that is envisaged as running alongside an inquest and inquiry process, which is why it is quite difficult if it is a number of appointments of different IPAs rather than a full-time position of the office of the independent public advocate, with a head IPA that can appoint individuals as and when necessary.

Again, if it is envisaged as a role in the immediate aftermath for signposting and support until victims have their own lawyers, who then can very much discharge the roles and functions of an IPA, it might just be a shorter-term thing. But if it is intended to also capture the victim experience and have a report-writing role, that is a much longer-term thing. We need to consider the functions of the IPA and whether it is intended to be a full-time appointment. As it is currently drafted, it is intended to be multiple IPAs that apply for the role of the IPA and are then appointed with terms of reference. That is a very different thing, and it potentially has a longer shelf life.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Fifth sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

I appreciate the opportunity to serve under your guidance once again, Sir Edward. I rise to speak in support of amendments 2 and 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). It is important that the Bill aims to improve end-to-end support for victims of crime and to amplify victims’ voices in the criminal justice system. The amendments focus on a widespread practice that disempowers victims and silences their voices: non-disclosure agreements. NDAs are contracts that were created to protect trade secrets, but when used incorrectly they become secret settlement contracts used to buy the silence of a victim or whistleblower. They have become the default solution for organisations, corporations and public bodies to settle cases of sexual misconduct, racism, pregnancy discrimination and other human rights violations.

In some cases, those in charge do not even realise that an NDA was used. NDAs have become boilerplate contractual language for so many organisations, and they are extremely harmful. They most often protect an employer’s reputation and the career of the perpetrator, not the victim, who could be protected by a simple one-sided confidentiality clause. They prevent a victim from speaking out and accessing the support they need by preventing them from reporting, speaking to family and friends about their experiences, or warning others. In one case of a university student who signed a gagging clause after she had been sexually assaulted, the agreement was so poorly explained that she took it to mean that she could not even speak to her own GP.

We have had this discussion many times before, specifically in relation to a different piece of legislation: the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, an amendment to which, tabled by Lord Collins of Highbury, sought to restrict universities from using NDAs in cases of harassment and bullying. The Government accepted that amendment. I and many others who have campaigned on this issue were delighted that students gained that protection in the 2023 Act. If students should be protected from NDAs and gagging clauses, why would the same not apply to other victims? Amendments 2 and 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon, are intended to do ensure that it will.

Amendment 2 would expand the definition of a victim to expressly include victims of harassment, including sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct or other forms of bullying. Amendment 3 would then make provision in the victims code for those victims relating to non-disclosure agreements. The language of the amendments was drawn from the 2023 Act—language that the Government have already agreed to. As I said, the protection should not be limited to students; every victim deserves the right to speak out.

We have a golden opportunity with the Bill to enshrine in law the principle that no victim should be silenced, prevented from speaking out about their experiences and scared away from vital support services. There is support across the House for these changes—I refer to amendment 1, tabled by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller)—and I hope that the Minister will accept the amendments, seize the moment, take firm action and stamp out this practice once and for all.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Edward. I hope the Minister will consider accepting these amendments. I can well see that he might have some concerns about what he may see as an open-ended extension of the definition of victims. I can see that, in the position he is in—deciding on policy—he may come to the view that a line has to be drawn somewhere when we define victims.

The Bill’s current definition does extend to a wide range of people, and there are other amendments and concerns that may extend that definition to an even wider range. As somebody who has been in the Minister’s position, making policy decisions about where a line ought to be drawn in the middle of a grey area, I understand that there is a natural tendency to resist. I hope he will resist that natural tendency in this particular instance, because my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham has made a compelling case and the amendments are important.

One of the worst aspects of being subjected to this kind of behaviour is not being able to talk about it afterwards. One understands why an employer would like to obtain a non-disclosure agreement. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, it has become a standard clause that anybody negotiating such a settlement on behalf of the employer would stick into every agreement in any instance; I imagine they are all drafted on computer systems ready to be simply splurged out at the drop of a hat. But the consequence for the individual who is signing up to the agreement—not always, as my hon. Friend has made clear, with the full information about what the legal implications are, and what they do and do not cover—can be extremely damaging, not only in the immediate aftermath of such an agreement, but possibly for years into the future.

Surely the Minister will accept, as I am sure you would, Sir Edward—although not in this Committee, of course—that the whole point of the victims code is to try to minimise the impact on victims by giving rights and access to provisions that enable them to recover swiftly from whatever it is that they have undergone that ends up causing them an issue. That is surely the very definition of what the victims code is meant to be doing. It would therefore be an omission if the amendments were not accepted.

Although I fully understand the concerns the Minister might have about extending the pool of people who may fall into the definition in the legislation, it would be remiss of the Government to exclude this particular group, who really do need such assistance. I hope that he will have something positive to say to us about these amendments when he gets to his feet.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

I want to speak to these important amendments, which have been brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham. Amendment 1 gets to the heart of what the Bill is all about. It would ensure that there is no impediment to providing evidence of behaviour that may be criminal misconduct after signing a non-disclosure agreement.

We have all seen examples of these agreements. Some simply attempt to buy off the victim and halt any prospect of them using knowledge of a person or an organisation which may have been the perpetrator of any kind of criminal misconduct, ranging from financial impropriety to sexual assault. The agreements work by effectively threatening people that if they decide to share their experience or knowledge, they will be subject to costly sanctions.

I hope the Committee will agree that individuals or organisations trying to hide their criminality using non-disclosure agreements is not only wrong, but that it is also a licence to get away with all manner of activity that could lead to large fines and even imprisonment. Why should someone responsible for sexual assault be able to hide away? They should not be. Amendment 3, importantly, would ensure that that protection is enshrined in the victims code, which we will get to later. We want to ensure that there is no wriggle room to allow potential criminals to escape the law because of, in effect, an agreement that is designed to do just that.

Amendment 2 could also be said to sit at the heart of the Bill; we absolutely support the essence of the amendments. Amendment 2 would add to the clause the specific definition of a person who

“has experienced, or made allegations that they have experienced…sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, or…bullying or harassment”.

We want to work constructively with the Government, and I hope that we can start now, with the Minister addressing the serious concerns that Committee members have raised, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham who moved the amendment. We need amendments to significantly strengthen the Bill—which we finally have, eight years after it was first proposed.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for raising this important topic and enabling the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran)—and, by extension, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller)—to be debated in Committee.

The amendments recognise that non-disclosure agreements are misused if they prevent someone from speaking about an experience of crime, for example, to relevant professionals. Amendment 1, though not selected for debate, is intended to include those who have signed NDAs that prevent them from speaking about criminal conduct in the definition of a victim. Amendment 2 and 3, which I will turn to shortly, are intended to go a little further—potentially beyond criminal conduct. I will address that point in a second.

Although confidentiality clauses can serve valid purposes—for example, to protect commercially sensitive information—the Government have been clear, as I think is the Opposition’s position, that they should not be used to prevent disclosures to the police, regulated health and care professionals, legal professionals and others. It is illegal for an NDA to be used to conceal a criminal offence, pervert the course of justice or stop someone co-operating with the police. As the hon. Member for Rotherham alluded to, we have already made reforms around the use of NDAs in higher education.

I know that the hon. Members who tabled, signed and spoke to the amendments are particularly interested in ensuring that individuals are aware of their ability to access support, regardless of having signed an NDA. Anybody who has suffered harm as a direct result of criminal conduct, regardless of whether that crime has been reported or is covered by an NDA, is already covered as a victim under part 1 of the Bill and the victims code. That means that they are entitled to access relevant support services, and, as the Law Society guidance on the matter makes clear, it would not normally be appropriate for non-disclosure agreements to prohibit disclosure to professionals for legal, medical or therapeutic reasons. In most circumstances, those qualified professionals would be bound by a duty of confidentiality to their client.

[Maria Eagle]

The Minister makes an excellent point, but how does he get across to those who have signed non-disclosure agreements that they are not restricted in the way in which the law requires that they be unrestricted if nobody has told them that? Could he do something to ensure that those who sign such agreements get proper information about what they really mean?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. I do not want to test the Committee’s patience too much with the amount of notes that I have, but I will come to her point. I hope that I can give her a little succour in terms of her asks of me in her speech.

I reassure Members that if anybody suffers harm as a result of sexual abuse, bullying or harassment, where that behaviour amounts to criminal conduct it is already covered by the definition of a victim in part 1 of the Bill. Therefore amendment 1, which would include those individuals explicitly in the definition, could be deemed unnecessary, as they are already covered. However, I will turn to amendment 1 in my final remarks.

Amendments 2 and 3 seek to go further to include those who have experienced behaviour that may be covered by a non-disclosure agreement but which is not criminal. As the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood alluded to, that would expand the definition. We are clear that we have to strike the appropriate balance in drawing the definition in a way that is practical and functional but that does not exclude those who we feel should be included. Part 1 of the Bill seeks to restrict the definition to victims of crime, and we believe that that is the right approach. However, I suspect we will debate on the coming amendments and over the course of today whether that balance has been struck and whether that line has been drawn in the right place. We may disagree on some elements; I expect we will explore that further today.

The relevant definition of a victim is focused on improving support services for victims of crime and increasing oversight to drive up standards of criminal justice agencies working with victims of crime. That does not mean that individuals who have suffered as a result of behaviour that is not criminal, albeit harmful, are prevented from seeking support. Outside the provisions in the Bill, they can still access support services where those are available to them.

Amendment 3 would require the victims code to include provisions for those who have experienced or made allegations that they have experienced sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, or other bullying or harassment. It would also require the code to include provisions for those who have signed NDAs for those incidents.

It is vital that the victims code works for different types of victims. The code covers a wide range of entitlements for victims of different crimes and with different needs. To give us the broadest flexibility to serve the changing needs of victims without having to amend primary legislation, we have not explicitly listed entitlements or specific provisions for particular types of victims in the Bill, as the amendment would do. Instead, we have placed the overarching principles of the victims code in primary legislation and specified that the code can provide different entitlements for different types of victims.

We believe that is the right approach to allow the flexibility to amend the code and to reduce the risk of inadvertently excluding some groups of victims or the relevant provision that the code should make for them. The Bill as presently drafted means that the code could include provision about the matters referenced in the amendment, where they relate to victims of behaviour that amounts to criminal conduct. We have committed to consult on an updated victims code after the passage of the Bill. As mentioned on Second Reading, I am open to working with Members on whether we can go further in that respect.

I appreciate the points made by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, by the shadow Minister the hon. Member for Cardiff North, and by the hon. Member for Rotherham and the sponsors of the amendments. Therefore, although I encourage the hon. Member for Rotherham not to press the amendments to a Division at the moment, I am happy to work with her and other hon. and right hon. Members, including those who support the amendments, to explore further before we reach Report stage whether there might be something we can do to help address their concerns.

As I say, I do not believe that amendments 2 and 3 as drafted are the right approach. I am looking carefully at the issues addressed by amendment 1. I am not in a position to make any firm commitments at this point, other than to work with the hon. Member for Rotherham and others to further explore this important issue. With that, I hope that she will consider not pressing this amendment to a Division.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North in pressing the case for amendment 10, or at least seeking an explanation about why antisocial behaviour is not included in the clause, given the undertakings made by the Minister’s predecessors. I admit that there have been a few of them, and catching up can sometimes be a little difficult—institutional memory dissipates swiftly these days on the Government Benches.

I urge the Minister to take another look at this issue, because the essential point that has been made by Opposition Members is reflected in my constituency experience. Believe it or not, Sir Edward, it is 26 years since I was first elected, although it does not seem that long. Some of the most distressing constituency cases that I have ever had to deal with relate to antisocial behaviour, as it is somewhat underwhelmingly called.

When the former Victims’ Commissioner gave evidence to the Committee, she was correct in noting that some of the individual bits of behaviour that make up what we call antisocial behaviour are indeed crimes. She made reference to criminal damage, assault and battery, which are very familiar. Perhaps an individual incident would not be enough to meet the threshold that most of our police forces use these days for deciding whether to proceed against individual perpetrators, but as a course of behaviour over time, such incidents certainly add up to very serious crime. Over the years, I have had many instances in my constituency where that has undoubtedly been the case.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North set out using examples from her constituency, the impact on victims is very serious indeed. It is certainly more serious than what some victims, who would fall within the definition in other instances, have experienced. Many of the people who perpetrate antisocial behaviour against their neighbours are lawless in other ways, and they are often on the radar of the police for other reasons. If they are not, they are frequently on the radar of other agencies, and the only way to deal with some of these people is to get everybody together to problem solve.

My concern is twofold. First, leaving those who are subject to antisocial behaviour out of the definition of “victim” suggests a hierarchy. Victims are often told by police and other agencies, “Oh, it’s below the threshold”; “We can’t do anything about it”; “It’s a civil matter”; or, “It’s just a neighbour dispute.” They are frequently told that, when it is nothing of the sort. If we leave victims of antisocial behaviour out of the definition of “victim” when so many others are included, it reinforces the idea that legislators are not taking seriously the consequences for victims of antisocial behaviour, as opposed to the consequences of other types of crime for which we are legislating to improve victims’ rights.

[Janet Daby]

My right hon. Friend is making a great speech. If somebody is afraid, fearful or worried, or does not want to return home because of that, surely they are a victim and should be part of the victims code.

[Maria Eagle]

I very much agree. I have had constituents come to me who are in the most dreadful state as a consequence of repeated instances of antisocial behaviour, sometimes over many years. Sometimes it can take years until they come and see me, and I then have to say to them, “These are difficult issues to resolve. I’m going to try this, and I’m going to try that,” but I cannot say to them, “I’m going to get all the agencies together and force them to do something.” I have to expectation manage myself when they come to see me, because one knows from experience that it is just not possible to promise to solve these issues.

Perpetrators are canny, and one of the things they do is complain to the police first. For the citizen who has never broken the law and would never dream of inflicting this kind of behaviour on their neighbours, going to the police is a last resort, but for some perpetrators, going to the police is a first resort so they can induce the impression among the police that it is a dispute between neighbours.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech about the victim and the perpetrator’s actions. We see at first hand that there is no thought about the effect of the antisocial behaviour on the victim, who may be a veteran and may have post-traumatic stress disorder, so working across agencies is vital in supporting our constituents.

[Maria Eagle]

Indeed, and that is what usually happens. One of the cases that springs to my mind involves a veteran—I will not use the gentleman’s name—who for years has carried around a little rucksack with all the things he values in his life, including his service medals, so he can get away from the flat he lives in because he is worried about what the perpetrators might do. Although the issue has been going on for many years, I have not been able to deal with it to his or my satisfaction, even though some of the instances he has told me about have been quite awful. If he were to see that antisocial behaviour is not included in the Bill, and that it is seen as a lower level of crime—not even as crime—he would not be very impressed, quite frankly.

The right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire made the important point that the agencies are not doing their job, and I agree. It is like a hot potato: they say, “Oh, it is not for us,” and they send it to the police, who send it to the council, and nobody problem-solves. Obviously, the job of MPs is to try to knock a few heads together and get some problem solving going on to resolve an individual matter. We all do that, and in some instances we are successful, but with antisocial behaviour it is very difficult. The signal we are sending by leaving antisocial behaviour out of the definition of “victim” is that it is somehow below a threshold. The Bill will not encourage the agencies to up their game if they do not see that kind of behaviour in the definition of “victim”.

That is why I hope the Minister will have a think about the amendment. I know he will stand up and say, “Well, if it reaches the threshold of crime, it is included,” because he said that in respect of the previous two amendments. Of course, that is technically correct, but in the real world, where agencies are starved of resource and always have to ask, “Which issue should we deal with as a priority?” because they cannot deal with all of them, sending the signal that antisocial behaviour is not as important as something that comes above a different threshold and counts as crime means that it will be left out and these problems will not be solved. Our many constituents who suffer from serious antisocial behaviour—which does amount to crime, but try getting the police to handle it in that way—will be left feeling that they are second-class victims yet again. I do not think that is the intention behind the Bill and of legislating to put the overarching principles of the victims code into law. If the Minister cannot do something, that would be a regrettable omission. I hope he will give us some good news and say that he will implement the commitments made by his predecessors.

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[Maria Eagle]

That is one of the most important points. The victims are told that the police cannot do anything about it because it does not reach certain thresholds. When people understand that they may have rights that relate to being victims of crime, first, they will not have thought that they do—unless someone tells them—and secondly, they will ask the question, “If that is the case, how come the police aren’t doing something about the crime?” That is the conundrum. The Minister’s solution to the issue—not accepting the amendment—does not deal with it.

[Edward Argar]

The right hon. Lady makes two points. I suspect that in a number of cases the police will look at an offence and say, “We don’t think it meets the threshold for prosecution,” but that dextrous lawyers—we have some in Committee—could probably find a way to have it constitute a criminal offence and be prosecuted. Decisions on prosecutions, however, are made by the independent Crown Prosecution Service, based on the evidential threshold, the public interest and whether there is likely to be a conviction. I will not intervene or interfere in the CPS’s prosecution decisions.

Nevertheless, I am happy to work across the House to find a way to increase awareness. I do not believe that legislation and the amendment are the right approach, but there must be ways to increase awareness among victims that they are victims and among criminal justice agencies and others, so that they understand that, where a criminal offence has taken place, even if it is not prosecuted, individuals should be entitled to support.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Argar]

As the hon. Lady set out, amendment 46 would include persons who have suffered harm as a direct result of being a child of a person who poses a sexual risk to children, for example a paedophile, in the definition of a victim. I am grateful to her for raising this important issue and I reassure her that the Government absolutely sympathise with the challenges faced by the unsuspecting families of sex offenders and those who pose a sexual risk to children.

If family members in these circumstances have witnessed criminal conduct, they are of course already covered by the Bill’s definition of a victim—that is, if they have been harmed by seeing, hearing or otherwise directly experiencing the effect of the crime at the time the crime happened. I think the hon. Lady would like to go somewhat more broadly, to those who may not have been there at the time or have directly witnessed the crime, but who may still suffer the impacts of that criminal behaviour. I know that she is interested in support more broadly for the families of offenders and those impacted.

As the hon. Lady rightly said, that cohort would not come within our definition of a victim, which is deliberately crafted in both the Bill and the victims code to be designed for those who have been harmed directly by the crime in question and therefore need the broader entitlements in the code to navigate the criminal justice system, as well as to receive support. On this occasion, therefore, I must resist the broadening of the scope of clause 1 that the amendment would bring.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Justice Committee, in its pre-legislative scrutiny of the clause, did ask the Government to extend the coverage of these provisions to include children born of rape as secondary victims, and they responded positively. Is there a difference between the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham made for the children of paedophiles and the concession—that is the wrong word for it; it is technically correct, but I am not trying to suggest that the Government have given in—made in accepting the Justice Committee’s suggestion that children born of rape should be included? Is there a technical difference, because I am failing to see it at the moment?

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[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 44, in clause 2, page 2, line 18, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—

“(a) should be provided with information from all state agencies with responsibilities under the victims’ code, including the NHS, to help them understand the criminal justice process and beyond, including grant of leave or discharge.”

This amendment would extend the principle that victims should be given information about the criminal justice process to explicitly include the NHS, in order to bring mental health tribunal decisions in line with the rest of the criminal justice system.

I tabled amendment 44—and amendment 45, which we will come to later—because victims of serious crime committed by mentally disordered offenders currently do not get the same rights and entitlements as victims of offenders who are not mentally disordered. I apologise for the clunky terminology. Amendment 44 is vital, as critical information is often withheld from victims when the offender is mentally disordered.

In diminished responsibility cases, the psychiatric evidence is often considered and agreed in private by the Crown Prosecution Service without any meaningful disclosure to the victims. In those cases, there is often no trial, just a brief sentencing hearing where the evidence is not examined or tested in open court, which leaves victims completely in the dark. Often, offenders in such cases will have been patients of local NHS mental health trusts, which will have conducted their own investigations into the care and treatment of the offender. Many of those investigations are not shared with the families as they should be, with NHS trusts often ignoring official national NHS guidance without sanction. NHS trusts seem unaware of their responsibilities and duties to victims under the victims code.

I am speaking about the issue from personal experience. I have worked with the brilliant charity Hundred Families on this amendment, as well as amendment 45, because it has been supporting a bereaved family in my constituency that has been affected by this type of case. In February 2022, my constituent’s son, Paul Reed, was murdered on a ward in Rotherham Hospital by a fellow patient. Although there is clear NHS guidance requiring the trusts to investigate serious incidents, the hospital did not even consider Paul’s murder a serious incident. Initially, the hospital claimed that it had done a full investigation but would not share it with the family; then it turned out that it had not done an investigation at all. It required many letters, and finally my direct involvement, to get it to start a proper investigation.

That case, like others, shows that the Bill needs specifically to include the NHS to get it to take its duties to victims seriously. This is, sadly, a widespread issue; I know that Committee members have direct experience of it with their constituents. There are around 100 to 120 mental health-related homicides in the UK each year. In December 2022, there were 4,580 restricted patients —mentally disordered offenders who have committed serious crimes and are considered dangerous—in psychiatric hospitals in England and Wales. Around 2,979 restricted patients are discharged every year, although 268 were recalled to hospital according to the latest figures from 2020.

There is a very high rate of reoffending by such patients on their release. A recent long-term academic study found that 44% of offenders discharged from a medium-secure psychiatric unit were reconvicted following release, mostly for assault. Nearly 30% were convicted of a grave offence such as robbery, arson, wounding, attempted murder or rape. Another study of patients released from high-secure psychiatric wards found that 38% were reconvicted, 26% of them for serious offences. These are very sensitive cases that may raise broader concerns about processes, but victims and families deserve access to information, just as they would if the case went through the criminal justice system.

The amendment would ensure that the NHS is explicitly included among agencies that have a duty to inform victims of decisions made about an offender. I genuinely cannot understand why that is not happening now, and I really hope that the Minister will address that serious oversight. These families have already experienced immense grief and shock. They must be able to remain informed about the case, just as they would if the offender did not have any mental health issues.

[Maria Eagle]

I rise briefly to support my hon. Friend’s amendment. She has touched on an important point: the difference in treatment between offenders who end up in jail and those who end up in some form of secure hospital or mental health unit. That is something that struck me when I was a Minister at the MOJ, in what now seems like the dim and distant past—in fact, it is.

The main reason for the difference is that the offender in the mental health hospital or secure unit is treated by clinicians, who have that person’s clinical recovery at the core of what they do. They are very much focused on that and not so much on the broader issues of public safety, as would be the case in the criminal justice system, in the prison and at the Parole Board. I am not saying that clinicians do not consider those issues at all; I am saying that the focus is different.

Therein lies one of the reasons for the difference that my hon. Friend’s amendment highlights: the focus is on getting the individual who is in mental health provision up on their feet and back out operating in society, rather than on the broader public safety issues that may arise from that person’s being back out and about. Putting such an obligation on health service organisations is the kind of prompt that would make clinicians—and treating clinicians in particular—think a little more about the broader issues, instead of focusing entirely on the recovery of their patient.

One can understand why a clinician focuses on the recovery of their patient. I am not criticising that, but often there is not the overview of the broader public safety implication of any decision. I hope that the Minister, with his very open mind, which he has already demonstrated today, will consider that there is an issue here, and that there has been for many years. Depending on the kind of offence, it is easy to end up in either mental health provision or jail; some offenders could end up in either, yet the way they are treated can be very different, as can the reasons that decisions are made.

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[Edward Argar]

I will turn to non-compliance and why we believe that the approach that we have set out in the clause is the right one. I suspect that Opposition Members may take a different view, but after making a little progress, I will hopefully address some of their points—whether or not to their satisfaction.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister give way again, before he goes on? I am not seeking to try his patience.

[Edward Argar]

I cannot say no to the right hon. Lady.

[Maria Eagle]

Dame Vera Baird, the former Victims’ Commissioner, said in evidence:

“There is a statistic—from 2020, I think—that 70% of people who have been through the criminal justice system as victims have never heard of the victims code. We used Office for National Statistics data in 2021 and showed that 80% of victims who had gone through the entire criminal justice system had never heard of the victims code. The first code was in 2006, so it has been completely ignored for 18 years.”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 20 June 2023; c. 29, Q66.]

How will the Minister’s wording tackle that better than beefing up the language in the Bill would?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, but there is a slight difference between her two points. That survey refers to the number of victims who were not aware of the code; that does not necessarily mean that their rights were not available to them, or even that they were not given to them. They may not have seen it through the prism of the victims code, but they may have been kept informed. She is right to highlight that under Governments of all political complexions there is more to do in driving this, but the key point that that evidence points to is the importance of raising awareness of the code, ensuring that people know it exists and understand what it can do for them. As we progress through the other clauses, I suspect that we will touch on how we can do more on that. Raising awareness of the code’s existence and what is in it is the crucial first step to empowering people to request, push for and demand their rights under it.

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[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 49, in clause 2, page 2, line 19, at end insert

“in a language or format that they can understand;”.

As the Minister predicted, this amendment dovetails nicely into his remarks. The prominence of right to understand and be understood in the code is genuinely welcome and has the potential to significantly improve the experiences of victims who speak English as a second or additional language—EAL. However, for these basic rights to be upheld and to make meaningful change, they must be enforceable. It is therefore vital that they are enshrined in more detail in primary legislation. In particular, the entitlements underpinning the right to understand and be understood must be enshrined more directly in the Bill.

Failing to address and respond to communication barriers could risk the police having incomplete information and evidence from victims due to a lack of support to ensure that they are understood. SignHealth has highlighted a case where a deaf victim did not want their family to be involved and requested to make her disclosure outside of the home. Instead of having the conversation at the station, the officer took a statement from a British Sign Language user in their car, using a pen, paper and gestures. She was left vulnerable and unable to fluently express herself. When she attended a meeting with the police, no support or interpretation services were provided. She was handed a “no further action” letter that provided no rationale. She had no understanding of what the letter meant and had to struggle to use Google Translate to understand the decision. Such examples highlight how failing to respond to communication barriers can also result in cases not being adequately investigated, and subsequently closed.

It is deeply concerning that statutory bodies are enabling perpetrators to exploit these vulnerabilities and to keep controlling victims while remaining unpunished themselves. Amendment 49 is essential to ensure that all victims can access information in a language or format they can understand. It is crucial that this is explicitly on the face of the Bill, because if a victim cannot understand the information provided, their rights have not been met.

Currently, spoken language is not recorded systematically within the criminal justice system. There is no accurate data available on the number of victims who speak EAL. There is also evidence that criminal justice practitioners often make do with alternative forms of support, such as the use of Google Translate, which victims report to be much less helpful than professional language support. The absence of interpretation provision has been linked to a number of adverse outcomes, ranging from inaccurate statements being taken to a negative effect on victims’ wellbeing and trust in the police. This is not acting in the best interests of the victim and does not enable us to achieve justice, so I hope the Minister will focus on these issues.

[Maria Eagle]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham for tabling the amendment. It is very easy to forget about disabled people in our public services, and there is an obligation under the Equality Act 2010 to provide access to public services in a way that works for disabled people, which can often involve proper translations or formats. Given that disabled people are disproportionately victims of crime, it is particularly incumbent on us, when considering the victims code, to make sure that it is accessible to those who are likely to benefit from it or who could benefit from it. The more vulnerable a victim is, the more likely they are to benefit from proper access to the rights in the code and the support it provides. It would be an omission if we did not make it clear.

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[Sarah Champion]

There is also a common misunderstanding that deaf people will be able to understand information in written form, but English is not their first language—British Sign Language is—and we have now rightly recognised it as a language in its own right. They are being asked to read something in a second language that they may or may not be competent in.

[Maria Eagle]

Absolutely: prelingually deaf people in particular do not have English as a first language. British Sign Language is their first language and we cannot just assume that they will be able to read written English in the same way in which they could understand proper sign language interpretation. That is a misunderstanding and a lack of awareness on the part of those who provide services. If we do not make it clear that access has to be provided, with reasonable adjustments to ensure that deaf people can understand what is being said and can exercise their rights, we will not be doing a proper job.

It is all too easy to think about this as an added extra—that it would be good if we had enough money in the budget to translate the victims code into different languages—but translating the code is an essential part of ensuring that it is implemented and usable by many victims. If we do not do this, we will not have the success that we all hope for from putting the principles underlying the code into legislation. We can have as much flexibility as we like by not putting the draft code into primary legislation, but we need to make sure it is accessible to those who need it. The amendment is important. It is not a nice added extra: it is an essential part of ensuring proper awareness and that the victims code is usable and benefits those who need it to access their rights and to be able to deal with the criminal justice system as victims.

[Edward Argar]

Amendment 49 would amend the first principle of the victims code, which says that victims should be provided with information to help them to understand the criminal justice process, to state that the code should be provided in a format or language required for a victim to understand.

The victims code includes an entitlement—indeed, it is the very first entitlement—for victims to be able to understand and to be understood. The right states:

“You have the Right to be given information in a way that is easy to understand and to be provided with help to be understood, including, where necessary, access to interpretation and translation services.”

Not only is it implicit in that that the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood and the hon. Member for Rotherham are addressed, but in the revised draft of the victims code that we have published, footnote 28 on page 15, which sets out right 1 in more detail, explicitly says that the right

“includes both spoken and non-spoken interpreting, for example if a victim is deaf or hard of hearing.”

It is there in the code not only implicitly, but explicitly, particularly in respect of the circumstances alluded to by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood.

We appreciate that the criminal justice process is complex and on occasion can appear impenetrable. The code is absolutely clear in right 1, which is “To be able to understand and to be understood”—

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Argar]

Amendments 27 and 28 are minor technical amendments that have been tabled to better meet our intention to prevent the victims code from interfering with independent prosecutorial decision making. Clause 2 sets out that the victims code cannot place requirements on relevant prosecutors in relation to their prosecutorial discretion. This is an important safeguard, which reflects our constitutional arrangements, and allows the code to set expectations in relation to service provider procedures and how they should treat victims, but not to interfere with prosecutorial discretion to make decisions in particular cases.

The Bill currently refers to a relevant prosecutor, which is defined under section 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and includes service providers such as the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. However, some other service providers under the current code also have a prosecutorial function and are not covered by the existing list, including bodies such as the Health and Safety Executive and the Competition and Markets Authority. These service providers have functions in relation to the investigation or prosecution of specific types of offences or offences committed in certain circumstances. To ensure all service providers are covered now and in the future, the amendment sets out that the code cannot interfere with prosecutorial discretion, regardless of which prosecutor is involved.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that there have been controversies surrounding private prosecutions—the Horizon scandal springs to mind—but that there are also other private prosecutors who in individual cases might decide to take prosecutions. Will these amendments do enough to cover all of them?

[Edward Argar]

My understanding is that they will, but will the right hon. Lady allow me to confirm that? If at any point I have inadvertently misled the Committee, I will make a correction in the usual way.

Clause 2 provides the legal framework for the victims code and places an obligation on the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice setting out the services to be provided to victims by different parts of the criminal justice system. It also sets out the overarching principles that the victims code must reflect. These are the principles that victims should: be provided with information to help them understand the criminal justice process; be able to access services which support them, including specialist services; have the opportunity to make their views heard; and be able to challenge decisions that directly affect them. We know that those principles are important for victims, and our consultation showed us that most respondents believe them to be the right ones to focus on.

Placing those overarching principles in legislation will send a clear signal about what victims can and should expect from agencies within the criminal justice system. This will help to future-proof the code and ensure that it continues to capture the key services that victims can expect, while still allowing a degree of flexibility in the code itself. We have retained the more detailed victims’ entitlements in the code, as this offers a more flexible way to ensure that they can be kept up to date, rather than by placing them in primary legislation on the face of the Bill. Agencies are already expected to deliver the entitlements in the code and they will be required to justify any departure from it if challenged by victims or by the courts.

To safeguard the topics that the code should cover, the clause allows for regulations to be made about the code. We will use the 12 key entitlements contained in the current code to create a framework for the new code and regulations. This will enhance parliamentary oversight of the code by setting the structure out in secondary legislation, and will allow more flexibility than primary legislation to make any necessary changes in the future if the needs of victims require changes in policies or operational practices. The power to make regulations has appropriate safeguards set out in the clause, in that regulations can only be made using this power if the Secretary of State is satisfied that they will not result in significant weakening of the code in terms of the quality, extent or reach of services provided.

Rather than specifying the details of particular entitlements for particular victims, the clause allows the code flexibility to make different provision for different groups of victims or for different service providers. That means they can be tailored appropriately, such as to provide for the police to give certain information more quickly to vulnerable or intimidated victims. We have published a draft of the updated victims code as a starting point for engagement, and will consult on an updated victims code after the passage of the Bill, so that it can reflect issues raised during parliamentary consideration.

Finally, the clause makes it clear that the code relates to services for victims and cannot be used to interfere with judicial or prosecutorial decision making. That will protect the independence of the judiciary, Crown Prosecution Service and other prosecutors in relation to the decisions they make in individual cases. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Amendment 27 agreed to.

Amendment made: 28, in clause 2, page 3, leave out lines 18 and 19.—(Edward Argar.)

See the explanatory statement to Amendment 27.

Clause 2, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Preparing and issuing the victims’ code

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Ninth sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie.

Clause 16 raises the profile of the Victims’ Commissioner, a vital and powerful voice for victims. Previous office holders—we have spoken of them in previous sittings: Louise Casey, Helen Newlove and Vera Baird—have all been dedicated in speaking up for the needs of all victims and witnesses, especially the most vulnerable.

The Victims’ Commissioner plays a crucial role in advising national policymaking, raising awareness of the common issues faced by victims and witnesses, conducting research, and assessing how the criminal justice and victim support agencies comply with the code. However, in the 2021 victims consultation, we heard that the commissioner requires further powers to effectively carry out their duties.

The clause introduces a requirement for the Victims’ Commissioner to lay their annual report in Parliament, which will give greater prominence to the report and amplify victims’ voices. It also bolsters the status of all Victims’ Commissioner reports by requiring Departments and agencies under the remit of the Victims’ Commissioner to respond to recommendations directed at them in all published reports within 56 days. They must say what action they plan to take in response to the report or explain why no action will be taken.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Edward Argar]

I will, but I suspect that I know the question.

[Maria Eagle]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so early in his remarks. Does he agree that for a Victims’ Commissioner to be effective, they have to be in post? Can he give us an update on how the recruitment of Dame Vera Baird’s successor is going? There has now been a gap between Dame Vera leaving and whoever the new postholder is to be taking up their post.

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[Edward Argar]

When I see my hon. Friend rise to ask a question, I always look at him with a degree of trepidation, because he knows of which he speaks, having for many years served in the youth justice system. He is right that, as well as the judiciary being independent, and that independence being, quite rightly, jealously protected, so too are individual prosecution decisions by the CPS. His Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate, exactly as he says, has the potential to make a huge impact here, because we often hear from many victims that the court stage of the process of seeking justice can be very challenging for them. The clauses will ensure that victims’ issues are comprehensively assessed, with associated action plans driving improvements so that victims receive the service they deserve.

[Maria Eagle]

I am having a look again at the report of the Justice Committee—the pre-legislative scrutiny of what has ended up being the first part of the Bill. The Select Committee raised the issue that the general difficulty that inspectorates have relates to having levers available to them to ensure that their recommendations, if they are even accepted, are implemented. The inspectorates all use different methodologies. I wonder whether the Government have developed any plans to ensure that the inspections that he is legislating for give levers to the inspectorates, so that we do not merely get what often happens now, which is repeated reports making the same points, with the inspectorates having no way, even if their recommendations are accepted, of ensuring that anything is done about them.

[Edward Argar]

The right hon. Lady makes a couple of important points. First, on the different methodologies, while I expect that we will want to see consistency in the application of principles to them, I suspect that, by the nature of what they are inspecting and the independence of each of the inspectorates, there will be some tailoring and divergence in how they operate in terms of their inspections.

On the right hon. Lady’s broader point, which I think was the thrust of her intervention, and the PLS point about how inspectorates get traction with their recommendations, we have set out in debates that we would expect the recommendations to be responded to and acted upon, but ultimately it will be for those who are accountable for running the individual services, be they Ministers, the Director of Public Prosecutions, or ultimately the Attorney General in the case of the CPS, to heed those recommendations and act on them.

I think that it is right that Ministers respond to, for example, the recommendations of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, which answers directly to the Prisons Minister, and ultimately to the Secretary of State, but it would not necessarily be appropriate if Ministers were compelled to enact every recommendation without consideration. It is right that there is a degree of agency for the Secretary of State, for which of course they are accountable to this House and to hon. Members.

I suspect that if there were sensible recommendations to be made and a Secretary of State ignored them, the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood would be one of the first to challenge them on the matter in this House. I think the provision strikes an appropriate balance. Any Secretary of State or agency head who did not give careful consideration to the recommendations of an inspectorate would be—“reckless” is the wrong word, so let’s say “courageous”, in the language of Sir Humphrey.

To conclude, the clauses require the inspectorates to consult the Victims’ Commissioner when developing their inspection programmes and frameworks. That will ensure that the commissioner can advocate for what matters most to victims, with their invaluable insight considered throughout the consultation process. Centring the victim experience in this way will promote positive change across the criminal justice agencies that are inspected. I commend the clauses to the Committee.

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[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance for, I think, the first time, Mr Hosie. It is not so much that I want to make a speech; it is just that I feel compelled to say thank you to the Minister for moving on this issue.

In the 10 years I have been an MP, I have always felt quite compromised by being another level of the bureaucracy slowing down my constituents in getting through to an ombudsman-type person. That has always felt odd and inappropriate, and it gives false hope and a false understanding that MPs have some involvement in this process. It also took away another tool, but now we can act as lobbyists, as well as having the commissioner in place.

It is good to hear that the individual will have responsibility in terms of the victims code, because we keep asking about accountability and how to make sure the code is applied in an even-handed way geographically. I warmly welcome this change, which is well overdue, and I am glad the Bill is bringing it forwards.

[Maria Eagle]

I also approve of the fact that the MP filter is going, but it has had some advantages. They have, perhaps, paled in comparison with the disadvantages, but I have always found when assisting constituents that the filter makes it possible to ensure that the application is in a fit state. It is not always easy these days to get separate advice—a lot of the advice agencies are not operating in the way they were—and I have frequently seen constituents’ applications that could be better set out and, perhaps, that could make the points that I know about, because I know the case, more persuasively. I think there is an issue about quality in that sense.

I know that the ombudsman is set up to find out what has really gone on and treat the person making the application fairly, but it is constrained by what is written in the application and the documents that have been sent. Many people who want to complain are very involved in their case and do not necessarily put it in the strongest possible manner.

In the past, I have not referred cases to the ombudsman when it has been absolutely clear to me that they will not succeed. In part, that is because, in a way, I am in a better position to explain to my constituent why they will not succeed and to make sure that they do not have false hope. I am clear with them that I am not going to send a case forward to the ombudsman if I absolutely know that it will not succeed, because that will not do them any favours. One can imagine that more cases may come to the ombudsman that are not going to succeed.

[Sarah Champion]

I hear my right hon. Friend’s point about being that first filter, but does she think it is fair that we are put in that position? I understand what she says about cases going forward that might not be appropriate, but I have never felt easy about that being my role.

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[Maria Eagle]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point. Indeed, when I first came into Parliament many moons ago, that was how it worked; it was just one of those roles that one had, and so one tried to make the best of it. If there is a chance of deterring a case that has absolutely no chance of success and is not going to help the constituent concerned because it is inevitable that they will not get what they want, then perhaps having the MP there to explain it helps. There is no doubt that one can become a lightning rod for annoyance in those circumstances, and that is not a happy place to be.

I prefaced my remarks by saying that I approve of the MP filter going, but I think that there is an issue here that a greater number of cases that are less well prepared and have no chance of succeeding may go forward to the ombudsman. I wonder what the Minister is going to do, both on providing resources for the parliamentary commissioner and on providing the public with information and, perhaps, other ways of getting advice in completing applications, to ensure that the intent of this positive legislative change will not be overshadowed by some of its potential consequences.

[Edward Argar]

I also met Rob Behrens, the ombudsman, and I pay tribute to him and his team for their work. I am pleased by the broad consensus in the Committee. I note what the shadow Minister said; all I will say is that I am bringing this measure forward and that I am grateful for her support.

I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her kind words. It is always a pleasure to do political business with her, if I may put it that way. I sometimes wish that some of what happens in Committee Rooms was rather better publicised. People watch Prime Minister’s questions and think that is everything that happens, whereas in fact there is quite a lot of constructive to and fro in rooms such as this when we are seeking to improve legislation.

As ever, the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood makes a very important point. When we seek to change or influence something in this place, there is rarely a simple, binary choice between an unadulterated good, without any downsides, and an unadulterated bad, without any upsides. On balance, I believe that we are taking the right approach and that the positives significantly outweigh the negatives, but she is right to highlight the challenges. Not only can a Member of Parliament sometimes help to strengthen an application before it is made, but it can be useful to an MP to see applications so that they know if there is an issue. If there are suddenly two or three about the same organisation and the same issue, that aids Member of Parliament in standing up in the House to challenge a Minister, or to hold an agency to account about what may be a more systemic problem.

That said, I do not think that the approach that we are adopting would preclude someone from seeking advice from a Member of Parliament if they so wished as they prepared their form. Some of my constituents have found the ombudsman service quite helpful, not in prejudging a case but in giving some pretty good advice when they ask, “What do I need to submit with it?” There is also some pretty good advice on the service’s website.

Ultimately, the clause should make it easier for people to complain, but I agree with the right hon. Lady that we need to provide support to ensure that they can make their best complaint, if that makes sense, to the ombudsman, in order to give them the best chance of having it looked at in the best possible light. I will take away the point that she makes, and reflect on whether we can do more as Government, and as parliamentarians, to promote awareness of the PHSO route, and how we might better support people in going through it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12

Duty to collaborate in exercise of victim support functions

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

The amendment is supported by the Centre for Social Justice, which identified that the duty to collaborate must cover support services for victims of modern slavery. Local authorities, the police and the NHS are all key agencies that come into contact with victims of modern slavery, and have a role to play in supporting them, alongside specialist programmes such as the national referral mechanism. That can range from immediate emergency support and protection to providing longer-term social care support or housing. There is a particular gap for victims before and after their contact with the NRM, and the lack of support often means that they have to choose between being destitute and going back to their exploiter.

Local authorities are the primary agency providing care and support for children, and only some children receive the additional support of independent child trafficking guardians. However, there is often confusion among local authorities about their responsibilities for supporting modern slavery victims. There is also often a lack of co-ordination with specialist support providers under the Home Office modern slavery victim care contract. Victims are passed from pillar to post, unable to access the support they need.

Police often find modern slavery victims out of hours, when access to other services is limited. Clear, joined-up strategies for supporting victims of modern slavery would help prevent those victims being placed in unsuitable and unsafe accommodation after being identified by the police—that is, of course, if the police identify them as a victim of modern slavery. A lack of clear and joined-up referral pathways can mean that victims of criminal exploitation, especially young people exploited in county lines drug dealing, find themselves arrested, rather than safeguarded and therefore given support.

The gaps in support provision particularly impact British victims of modern slavery. In 2022, the highest number of British “possible victims” were identified since the NRM began. One in five NRM referrals in 2022 was for a British child. It is essential that we get the support for that group of victims right. Research suggests that many British victims in particular are not accessing specialist support available under the NRM, either because they are not identified as victims of modern slavery as they or the professionals have misunderstood their entitlement to support, or because they choose not to be referred. That leaves them without access to specialist support, and their particular needs may not be recognised by mainstream providers.

The definition of victims in clause 12 lacks clarity in respect of modern slavery victims. Some modern slavery victims are victims of other offences listed in clause 12(4), such as sexual offences or serious violence. However, modern slavery can also result from threats, deception, and financial control and coercion, which may not meet the threshold of serious violence. The particular needs and experiences of modern slavery victims need to be considered in strategies, assessments and the exercise of support functions. That is best accomplished by listing those victims in the duty to collaborate.

Explicitly including modern slavery victims in the duty to collaborate would address local authorities’ confusion and lack of awareness of their responsibilities to support victims of modern slavery. It would strengthen the implementation of the modern slavery statutory guidance. It would lead to stronger local co-ordination by the police, the NHS and councils when it comes to identifying support needs, providing support and monitoring the recovery of modern slavery victims. It would also help ensure that British victims who do not enter the NRM receive appropriate support that recognises and responds to their needs and experience of exploitation.

We cannot let more vulnerable people slip through the gaps in local service provision. A joined-up approach to tackling modern slavery is needed, and I truly believe that amendment 82 will facilitate that.

[Maria Eagle]

I rise to support all the amendments, but I will briefly say something about amendment 19. We have all come across extremely distressing cases of fraud in our constituency. In 2012—10 years ago—2,629 people were jailed for fraud, but last year the figure was 1,177. However, the number of offences rose from 441,000 in 2012 to 3.7 million last year.

There has been an absolute explosion in that type of offence, and there are consequently many more victims, who often lose their life savings and their future security. Almost nothing is done for them. They are simply left to feel as though they have been duped and are stupid, and nobody seeks to help them. Normally, they do not even get any kind of response from Action Fraud, which is like a black hole; once a report is made to Action Fraud, the person who made it never hears from Action Fraud again. It is hard enough for a Member of Parliament to get a letter out of Action Fraud about a particular case.

Given the explosion in the number of fraud cases, it is surely important for the Government to take this issue seriously, and to recognise that the people involved are victims, who need support, just as any other victims do. I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will give an assurance that much more will be done to recognise that victims of fraud need the support that this Bill seeks to give to victims.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank the organisations Inquest, Hillsborough Law Now and Justice for working with me on these amendments. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood, who has shown such steadfast commitment in the fight for justice for the families of Hillsborough through so many years. I am sure that it brings a lot comfort to those families to know that they have a fierce advocate in this place.

My right hon. Friend first introduced her Public Advocate Bill to Parliament in 2016. It has subsequently been blocked 15 times in the past two Sessions—

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Twenty-two!

[Anna McMorrin]

Twenty-two times—I thank my right hon. Friend for the correction. Furthermore, I put on the record my tribute to Lord Wills, who has twice attempted to legislate for an independent advocate, in 2014 and 2015. I hope that the Minister today has come with a different approach, will heed the words of my colleagues and will co-operate with regard to the issues raised by my right hon. Friend.

I also put on the record that Labour stands unequivocally with the Hillsborough families. We have called repeatedly for the Hillsborough law; making it a reality will be a priority of a Labour Government.

I state my bitter disappointment that we have reached the debate on part 2 of the Bill, yet the Government have still not responded to the report of the Right Rev. James Jones, “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”, published six years ago in 2017. That is truly intolerable.

Part 2 of the Bill must ensure that lessons are learned and that never again will families bereaved by public disaster have to endure smear campaigns against their loved ones. Families must never again have to spend three decades campaigning to get truth and justice. Unamended, however—this is where my amendments come in—part 2 falls woefully short of that. There will be more public disasters—since Hillsborough, to name but a few, there has been the Westminster terror attack, the Manchester Arena terror attack and the Grenfell Tower fire.

Lord Wills, Minister of State for Justice from 2007 to 2010, stated in evidence that the Bill was fundamentally flawed. The proposals for the independent public advocate fail in the Justice Secretary’s aim. The Justice Secretary said that

“to deliver justice, victims must be treated not as mere spectators of the criminal justice system, but as core participants in it.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 583.]

However, the proposals do not give the bereaved families effective agency. Instead, as Lord Wills said:

“the Bill gives the Secretary of State unfettered powers to appoint an independent public advocate or not to do so, and unfettered powers to dismiss an independent public advocate.”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 91, Q176.]

Lord Wills went even further, stating that the Secretary of State will have “too much unfettered discretion”.

Amendments 20 and 21 are aimed at correcting that issue, ultimately limiting the Secretary of State’s discretion over the appointment of an independent public advocate. It is deeply concerning that the clause does not require the Secretary of State to appoint an advocate; rather, the Secretary of State “may” do so. Without a duty on the Secretary of State always to appoint an advocate, some bereaved families may receive additional support to which other families are not entitled, worsening the inconsistencies that already exist in the post-death investigation system. That was rightly identified in 2021 by the Select Committee on Justice. For the advocate post to be effective, it should be a mandatory appointment with the duties and functions of the advocate arising in the event of a major disaster, rather than at the discretion of the Secretary of State.

It is equally concerning that the responsibility for declaring a major incident again lies with the Secretary of State. That cannot remain in the Bill. Amendment 21 would change the definition of “major incident” to ensure that a major incident is one where it causes the death of, or serious harm to, a significant number of individuals, rather than where it simply “appears to the Secretary of State” to have caused the death of, or serious harm to, a significant number of individuals. The discretion of the Secretary of State in both those matters is something that Opposition Members and stakeholders are deeply troubled by.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hosie. I begin by thanking my hon. Friend for her kind words about my long-standing efforts in respect of a public advocate, which arose out of my experience as a constituency MP seeking to represent some of the bereaved families of those who were killed at Hillsborough, and also survivors of Hillsborough—we often forget survivors. Many thousands of people in the ground on that day saw what happened and were subsequently pretty traumatised. Some have been in a terrible state for many years. I still meet people who tell me what happened to them on that day and say that they have never told anybody in the intervening 34 years.

One can imagine the state that some of the people are in in terms of their mental health, particularly when there has been a cover-up that has lasted for so many years seeking to blame fans for what happened, rather than an acceptance of responsibility. We must remember that within four months of the disaster, the first interim report of the first public inquiry placed responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the police, which they never accepted and then chose to campaign to overturn.

When I first met my constituents as an MP in 1997—I had known some of them before as a lawyer—the first thing they said to me was that the police had used the inquest to overturn the Taylor inquiry. Of course, I had the lawyer’s response and said, “No, inquests have a different purpose”, but I quickly understood what they meant when I saw what had happened.

In reality, the cover-up at Hillsborough began on the day and was then pursued at great cost and expense using taxpayers’ money over decades. In fact, at the second inquest, the same points were put by the police lawyers. Even now one hears similar arguments being put: “It was the Liverpool fans; they were ticketless; they were drunk. They pushed their way into the ground and killed their own.” One even hears it in the chants, which, mercifully, the Football Association is now trying to deal with. “Tragedy chanting”, as it is known, is done to Liverpool fans at grounds all over the country. That kind of issue resonates for decades for many thousands of people. That is why I am convinced we as a society must seek to get the aftermath of disasters right.

If we can stop things going wrong—as wrong as they have with Hillsborough—we can save a lot of money and a lot of heartache. We can certainly make sure that the families of those killed in disasters, who suddenly face the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of publicity, do not also have to deal with public authorities’ intent on not getting at the truth and finding out what happened to the families’ loved ones, or not supporting them in every way possible, and in some cases trying to blame them for what happened. In all the cases that I have come across, the authorities try to make sure that they do not get the blame. That defensiveness often drives the behaviour of public authorities in the aftermath of disasters.

That is why I rise to support amendments 20 and 21, which were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North. Clause 24 gives total discretion to the Secretary of State, and there is no requirement about what he should consider in making the appointment and no requirement that he should consult those affected.

My experience of having to deal with disasters as a constituency MP does not just include the Hillsborough disaster. There have been others: the MV Derbyshire disaster happened long before I became an MP, the Alder Hey organ scandal was another that I had to deal with, and I have constituents affected by the Manchester Arena bombing. A number of other disasters have happened during my time in this House. One issue is always the same: the Secretary of State gaining the trust of those affected is an incredibly important part of ensuring that things do not go wrong.

The Secretary of State should be required to appoint an advocate, thus removing his discretion. We will have an argument—a discussion—later about whether the advocate should be a standing appointment. On balance, I think it should be, but if it is to be an ad hoc appointment, the Secretary of State should not have discretion about whether to appoint when there has been a major incident. There should always be an appointment. I therefore support amendment 20.

There is also an issue about how we define “major incident”. I always think of these things as public disasters in which a number of people have died—that is my definition—but the Government have chosen to define it slightly differently. No doubt the Minister can enlighten us about precisely how the Government see the interpretation of that phrase.

Anything that can give families some comfort that the Secretary of State is acting in their interests, not with unfettered powers and not without having to discuss things with them, would be an advance on the current drafting. For those reasons, I support the amendments.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

At the outset, I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood for her campaigning on this issue over many years on behalf of not only her constituents, but others whom she has probably never met but who look to her for the leadership that she has shown. They will be grateful for everything that she has done. I also pay tribute to her for the tone that she consistently adopts, which is measured and reasonable.

The right hon. Lady and I had the opportunity to meet, and she introduced me to one of her constituents, whom we subsequently saw before the Committee. The right hon. Lady highlighted the issues of agency and transparency and why the families, having been through all that they have been through, approach these matters in a particular way and have the perspective that they do. We have talked about Hillsborough. Of course, this applies, in recent times, to Grenfell and Manchester Arena, and the survivors and the families of the victims of those horrific events. I also pay tribute to Lord Wills and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for her work on this issue.

I hope that there is agreement across this Committee Room today on a determination to get it right. There may be discussion about what getting it right looks like, and there may be differences of opinion on that. However, this is a genuine opportunity for this House, for this Parliament, to do something of huge import, notwithstanding the fact that there may be areas where we disagree or approach the issue from slightly different perspectives. There should be a fair degree of consensus and a determination to get the right outcome.

I preface my remarks on all these amendments and clauses with this: I look forward to our discussions today, but I also look forward to the opportunity, where there are areas where we do not coalesce around a single approach, to use the summer recess and beyond, before the Bill comes back on Report, to work with the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, and others to see whether we can move closer together during those months. I hope that the right hon. Lady will take me up on that offer to engage throughout the coming months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank the Minister for his tone in setting out how he is prepared to work with us through the summer to improve the Bill, and specifically on the amendments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood made heartfelt points about her conversations with constituents and the families impacted. We know that so many families have not had answers for so long, and it has touched many deeply. It goes far and wide across the country.

We tabled the two amendments because, as I set out in my argument, the Secretary of State has far too much discretion at the moment, which is deeply troubling. I therefore want to ensure that we work together to improve the clause and make it more robust, and to ensure that the Secretary of State does not have unfettered discretion. I will not push amendment 20 to a vote, but I appreciate that the Minister will work with us to make improvements. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Maria Eagle]

I beg to move amendment 65, in clause 24, page 18, line 35, at end insert—

“(1A) In doing so, the Secretary of State must have regard to—

(a) the views of bereaved families,

(b) the relative benefits of an Independent Public Advocate, a public inquiry, or an Independent Panel in relation to cost, timeliness, and transparency of the major incident in question,

(c) any wider public interest”

This amendment would ensure that in exercising the Secretary of State’s discretion as to whether an Independent Public Advocate should be appointed, the Secretary of State must consider the views of the bereaved families and the relatives of how best to get the truth of what happened in the major incident concerned in a timely fashion.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 66, in clause 24, page 19, line 8, at end insert—

“(4A) An individual may be appointed as an advocate in respect of a major incident only if the Secretary of State has consulted the victims of that incident.”

This amendment ensures that the families are consulted by the Secretary of State about who is an advocate.

[Maria Eagle]

I very much welcome the fact that clause 24 enables the Secretary of State to appoint an independent public advocate, no matter how much we might disagree about how we should do it—whether it should be a standing appointment or done on an ad hoc basis, precisely what functions the independent public advocate will have, how he ought to go about his role and, indeed, what that role ought to be. I think there are some differences in all those areas, but there are no differences between us about the fact that there ought to be an independent public advocate.

Across the Committee and the House, we have recognised that something about the aftermath of public disasters—the Minister calls them major incidents; I call them public disasters—is remiss. The way in which we as a society respond to them does not work at present. Although we can hope to minimise the number of disasters, we can never stop them entirely. There have been more since Hillsborough, and there have been more since I introduced my Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill to the Commons and Lord Wills introduced the Public Advocate Bill to the Lords. It would be best if we could get a better arrangement. We all agree on that; the issue is just about how.

The amendment has arisen from my 26 years’ experience of campaigning with the Hillsborough families and survivors to get to the truth of what happened on the day. Usually, families want to know what happened to their loved ones, especially if they have lost them. They want to know that it will not happen to anybody ever again, because they feel the deep distress and pain of having to deal with these issues in the public glare and on all the newspaper front pages. Going suddenly from nowhere to that is pretty hard for people, so they want to know that it will not happen again.

Families want to know that their loved ones have not been lost in vain and that lessons will be learned, and they want to be able to have faith that the investigations over the subsequent period will get to the truth and will not be some way of covering up what happened in order to excuse the feelings—and usually the pockets—of the public authorities that might have some responsibility for it.

The role and functions of the public advocate, as set out in the clause, do not quite accord with what I think is necessary, but I hope that we can agree in due course to improve the Bill so that it becomes a turning point, which it can be, in how we as a society deal with the aftermath of public disasters and the terrible burdens they place on those who become victims, rather than it being a missed opportunity. Clause 24(1) gives the Secretary of State discretion to

“appoint an individual to act as an independent public advocate for victims of a major incident”.

A “major incident” is defined in subsection (2). As we have already mentioned, the clause as currently drafted gives the Secretary of State total discretion about whether to appoint an advocate. Under subsection (4), the person may be appointed only if the Secretary of State considers the person “qualified” and “appropriate”. Subsection (5) details that the person may be qualified by virtue of qualifications, their relationship with a “geographical or other community” or “any other matter” the Secretary of State considers relevant. He has total discretion to consider whether and who to appoint.

Nothing in clause 24 gives any kind of say or agency to the victims of the disaster, whether they be families of the deceased or survivors. That is an omission, and a missed opportunity. At this early stage, the Secretary of State could give the families immediate reassurance—that what they think matters, that their feelings matter and that they have some kind of role in how the state is going to deal with what has happened. Families and survivors of major incidents and disasters often feel powerless in the aftermath as the processes of the state begin to grind forward. Inquiries, inquests—they grind into gear and it makes families feel done to, rather than a part of: they feel that they have no power or role in these matters.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making such a meaningful speech about putting victims first, at the heart of the process. For the independent advocate to really play their role, the victims need to have a say on whether an independent advocate needs to be appointed. The role is there primarily for the victims, not for the Secretary of State.

[Maria Eagle]

I agree with that. It is easy to lose trust, and it is hard to gain it; it is very hard to regain it once it is lost—that is my experience of these things.

I will give one example. When Jack Straw became Home Secretary in 1997, he was convinced that something needed to be done, in the aftermath of the drama-documentary “Hillsborough”, which raised some of the issues about what had gone wrong. We should remember that that was some eight years after the disaster—a long time ago, but only eight years after the disaster. A lot of things had already gone wrong in that time. He did not want to set up another public inquiry. What he came to was the Stuart-Smith scrutiny, which looked again at some evidence and reported back a year later.

When Lord Justice Stuart-Smith went to Liverpool to meet the families, the families had been misinformed about precisely which floor of the building he was on, so they were a few minutes late. He immediately made a joke about how they were late like the Liverpool fans on the day. That was not funny; it was crass in the extreme. It showed that he had taken on board utterly the police account of events. People may not know—some will—that a key part of the police smears about Hillsborough, to try to deflect the blame, was that Liverpool fans had turned up late. It immediately destroyed any credibility for that inquiry. The families thought very carefully about walking out and not co-operating with it. I am absolutely certain that there were ructions in the Home Office at the time about what should be done.

I use the example to illustrate the point that the families must have trust in the person and in how the state is to proceed if such an inquiry is to work. The failure of that inquiry wasted a year, upset the families very deeply and destroyed some of the credibility that the new Government of the time had with the families about what could be done to put matters in respect of Hillsborough right. The inquiry revealed one thing that was of use in the end, which was that statements had been altered by the police. That was the first inquiry that reported on that point, but Lord Justice Stuart-Smith did not think it important because it had not fooled Lord Justice Taylor. He was right in that respect; he was wrong in others. With one comment, the trust of the families were gone. They were obviously not consulted about who should head the inquiry. A judge was asked for, a judge was put forward, and that was the unfortunate consequence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

First, I should have said in response to the previous set of amendments that I am grateful to the shadow Minister for her tone on this part of the Bill and the way Opposition Front Benchers are approaching it. We may find that there remain, after Committee stage, some areas where we have differences, but I think it is incumbent on both sides of the House to work together, to the best of our ability, to try to find a way forward that delivers on our shared objectives.

The right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood mentioned Jack Straw in 1997. I can remember the Labour party coming to power in 1997—I had just finished my A-levels and left school at the time. I believe that that was when the right hon. Lady entered this House.

[Maria Eagle]

It seems just like yesterday.

[Edward Argar]

Therefore I am always sensitive to the depth of experience and knowledge that the right hon. Lady brings as a parliamentarian to these proceedings. I am very grateful to her for these amendments, which seek to give agency to the families bereaved by a major incident—or public disaster, to use her terminology—provide them with influence over who is appointed as an advocate, and specifically define criteria to which the Secretary of State must have due regard when appointing an advocate.

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the importance of trust and agency. First, on trust, we all know as politicians that it is very easy to very swiftly lose trust. It takes an awfully long time to rebuild it afterwards. That is why—this is my second point—she is absolutely right to highlight the importance of tone and language. In the aftermath of a major public disaster like the one that we have been discussing, particularly when it is many years down the line of—for want of a better way of putting it—having to fight the system to get the truth, people are, understandably, very sensitive to the language and tone, so I am sympathetic to the aims of these amendments. I want to say again that the Government do recognise the need to give families a voice and some sort of agency in decisions about the support that is provided.

My concern is that the practicalities of consulting families in the immediate aftermath of a disaster could be difficult, especially at a time when they are dealing with their immediate grief. At that point, they may not necessarily have coalesced into a support group—a single group or a number of groups—and may still be disparate individuals, with different views, who may not be in a position to compute what they might like to see in the future, because of the immediate consequences.

[Maria Eagle]

Perhaps a standing appointment is the answer, because such a person, who was there anyway, would be able immediately to spring into action and consult the families.

[Edward Argar]

This goes to my slight concern about the amendments. I am concerned that identifying and consulting bereaved families and victims, and trying to avoid missing anyone or people feeling that they did not have agency because they were not identified or engaged at the time, could risk delaying the IPA being appointed and support reaching victims. I take the right hon. Lady’s point, and I suspect that we will return to this when we talk about the nature of the appointment, but there are questions of timing and speed versus engagement, and how we would practically go about this. I know it is not the intention of the right hon. Lady, who wishes to ensure agency for families, and I am happy to continue our conversation to see if there is a way we can strike that balance between agency and engagement, but also avoid delay in practical terms. At present, victims would be able to make their representations to the Secretary of State, use their MPs and, ultimately, challenge a decision in court.

The Government intend to ensure that advocates are on the ground to provide support as swiftly as possible after a major incident. To ensure that support is tailored to a particular incident, our approach, which I suspect we will also debate later today, is to set up a register of advocates from a range of different professions, backgrounds and geographical areas. That will help to ensure that, as far as possible, those appointed have the necessary skills and expertise directly relevant to the incident in question or to the community or geography where it occurred. The views of the victims may well become apparent in the weeks following the appointment of an advocate and may have an important bearing on the appointment of a second or third advocate, or a team. One such advocate could, under the provisions as drafted, be put forward for appointment from the community affected by the major incident.

I recognise and understand the intent behind the amendments. In our conversations, the right hon. Lady has impressed on me just how important the sense of having agency and influence is for victims, survivors and families of victims in the aftermath of an incident. My concern is that there is a risk that the amendments could cause unnecessary delays in support reaching victims, which would run counter to the purpose of the IPA. None the less, given the right hon. Lady’s points about agency and the sense of powerlessness, I am happy to engage with her to see if there is a way that we can square the circle of timeliness, agency and engagement.

[Maria Eagle]

I do not intend to press the amendments to a vote. The Minister is being his usual constructive self, and I am sure that over the summer between all of us we will be able to rewrite the Bill so it looks a lot more like mine. [Laughter.] Sorry, I let that slip. We will be able to improve the Bill significantly so that it will do an appropriate and, hopefully, good job for those caught up in public disasters. On the basis of the Minister’s assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I accept his assurance that where it is in the public interest, declaring major incidents will be within the scope of the Secretary of State’s discretion. If I am wrong in that, perhaps he will intervene. I am grateful to him for putting that on record.

I would us to find a way to keep the focus on where there is a significant public interest—for example, when a relatively small number of people have died or suffered harm but the circumstances suggest serious systemic failings on the part of a public body. In those circumstances it would be in the public interest and lessons can be learned for the future. I hope we can move forward, as the Minister has given the assurance that an incident would be included, if that was in the public interest. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Maria Eagle]

I beg to move amendment 67, in clause 24, page 19, line 23, leave out “or close friends”.

This amendment would narrow the definition of “victim” to close family members of those who have died or suffered serious harm as a result of the incident and make more certain who falls within the definition.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 68, in clause 24, page 19, line 24, at end insert—

“(8) For the purposes of clause 24 (7), close family members means—

(a) a husband, wife or civil partner from a marriage or partnership that was in existence at the time of the event;

(b) a child;

(c) a grandchild;

(d) a parent;

(e) a sibling;

(f) a half-sibling;

(g) a grandparent;

(h) a niece or nephew;

(i) a half-aunt or half-uncle;

(j) a cohabitant with the deceased;

(k) the executor of the deceased’s last will and testament;”.

This amendment defines the meaning of close family member in clause 24.

[Maria Eagle]

Amendment 67 and 68 are probing amendments, which are intended to explore who the Government intend to be the recipient of help from the public advocate that they are establishing under the Bill.

Clause 24(7)(a) defines the victims who are to benefit from the service of the public advocate, once appointed, as

“individuals who have been harmed by the incident (whether or not that harm is serious harm)”.

That seems to mean survivors, who are certainly one group that the public advocate should aim to help, but subsection (7)(b) says that victims also include

“close family members or close friends of individuals who have died or suffered serious harm as a result of the incident.”

The paragraph does not define “close family members”; nor does it define “close friends”, which is a much more uncertain and ambiguous term than “close family members”, although there is uncertainty in both.

Suppose that I am a second cousin. Is that “close family”? What about an aunt who is particularly close to a niece who has unfortunately died. Is that close enough? Or does it depend on the specific relationship in each case? If so, is the close family member supposed to prove that a family relationship that looks, on the face of it, to be a little distant is in fact close? What about a close friend? That could be anyone.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I well remember being in Manchester on the day of the Arena bombing. I was not at the Arena, but the sense of shock in the city was palpable. One of the news items that day was about the sad loss of Nell Jones, a 14-year-old girl from Cheshire. Her teacher said of the class:

“They’ve lost a sister not a classmate”,

and explained that they had been together since reception class. I think there is a bit of scope for a close friend to be included.

[Maria Eagle]

I do not disagree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman about trying to cope with all situations, but it is quite hard—as a lawyer, he knows this—to get the definitions right. Through the probing amendments I am seeking to get the Government to be clear. Like most lawyers, I work on the assumption that uncertainty is undesirable—although it can be lucrative. In this context, wrangles over who might be allowed to get support are certainly not desirable.

The amendments are about trying to get the Government to set out a little more clearly than they do in the Bill precisely what they mean by these unusual phrases. I cannot think of another piece of legislation that refers to “close friends”. Perhaps the Minister will have an example that will show that I have not looked far enough—no doubt he will. That is the point of the probing amendments: simply to get to the bottom of precisely what the Minister is seeking to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood for her amendments. I appreciate that she is, both as a parliamentarian and with her legal background, exploring what greater clarity can be provided. I sympathise with her. I take her point about ambiguity occasionally being beneficial to the legal profession but not necessarily to others, and about the desire to be as clear as possible about whom the IPA will support.

Our concern is about placing a definition of “close family members” in the Bill. We are all conscious, from our constituency work and more broadly, that there is no set family structure. A person’s second cousin, aunt or whoever may be much closer to that person than a very close relative is. We have sought create a degree of flexibility, so that the Bill can capture those who need support. Our approach is to use guidance to more clearly define how that would work, while still allowing the IPA a degree of discretion and flexibility. I am happy to work with the right hon. Lady on that guidance. With her legal mind as well as her parliamentary one, we might square that circle.

I would not support removing the ability of the IPA to support a close friend of a victim, because I fear that doing so could have the unintended consequence of excluding some victims from support. There may be some circumstances where someone injured in a major incident cannot receive the support of the IPA directly and does not have any close family ties, but has a close friend, a companion or another person who is deeply affected by what has happened, and who may be the only person they have left. We would wish such people to have the agency to engage with the IPA and receive their support directly. We therefore think that it is appropriate to allow the IPA to provide support to a close friend. I do not imagine that necessarily being the norm, but the provision is a safeguard to avoid being unduly restrictive and inadvertently excluding people.

I am reminded of the bombing of the Admiral Duncan pub, when a number of people who were actually partners of victims, but who were not confident enough to be out, therefore described themselves as close friends. I would hope, as I think would all Members, that the world has moved on since then, but there is a risk that if we tighten the definition too much, people like that might not get the support they need. I hope that the world and society have moved on, but I just want to ensure that we have that safeguard in place.

I do understand the right hon. Lady’s intention in tabling the amendments, but I believe that they would narrow the definition of a victim in a such a way as inadvertently to exclude people who needed support. However, I am open to working with her—with her legal brain, as well as her parliamentary one—on the guidance to see whether we could, without being unduly prescriptive and while still being permissive, tighten it up a little more from a legal perspective. I am happy to work with her on that.

[Maria Eagle]

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, these ae probing amendments. The Minister is right that they narrowed the definition, but only to probe. On the basis of the assurances that he has given, I am quite content to withdraw the amendments. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 15—Appointment of a standing independent public advocate—

“(1) The Secretary of State must appoint an individual to act as an independent public advocate for victims of major incidents.

(2) The Secretary of State must pay to or in respect of an advocate—

(a) such remuneration as the Secretary of State considers appropriate;

(b) reasonable costs incurred by the advocate in connection with the exercise of their functions, including those incurred in connection with proceedings relating to the exercise (or purported exercise) of those functions;

(c) such other sums by way of allowances or gratuities as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

(3) The Secretary of State must make provision for the advocate to have an efficient and effective system of support, including secretarial support, in connection with the exercise of their functions.

(4) The independent public advocate may undertake the functions set out in section [functions and powers of the independent public advocate] for a particular event when—

(a) invited to do so by the Secretary of State, or

(b) for that event both requirements one and two have been met.

(5) Requirement one is that, in the advocate’s opinion, a major incident has occurred.

(6) A major incident is an incident that has caused the death of, or serious harm to, a significant number of individuals and involved—

(a) serious health and safety issues,

(b) a failure in regulation, or

(c) other events of serious concern.

(7) For these purposes, ‘harm’ includes physical, mental or emotional harm.

(8) In reaching an opinion under subsection (5), the advocate must have regard to previous decisions of the advocate.

(9) Requirement two is that the advocate has been asked to undertake their functions by fifty per cent plus one or more of the total of—

(a) representatives of those deceased due to the event, and

(b) any injured survivors of the event.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna McMorrin]

Most of my comments about my amendments still stand. It is incredibly important that we bear in mind the words of Lord Wills, who said that a different approach is needed. He quoted the Justice Secretary’s comment that

“victims must be treated not as mere spectators of the criminal justice system, but as core participants in it.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 583.]

At present, as Lord Wills says,

“the Bill gives the Secretary of State unfettered powers”.––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 91, Q176.]

I hope that we can work together to improve the clause as the Minister suggests.

[Maria Eagle]

Before I say a few things about clause 24 stand part, I would like to speak to my new clause 15.

At the beginning of our consideration of part 2 of the Bill, I said that my own Public Advocate Bill and the Government’s Bill envisage the role of a public advocate somewhat differently, although there are points of similarity. New clause 15 sets out roles and functions that are closer to what I would like to see in the Bill. It would require the Secretary to State to appoint an individual to act as a public advocate for victims of major incidents, and to ensure an efficient and effective means of support, with appropriate remuneration and reasonable costs, to carry out the functions assigned to the post. It would be a standing appointment, rather than an ad-hoc appointment on a case-by-case basis.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I have been closely following the right hon. Lady’s points about consulting victims, but a standing appointment may not be suitable for each set of circumstances or each set of victims. How does she square that circle?

[Maria Eagle]

My own view is that these kinds of public disaster occur infrequently. My main worry is whether a single standing appointment would be able to cope if more than one disaster occurred at the same time. As I envisage it, the independence of the role and the fact that it is a standing appointment would enable that person to act swiftly. It would have to be somebody who is a people person and is able to relate to individuals in trauma. The appointment itself would have to take into account the kind of qualities that the person would need, but I believe a proper person could be found who would be suitable in most circumstances.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Under the Bill’s approach, the Minister appointing a public advocate would be looking at the geography, the communities and the skills necessary for a particular major incident. With a standing appointment, we might end up with somebody who would be good for one incident but not another.

[Maria Eagle]

I acknowledge that there are pros and cons to both approaches. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is pointing out what he sees as the downside of a standing appointment. One could envisage circumstances in which a standing appointment may have downsides, but there are also upsides. In the end, to get their legislation through, the Government must judge which approach they prefer. I simply seek to persuade the Minister and the Government that a standing appointment may have more pros than cons—and more pros than an ad hoc appointment, which has downsides too. My approach has always been that there should be a standing appointment rather than an ad hoc one.

There was extensive support for that approach in this Committee’s evidence sessions. Bishop James Jones said:

“I do not think that that independence is sufficiently guaranteed by the Bill as it stands; I think it can be guaranteed only if it is a standing appointment.”—[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023, col. 87, Q168.]

He made the point that independence is tremendously important, and that that requires a standing appointment. He also said:

“Contrary to the Government’s proposal, I believe that there should be a standing independent public advocate. Why? Because in the immediate aftermath of a public tragedy, people are grief-stricken and traumatised. They are unprepared and disorientated, and they no longer feel in control of their life. It is in that immediate moment that they need an advocate—somebody who will represent them to Government and signpost them to the agencies that are available to support them in that moment of trauma.”—[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023, col. 86, Q166.]

Lord Wills, too, believes that there should be a standing appointment. That is perhaps not surprising, because the Bill he introduced in the Lords, which has just had its Second Reading, includes a standing appointment. He said:

“I believe it should be a standing appointment, for the reasons that the bishop set out extremely well. In the turmoil of the aftermath of a big public disaster, it is important that someone is on the ground immediately to support the families. I do believe that, and I think it is a perfectly achievable position to have. A secretariat could be drawn together at short notice—a standing secretariat, as it were. It would be doing work within the civil service, but when a public disaster happened it could be brought to bear to act as a secretariat for the independent public advocate.

I hate to think of what might happen. If you imagine a big terrorist incident, for example, the Government would be in turmoil anyway, and then they would have to find the time and space to go through all the selection processes, find out people’s availability and negotiate terms of reference. In the meantime, the poor families are left without anyone to support them, as they always have been up until now. It rather defeats the object of this whole exercise. So I am in favour of having a standing appointment.”—[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023, col. 93, Q179.]

We can see that there are pros and cons, whichever way one decides to do that. I just happen to have come down on the side of a standing appointment being preferable on balance. That is the approach that Michael Wills and I took when drafting our own version, which has the advantage of the postholder being able to go into action immediately with no delay required.

My new clause envisages two scenarios in which the advocate is called into action. The first is where the Secretary of State invites him to get involved; I hope the Minister will be pleased to see that I am not entirely excluding action by the Secretary of State. The second is if the advocate thinks a major incident has occurred that meets the requirement under new clause 15(6) and the advocate has been asked to undertake the function by a majority of representatives of the deceased and injured survivors of the incident.

That part of the clause puts into legislation my idea, and Lord Wills’s idea, that there should be agency for the families, that they must have a role in deciding whether the advocate gets involved and that the advocate himself should decide whether the definition of major incident or public disaster is met. Subsection (6) defines a major incident as one

“that has caused the death of, or serious harm to, a significant number of individuals and involved—

(a) serious health and safety issues,

(b) a failure in regulation, or

(c) other events of serious concern.”

The key difference from the Bill as drafted by the Government is that the affected families and survivors can get the advocate—who will already be in post—involved, should a majority of them wish to do so, even if the Secretary of State has not asked the advocate to get involved. The advocate can make it clear that he thinks that an incident meets the threshold for his involvement—if, indeed, he thinks that—on the basis of precedent. Obviously there will have to be a few involvements before precedent can come into it.

That would deliver one of the key requirements for a public advocate to succeed, in my view, which is to ensure that the affected families have some agency about whether his services should be called upon in respect of a particular incident. Those families must feel that they can call the advocate in to help them navigate the aftermath and get to the truth.

The trust and confidence of the families of the deceased and survivors is a crucial requirement for the post of public advocate to be introduced successfully. Enabling them to have a meaningful say in whether the advocate should be involved is an important way to establish that trust from an early stage. It also emphasises the independence of the advocate at a very early stage of his involvement: if the families ask him to get involved, and if he can decide that a particular incident falls within the definition of “serious incident” and triggers his possible involvement, it is quite clear that he is independent and is not being told what to do by the Government of the day, about whom there may be some suspicion among those who have been caught up in the incident.

The independence of the advocate from the Government is another vital way in which families and survivors can have trust and confidence, which can be gained at an early stage and reinforced thereafter during the processes that follow a public disaster. That was emphasised in our evidence session, particularly by Jenni Hicks, who is one of the Hillsborough mums. She said that

“as it stands at the moment, the Government’s suggestions for an independent public advocate just would not work. It would just not be independent, because it is too dependent on the Minister. It seems that the supposedly independent public advocate will be answerable to the Secretary of State, which does not sound like independence to me.”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 112, Q212.]

Jenni said that she thought it was

“vitally important that we have this facility, but that we have it correctly”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 114, Q220.]

She said that independence is a key part. She also said:

“When you are caught up in disasters, particularly if there is propaganda surrounding it, you need to be able to trust—you would need trust in a public advocate in a team. By having to report to a Minister, you are thinking, ‘Well, who is in charge of this? Is it the public advocate or is it the Minister?’ I do not think that would go down very well.”—[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 115, Q220.]

Jenni speaks with decades of cynicism about what has happened to her in her quest to get to the truth, so one might take the view that she is jaded, but there is nobody more experienced than a Hillsborough mum in understanding what the state does to people after a public disaster. We would do well to listen to her experience and what she has to say.

Lord Wills said:

“In some way, families have to be given effective agency, and that must mean some fettering of the powers on the Secretary of State. I am agnostic about the way to do that, and I have always accepted that my private Member’s Bill was not perfect.”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 95, Q183.]

He, too, is willing to change arrangements, and ensuring that the Secretary of State has regard to the wishes of the bereaved and surviving victims would be a good start at making a way forward.

When we come to later amendments, especially those related to the functions of the public advocate, I will talk a bit more about how the Bill is different from what I envisaged. However, I turn now to clause 24. I share one very large perspective with the Minister—that having a public advocate available to help victims in the aftermath of a disaster is entirely desirable—so I welcome the Government’s intention for this part of the Bill, even if I keep saying that I would do things differently. I hope he will not be too offended. My support for the clause arises from my long-standing experience.

For the families of the 97 who died at Hillsborough and the thousands of traumatised survivors who had to fight for a lifetime to be properly acknowledged by our society and to get the correct inquest verdicts of unlawful killing, it was 23 years until they got the truth fully acknowledged and had an apology from the Prime Minister of the day, David Cameron, for what they had to go through. That is despite the fact that the original public inquiry by Lord Justice Taylor laid the blame for the disaster squarely at the door of the South Yorkshire police and admonished them for their lies, within four months of the disaster occurring. They just carried on seeking to deflect the blame elsewhere. This part of the Bill should seek to remedy the problem of public authorities such as the South Yorkshire police using their entire budget, resources and effort over decades to try to avoid being blamed for what they have done wrong.

Decades of litigation resulted in deep trauma for the Hillsborough families and survivors. The lies, slurs and abuse that have been directed at families, victims and survivors over 34 years mean that no one has been held accountable for the unlawful killing—that is what it was—of 97 innocent children, women and men. It was only the Hillsborough Independent Panel, a non-legal process of getting to the truth through transparency and publishing documentation, that led to the full truth being reiterated to a shocked public 23 years after the event. That led to David Cameron’s apology to the families as Prime Minister at the Dispatch Box, not only for what had happened to them, but for the lies and slurs that had followed, all perpetrated by public authorities using taxpayers’ money to pay for it. That is how they did it—they did not raise the money themselves, as the families defending the reputations of their loved ones had to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I am the Member of Parliament who represents the majority of the families affected by the Birmingham pub bombings. When things do not go right, untold damage is done to families’ mental and physical health, and—as she has said—to their trust in any institution. That has to be stopped. We have an opportunity to stop our constituents, many of whom have still not got their truth, from having to go through years of ill health again, at a cost to the taxpayer.

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend is completely correct. She will know from her own constituency experience of representing those caught up in the Birmingham pub bombings how dangerous and awful it is, not only for the families involved. We are talking intergenerational, here. Many of those still active in trying to get more accountability in respect of Hillsborough were barely born—sometimes not even born—at the time it happened. They are daughters, sons and other relatives who were not even alive. And the effect is not just on families intergenerationally; it is felt across communities.

The damage that Hillsborough has done to faith in the police in Liverpool since that time has been enormous, and it is intergenerational. It was not the Merseyside police—it was South Yorkshire police and the West Midlands police. That does not just go away. Some 30,000 people turned up at Anfield on the 20th anniversary of the disaster. That is why the Hillsborough Independent Panel was set up; that is why we were able to get it set up. The rest of the country was amazed that, 20 years on, 30,000 people would turn up to the service. It would have been more, if they had let more in. I was there on that day. I was not surprised to see what we saw on that day.

In two years, the Hillsborough Independent Panel unravelled the lies of ages. By publishing the documents and its account of what had really happened, it was able, incontrovertibly, to lay to rest all those lies and slurs and to elicit a heartfelt apology from the then Prime Minister David Cameron—who I think was a bit shocked when he read the report and saw what had happened.

We must not let this happen again. The issue is about torpedoing cover-ups as well as helping families. It is about stopping things from going wrong. As a lawyer, I know that the only way Hillsborough could have been stopped from getting as bad as it has got would be to have stopped it from going wrong in the first place. I believe that creating a mechanism through which transparency and truth can be focused on at an earlier stage and be told at the beginning is the way to stop things from going wrong. The legal system does not always appear to be able to do it, and I believe that the Hillsborough Independent Panel-type process is the way in which we can do it.

I unequivocally welcome the Government’s commitment, but I urge the Minister and the Government to have more ambition for what can be achieved through the process. It should not just be signposting to get immediate help in the aftermath of a disaster for those caught up in it; it should be about nothing less than us preventing things from going wrong in the aftermath, as a society looking after and supporting those caught up through no fault of their own in such disasters. It should be about ensuring that the organs of the state do not use taxpayers’ money and their capacity to be defensive—that appears to be infinite—to prevent themselves from facing up to the truth of what has happened.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful, as ever, to the right hon. Lady not only for her campaigning on behalf of her constituents and others, but for her ministerial career—the roles she held as Minister for Children, Minister for Northern Ireland and at the Ministry of Justice. What runs through that is her commitment to ensuring that those who are vulnerable, or who do not always have agency or a voice, are heard, and that their interests are respected and reflected in the actions of Government. I pay tribute to her. I also pay tribute to Lord Wills for not only his work but his evidence, as well as the meeting that the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood and I had with him previously.

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her new clause 15. It would fundamentally alter the structure and operation of the IPA by establishing a permanent independent public advocate. She and I probably fall on opposite sides of the debate about a standing or an ad hoc IPA. She rightly highlighted the pros and cons on both sides of that debate. She falls on one side, and I fall slightly more on the other. I suspect that we may yet return to that debate.

There are many possible models for an IPA. The clauses in part 2 of the Bill introduce an IPA that reflects the model we consulted on in 2018, with the responses we received to it. We have heard from victims that a swift deployment of the IPA to provide support in the immediate aftermath is vital. Our view is that the IPA as proposed in the Bill achieves that, while balancing the need to be mindful of public funds and the right process to be followed after a major incident.

New clause 15 would establish a permanent IPA that could determine independently of Government that an event is a major incident. As has been previously set out, we do not think that a permanent body is necessary, given the rarity of the events in question for which the IPA would be deployed. Furthermore, we believe it is right and proportionate that the Secretary of State, who is accountable to Parliament, decides what a major incident is and when to appoint an IPA.

Should individuals disagree with the Secretary of State’s decision in respect of a particular incident, I would expect my fellow right hon. and hon. Members to make full use of their positions to hold the Government to account through urgent questions and similar means of bringing Ministers to the Dispatch Box.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 69, in clause 25, page 19, line 31 at end insert

“,but only after consultation with bereaved families and victims”.

This amendment requires the Secretary of State to consult with victims before terminating the appointment on such grounds as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

This should not take long because it deals with an issue that we spent quite a lot of time talking about this morning: ensuring that families have some kind of say. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult with victims before terminating any appointment of an independent public advocate on such grounds as he might consider appropriate. As we discussed this morning, it is really about him not acting with unfettered discretion, but trying to gain the trust and confidence of families, and taking them with him in the decisions that he makes. It is a probing amendment, but I hope to hear from the Minister that he is not unsympathetic to it.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

I endorse what my right hon. Friend has said.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

It is a pleasure to be back before you this afternoon, Mr Hosie. I thank the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood for her amendment, which would require the Secretary of State to consult victims before terminating an advocate’s appointment on such grounds as the Secretary of State considers appropriate. That stands apart from a termination of appointment in accordance with the terms of appointment, which will cover issues such as incapacity, misconduct and a failure to exercise functions.

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for highlighting that this is a probing amendment, and I hope that I can give her some reassurances. It would be helpful if I explained the rationale behind including the provision in the Bill, and I hope to reassure her that the power will be used carefully, and that we will consider the needs of victims when doing so. The Secretary of State will not take such a decision lightly, and any decision will be open to challenge through a judicial review in the courts. There are a few scenarios in which we imagine that the Secretary of State may use his or her discretion to terminate the appointment of an advocate using the power.

First, as the Committee may be aware, clause 26 allows the Secretary of State to appoint multiple advocates to support victims after a particular major incident. We will consider the clause in detail later, but briefly we believe that it is necessary to provide the IPA with resilience should major incidents happen concurrently, or should there be a very large number of victims to support. It is in that context that it may be necessary for the IPA to change its composition during its lifetime. We imagine being able to flex the resource required to support victims to allow the IPA to be as agile as possible, and following peaks of activity it may be prudent to reduce the number of advocates actively supporting victims. The power allows the Secretary of State the flexibility to do that.

Secondly, we have always stressed the importance of being able to deploy the IPA as quickly as possible following a major incident. It may be appropriate, following a greater understanding of the developing needs of the victims, to supplement one advocate for another who, on reflection, may turn out to be better suited by virtue of their skills or expertise. I believe that having that flexibility is important, and the amendment would remove that flexibility in the circumstances that I have outlined.

Thirdly, throughout the various debates on this part of the Bill it has been highlighted that victims must have confidence in the advocates in order for them to be effective. I entirely agree. I therefore imagine another use for the power to be removing advocates who may not command the confidence of victims, or standing down the IPA because victims decide that they no longer want the support offered. In all the circumstances that I have described above, let me be clear that the victims will be considered by the Secretary of State, and their needs will be paramount. I believe that victim agency is crucial, as the right hon. Lady set out. That has come through strongly during the debates on this part of the Bill.

Although the amendment serves as an important reminder of that principle, it is not necessary given the sets of circumstances that I outlined previously that require a degree of flexibility. If, in each of the examples that I have described, the Secretary of State were required to hold a formal and legal consultation with the victims, that could severely cut across the ability of the IPA to be flexible and to adapt quickly to changing demands. In the absence of any detail on how such a consultation would be held, it is difficult to see how that could be achieved in reality—especially in the initial aftermath, when the number and identity of the victims will be unknown. I note the intent behind the right hon. Lady’s probing amendment, but urge her not to press it.

[Maria Eagle]

In view of the Minister’s assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Anna McMorrin]

I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 25, page 20, line 4, at end insert—

“(4A) During their appointment the independent public advocate shall sit within the Ministry of Justice for administrative purposes, but shall be independent with respect to its functioning and decision-making processes, and discharge of its statutory duties.”

This amendment would clarify the functional and operational independence of the advocate.

I thank Inquest, Hillsborough Law Now and Justice for working with me on the amendment. I also pay tribute to Ken Sutton, secretary to the Hillsborough Independent Panel. He has worked with me through the whole of part 2 of the Bill, on this amendment and others. I pay tribute to his work and support.

As I said earlier, clauses 24 to 26 provide unfettered discretion to the Secretary of State—not only on whether to appoint an advocate following a major disaster, but on who the advocate is and how they will be resourced. That removes any semblance of independence from the advocate, who is instructed by and answers to the Secretary of State and not those most affected.

The issue of independence is a central concern for the many bereaved families and survivors. It is critical that support provided to families is operationally and functionally independent of Government, to allay families’ concerns about cover-ups, collusions and evasive practices, much of which we have heard detailed this morning. If that is not assured, the position is valueless, as it will be perceived as the Government merely extending their control over the investigatory landscape.

In the evidence sessions, we heard the Right Rev. James Jones state how crucial the independence of the advocate is. When asked if he believed whether the Bill provided enough independence, he answered:

“I am afraid I do not.”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 87, Q168.]

I welcome the Government’s initiative and determination to continue to listen to various parties as they shape this appointment. However, I do not think that the independence is sufficiently guaranteed by the Bill as it stands. I echo the concerns expressed by the Right Rev. James Jones, and I hope that the Minister will heed them accordingly in his response.

[Anna McMorrin]

I am grateful to the Minister for his words of initial support for the wording in the amendment, and for his willingness to work with us as we move forward on ensuring the independence of the advocate. As the Bill is currently drafted, that independence is by no means assured. I am grateful to hear that the Minister is willing to work with me, and look forward to that. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Maria Eagle]

I beg to move amendment 70, in clause 25, page 20, line 7 at end insert—

“(6) An advocate appointed in respect of a major incident is to be regarded as a data controller under General Data Protection Regulations for the purposes of their role”.

This amendment ensures that the Independent Public Advocate is a data controller for the purposes of General Data Protection Regulations.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 72, in clause 27, page 20, line 36, leave out “assisting victims to access” and insert “accessing documents”.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 70.

Amendment 73, in clause 27, page 20, line 37, leave out from “(1)” to end of line 39.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 70.

[Maria Eagle]

Amendment 70 would insert a subsection into clause 25, making it clear that an advocate appointed in respect of a major incident is to be regarded as a data controller for the purposes of the general data protection regulation in carrying out their role.

Amendments 72 and 73 to clause 27 are consequential upon the public advocate being a data controller, and would make it clear that they themselves can handle documents and do so lawfully, while removing some of the usual reasons why documents are withheld. The point of the amendments is to try to implement the lessons of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which is why Lord Michael Wills and I have been bringing forward our own public advocate Bills over the years.

The Hillsborough Independent Panel was a stunning success. In just over two years, it did the job of establishing unequivocally and incontrovertibly the truth of what happened to each of the then 96 people who died at Hillsborough. It made it completely clear that many could have been saved and that the appalling behaviour of senior police commanders had been the cause of the disaster. It torpedoed the cover-up by South Yorkshire police of their culpability. It made abundantly clear that there had been no contribution from those killed or from other Liverpool fans to the disaster. That is what the legal system had failed to establish clearly over more than two decades, through myriad and repeated proceedings in every conceivable kind of court.

If a process like that could work for a disaster that was so contested at the time and that was more than two decades old, about which there were literally hundreds and thousands of documents, could not a similar process be used to prevent things going so wrong in the aftermath of other disasters? Things going wrong in the aftermath of disasters is surely what this legislation is seeking to try to prevent.

As Lord Wills said in his evidence to us:

“We have to accept that a cover-up is part of the pathology of a big public disaster. It is human nature. When something happens like Hillsborough, the Manchester Arena bombing or Grenfell Tower, it is a huge story for the nation, and obviously those in power at the time, who feel they might be blamed for it, will feel that they have to cover up in some way. We saw what the police did with Hillsborough: they created a false narrative as part of that cloud of unknowing that they wanted to create, to cover up. What they feared, rightly in the end, was that they would be blamed for it.

That is true of pretty much every public disaster: obviously the details are different, but there is that essential pathology. There is always a risk of cover-up. I hope this Bill, suitably amended, will raise the barriers against that, but it does not mean that we can drop our vigilance against the potential.”.––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 94, Q181.]

I think Lord Wills sets out there pretty clearly what he and I were seeking to do with our own proposals in our public advocate Bills. That is what I press the Government to aspire to. If we could manage to do this, it would make an enormous difference in the aftermath of future disasters and would hopefully prevent things from ever again going as wrong as they did with Hillsborough.

Part of what the Hillsborough Independent Panel was able to do was to lawfully collect and process documents. That turned out to be crucial. It worked on the basis of obtaining and publishing all documentation to ensure total transparency in what had been an atmosphere of deep suspicion. It was that approach that broke the logjam of suspicion among bereaved families and survivors, while getting at the truth in a way that was revelatory about the causes and aftermath of the incident. That was no small feat, but it was key to the success of the process. After more than two decades of failure to get to the truth and have it accepted, justice for those who were unlawfully killed was advanced. If we can learn the lessons of the Hillsborough Independent Panel and apply them by having a public advocate who has functions and powers to do what the Hillsborough Independent Panel did, we may be able to stop future disasters from going so appalling wrong over such an extended period as Hillsborough. That is what we should seek to do.

If the legislation aims a little lower than that—I fear it may do—and aims just to signpost victims to support services and help in the immediate aftermath, it will be valuable but we will have missed a major opportunity to prevent things from going as wrong as they did for those caught up, through no fault of their own, in the Hillsborough disaster. I believe that functions enabling the public advocate to handle documents and the power to set up an independent panel like the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which we will come to later, are vital to the success of the legislation and of the post that we all seek to create.

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[Edward Argar]

I am again grateful to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood for her amendments. Amendments 70 and 72 would make the IPA a data controller, enabling them to obtain and review all documentation relating to a major incident. Amendment 73 sets out that advocates may support victims by establishing an independent panel to establish the truth of what happened. It is important that, in all our deliberations on this part of the Bill, we strive to continually remember just what a devastating tragedy Hillsborough was, and that its impact was compounded by the indefensible wait for the truth—indeed, the concealment of the truth. So I am entirely sympathetic to the intention behind her amendments.

When we have spoken about this matter in the past, the key themes of empowerment and agency have come through. Another key theme that the right hon. Lady has highlighted is the power of transparency as a way to address, as I think Lord Wills highlighted—she mentioned him in her remarks—the instinctive approach of public bodies and organisations to conceal, or seek to evade responsibility, when something has gone horrifically and tragically wrong. Given the terrible experience of those affected by the Hillsborough disaster, I appreciate the concern surrounding the danger of documents and information being destroyed, changed or suppressed by public bodies or others.

However, since the Hillsborough tragedy and the injustices that followed, there have been significant developments in the justice system that give us greater opportunities to get to the truth of what has happened. Statutory protection against cover-ups now exists. Under the last Labour Government—a Government in which the right hon. Lady served, I believe—section 35(3) of the Inquiries Act 2005 came into force, making it a criminal offence to intentionally suppress, conceal, alter or destroy information during an inquiry, punishable by up to six months in prison or a fine. Secondly, the Public Records Act 1958, as amended, sets out the legal requirements for the care and preservation of public records.

The College of Policing will also introduce a new code of practice, titled “Police Information and Records Management”, which will be laid before Parliament, and which details key principles for the management of all police information and records. It will ensure that a broader range of police records are retained by forces in the future, meaning that there is less risk of losing or altering important records for future scrutiny, as occurred with Hillsborough. Furthermore, a statutory duty of co-operation was introduced in February 2020, placing a responsibility on police officers to give appropriate co-operation during investigations, inquiries and formal proceedings, and to participate openly and professionally in line with what is expected of a police officer when identified as a witness. A failure to co-operate is a breach of the statutory standards of professional behaviour and could result in disciplinary sanctions.

I also understand the right hon. Lady’s intention behind amendment 73: to allow advocates to set up an independent panel akin to the Hillsborough Independent Panel. I pay tribute to those who worked with and on that panel, which had a pivotal role in uncovering the truth. I point out that it did not have any data-compelling powers, but it none the less did phenomenal work in questing after the truth, and revealing information that had for so long eluded others.

Returning to amendments 70 and 72, the Government believe that the IPA’s key focus should be on supporting victims and the families of those affected by a major incident, rather than an investigatory approach. I appreciate that this is another area where the right hon. Lady and I may take a slightly different perspective, but I hope that we can continue to work through that in the coming months.

We consulted on the IPA in 2018, and the feedback from that consultation reinforced the need to provide clarity and support to victims following a major incident. The amendments would significantly change the purpose and role of the IPA and would introduce new responsibilities to collate, check and store information, diverting the focus away from the primary purpose that we envisaged. I appreciate that the right hon. Lady has been entirely consistent and transparent in putting her arguments with clarity. Our view is that introducing such data-controlling powers could conflict with the work of pre-existing investigative authorities, such as the work of inquiries, which already have the power under the 2005 Act to compel information and witnesses.

I appreciate that there are concerns about transparency, and as I have with previous groups of amendments, I can commit to considering with the right hon. Lady what more can be done in that respect. The IPA needs to be as effective as possible in supporting victims, and it is important that we get this right to the best of our ability in this House. Our concern is that giving the IPA the power to obtain and review all documentation could in practice introduce a further layer of complexity to the system, and I do not want to do that. I appreciate that there may be differences between the Government’s conception and that of the right hon. Lady of how the IPA will work in terms of its primary focus and function, but as before I am happy to work through that with her. I do not know whether we will be able to close the gap between us, but as with everything, I am happy to try.

[Maria Eagle]

I appreciate the Minister’s willingness to discuss the matter further. Obviously there is a difference between the Government’s view and my view and that of Lord Michael Wills, who introduced a Bill in the Lords, about what the focus ought to be, but I appreciate that the Minister is willing to discuss the matter further. Perhaps we might be able to come a bit closer in so doing. If we cannot, at least we will still have Report and the remaining stages to make further points. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Edward Argar]

The clause gives the Secretary of State the power to appoint a lead advocate where multiple advocates have been appointed for the same major incident. The Government believe that the ability to appoint multiple advocates for the same major incident will ensure that the IPA has the necessary capacity and resilience to support victims.

Let us cast our minds back to 2017, when the awful and tragic events in Manchester and at Grenfell Tower happened only a few weeks apart. The number of victims in need of support was in the hundreds, if not higher, and it would not have been possible for a single advocate to provide the right amount of support to all the victims in two very different geographical locations. The clause is intended to deal with such situations by granting the Secretary of State the ability to appoint multiple advocates for the same and different major incidents. We hope that it gives the IPA the greatest ability to serve victims. It was endorsed by the respondents to the 2018 consultation.

[Maria Eagle]

Subsection (3) says:

“An advocate must have regard to any directions given by the lead advocate as to how they are to exercise their functions in respect of the incident.”

Having “regard to” is not necessarily “following the instructions of”. Is it not a recipe for chaos if there is a disagreement between advocates about the best way to act?

[Edward Argar]

The right hon. Lady will know the legal connotations of the phrase “have regard to”. What we are seeking to do is recognise that while there may be a lead advocate, there will potentially be other advocates in the team who have particular strengths and expertise. In appointing more than one advocate, I am sure that the Secretary of State will have due regard to ensuring that the team is coherent and able to work together.

It is important that if we are bringing different advocates with different areas of expertise into a team, their voices are able to be heard. There is an expectation that they will behave reasonably and have regard to that principle. Equally, I would not want the lead advocate to be able to silence the expertise of others in the team. It is a difficult balance to strike; like so many things do in public life and in our work, it requires people to behave in a reasonable and responsible manner. I am confident that that that will be the case, but the right hon. Lady is right to highlight the challenges were it not.

We will set up a register of individuals from a range of different professions, backgrounds and geographical areas to enable the IPA to respond to the broadest range of circumstances and the unpredictable nature of major incidents. It will also enable the Secretary of State to appoint an advocate as soon as possible and then appoint further advocates over a slightly longer period, including community advocates, to ensure that voices are reflected and the confidence of victims is maintained. That approach will allow for engagement with the families about the type of support they need from an IPA.

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[Edward Argar]

The IPAs are not envisaged as akin to the Hillsborough Independent Panel; they are to be set up as independent public advocates, but the office can have multiple holders simultaneously, if that makes sense, to draw on different expertise. The key element lies in the word “independent”. We are confident that the measures that we are putting in place will create and sustain that independence. I appreciate that the hon. Lady might press back on that on Report or in subsequent debate, but on that basis we consider the clause to strike the right balance.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 26 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 27

Functions of an independent public advocate

[Maria Eagle]

I beg to move amendment 74, in clause 27, page 20, line 27, at end insert—

“(e) an independent panel to establish the truth of what happened”

This amendment enables the Independent Public Advocate to establish a Hillsborough Independent Panel type process to get at the truth of what happened at an early stage following an incident.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 75, in clause 27, page 20, line 39, at end insert—

“(e) establishing an independent panel in consultation with victims to establish the truth of what happened”.

This amendment enables the Independent Public Advocate to establish a Hillsborough Independent Panel type process to get at the truth of what happened at an early stage following an incident.

[Maria Eagle]

Amendment 75 would insert into the clause, which sets out the functions of the advocate, a power to establish an independent panel such as the Hillsborough Independent Panel in consultation with the families affected. Amendment 74 would enable the public advocate to provide support to victims in respect of an independent panel-type process, if such a process is ongoing in respect of a major incident.

It follows from what I said about amendments 70, 72 and 73 that I think the public advocate should that I think the public advocate should have a broader range of functions and powers than the Bill currently sets out. Indeed, it allows only for liaison between families and organs of the state and signposting to support services. That is all helpful, but it is not sufficient to fully learn the lessons from the success of the Hillsborough Independent Panel and apply them when disasters strike. The only other real function for the public advocate in clause 27 is a report-writing one. We will come to that when we debate clause 29, so I will not dwell on it now.

A key lesson from the 23 years it took the Hillsborough families to get to the truth of what happened to their loved ones is that most of the usual processes following disasters failed them. The original inquests did not establish the cause of death for each of the deceased, although their basic function was to uncover the who, what, where and why. The families were prevented from finding the truth by the police cover-up and a coroner who, overwhelmed by the extent of the task—I am being kind—imposed a 3.15 pm cut-off, which led to material facts being ignored. The inquests left more questions than answers, and most of them were taken up by perpetuating the Hillsborough slurs that the police were on a campaign to spread, dealing with things such as blood alcohol levels, even though a third of the victims were children, and the slurs about fans being ticketless.

The families did not find out when and how their loved ones died until the Hillsborough Independent Panel answered those questions for them 23 years after the event. Some mums, such as Anne Williams, simply went and found out herself. She knew precisely what had happened to her son, Kevin—when, where and how he died—long before that truth was acknowledged by the findings of the second inquests. She spent the rest of her life campaigning to get a new inquest for her son. It was repeatedly denied her, despite the fact that it was clear he was alive after 3.15 pm and may well have benefited from medical intervention.

Anne Williams was unwilling to acknowledge that her son’s death had been an accident, and she never collected the death certificate that said so. She was right: he was unlawfully killed, but it took her the rest of her life to be vindicated and have the accidental death verdict overturned. She lived to see the original verdict quashed, but she did not live to see the unlawful killing verdict at the second inquests. That relates to a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley made this morning about the health consequences of these kinds of disasters on those affected by them. Anne Williams always knew that her son had been unlawfully killed.

When I first met my constituent Jenni Hicks as her MP in 1997, I was struck that she and her ex-husband, Trevor, were discussing a new bit of information that one of them had been passed about the movements of one of their daughters during her last moments. That was what the original inquests should have told them, but they did not even try to do so. As Jenni Hicks told us:

“We basically knew the truth but we could not get hold of the evidence; nobody could. It was not until the Hillsborough Independent Panel that we had that evidence, finally, and we finally—as I say, four years after HIP—had the correct inquest verdicts.”—[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 22 June 2023; c. 144, Q219.]

What a failure of our legal system.

For that reason, it would be an omission to legislate for a public advocate without enabling them to establish an independent panel in consultation with the families, to assist them in respect of an independent panel process, and to help if there are inquests or inquiries. As the Minister rightly said, the Bill puts transparency at the heart of proceedings occurring after disasters. Transparency for the families, freedom of information and the capacity for the public advocate to establish an independent panel are essential parts of what should be a successful reform if we get everything right.

[Anna McMorrin]

I rise to support absolutely what my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood says about the amendments. They are about getting to the truth of what happened, and ensuring there is true transparency and freedom of information. Bereaved families should see justice straightaway; they should not have to go through what many other families have tragically gone through.

[Edward Argar]

Again, I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood for tabling amendments 74 and 75, which I will address together. As she set out, the amendments would enable the IPA to establish an independent panel, akin to the Hillsborough Independent Panel, in consultation with victims. As we have said, those affected by the Hillsborough disaster had to wait far, far too long for truth. I again pay tribute to the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which played a crucial role in uncovering the truth and correcting the public narrative after so many years.

I turn to the substance of the amendments. As I mentioned previously, it is worth remembering that the Hillsborough Independent Panel was a non-statutory inquiry set up by the Home Secretary. Non-statutory inquiries are funded by public funds, so it is right that the decision to set one up remains with the Government. As I emphasised earlier, the Hillsborough Independent Panel did not have any data compelling powers. As Ken Sutton, who has been referenced previously and who led the secretariat for the Hillsborough Independent Panel, noted in our oral evidence sessions, the panel was able to access information and documentation without the need for data compelling powers. What is more, it is important to avoid any conflict between different investigatory functions. In my reading of them, the right hon. Lady’s amendments do not clarify what the role of an advocate would be in relation to the panel, how it would work in practice and, crucially, what impact it would have on the support available to victims.

I appreciate that the matter of debate between the right hon. Lady and I is whether the focus should be on support or the investigatory role, and how to draw that line, but if the IPA is primarily focused on supporting victims, signposting and building a relationship of trust with them, could they be considered to be truly impartial in an investigatory role? If they stepped away from their role as an advocate to focus on the work of the panel, would that affect the ability to support victims? I do not posit any direct answers to that, but I pose those questions, to which I suspect we will return subsequently, possibly on the Floor of the House or in discussions outwith this Committee.

I remind Members that the Hillsborough Independent Panel was established many years after the Hillsborough tragedy, which meant that it did not run the risk of undermining or prejudicing any ongoing formal legal proceedings. I note that in the helpful explanatory statement from the right hon. Lady, she states that she believes the panel should be established at an early stage following an incident. I am slightly wary of that and the possible interrelationship with other legal processes. Establishing an independent panel at an early stage—a panel that has the power to require disclosure of all relevant documents and information—could pose a threat to other investigatory processes, particularly criminal trials or other legal proceedings.

No one should suffer the same injustices as those affected by Hillsborough. Their tireless fight for the truth—and the right hon. Lady’s tireless fight for the truth on their behalf—is to be commended, but it should never need to be repeated. Victims and the wider public deserve to know the truth and to get answers to their questions. However, our concern is that the way to achieve this cannot be one that potentially puts a victim’s right to formal legal justice in jeopardy by duplicating or cutting across the work of other investigatory bodies. I recognise that there are questions about independence and the IPA’s power to get to the truth. I am happy to reflect on that further, and to reflect with the right hon. Lady on whether there are other ways that we can seek to achieve what she seeks without the potential legal jeopardy that might exist if it were done in this way.

[Maria Eagle]

I thank the Minister for his constructive approach to the amendments. I acknowledge that one of the big issues is that if an independent panel were established at an earlier stage, there might be questions about how it would interact with any inquiry, inquest or other ongoing legal proceedings. He is completely correct that by the time the Hillsborough Independent Panel was set up, it had 21 years of every possible legal proceeding imaginable—usually more than once—having taken place. I remember that in the newspaper article Andy Burnham and I put in the Liverpool Daily Post on the morning of the 20th anniversary, one of the reasons I said we should publish all the documentation was that no more legal proceedings were possible. That seemed to be correct at the time that I said it, although it did not turn out to be correct in the event. I acknowledge, though, that there is then an issue that has to be resolved—that is, how it would work if an independent panel were to be set up at an earlier stage and legal proceedings were still possible or ongoing. I acknowledge that my amendments do not deal with that; they were not intended to, but I acknowledge that it is a real public policy issue. I welcome the Minister’s offer to look at that more closely.

The advantage of having transparency at an early point is that one can torpedo cover-ups. There is significant public interest—and, over time, significant amounts of public money are saved—in managing to do so. That is desirable, and I hope we can work together in such a way that finds the best of both worlds. That is what we all want: the best of all possible worlds. If we can do that, we will be doing well. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

I wish to say something about new clauses 16 and 17, but also new clause 1 because I have had an involvement in this matter. I have constituents who lost their 15-year-old daughter, Megan Hurley, in the Manchester Arena bombing. They were similarly upset to discover they would not be allowed to register the death of their daughter. As Megan’s mum said to me, “We were able to register her birth. This is the last thing we can do for her, but we’re not allowed.”

These parents caught up in the disaster have had to go through six years of this process. It has been an improved process because the inquest and the public inquiry went hand in hand and were led by the same judge—instead of being consecutive and thus doubling the length of time these things take and forcing families to listen to it all twice, they have happened in tandem—but although the overall timescale has been shortened, it has still been years. It simply adds to the feeling of powerlessness, and of something being done to them, that the Hurley family have been unable even to register the death of their daughter because they are barred from doing so by statute.

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Reports to the Secretary of State

[Maria Eagle]

I beg to move amendment 76, in clause 29, page 21, line 38, leave out from beginning to the first “the” on line 39.

This amendment removes the requirement for the Secretary of State to instruct the Independent Public Advocate to issue a report.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 77, in clause 29, page 21, line 39, leave out “the Secretary of State” and insert “Parliament”.

This amendment ensures that the Independent Public Advocate reports to Parliament.

Amendment 78, in clause 29, page 22, line 1, leave out from beginning to end of line 10 and insert—

“(2) The Independent Public Advocate must report to Parliament —

(a) on an annual basis, summarising their work;

(b) at the conclusion of support relating to a particular event; and

(c) at any other time they identify a need so to do;

and the first such report must be laid before Parliament before the end of 2024.”

This amendment ensures that the Independent Public Advocate reports to Parliament rather than the Secretary of State at least annually in respect of each major incident.

Amendment 79, in clause 29, page 22, line 13, leave out from beginning to end of line 23.

This amendment ensures that the Independent Public Advocate reports to Parliament rather than the Secretary of State at least annually in respect of each major incident.

[Maria Eagle]

I am sure hon. Members will be glad to note that this is my last group of amendments on today’s selection list. I do not intend to detain the Committee for too much longer.

Amendments 76 to 79 would ensure that the public advocate reports to Parliament, rather than to the Secretary of State, and that he does so on a regular rather than on an ad hoc basis. There is always a great deal of public interest in the aftermath of disasters, and there are usually MPs who have constituents with a particular interest in getting as much information as possible about what is happening in the months and years following any such disaster. They, and those affected, have an overwhelming interest in getting to the truth and having, as soon as possible, a clear exposition of what has gone wrong.

Clause 29, as currently drafted, requires the advocate to report to the Secretary of State only if he is sent a notice to do so by the Secretary of State. What is in the report is specified by the Secretary of State, although there is an arrangement under clause 29(4) for the advocate to include in his report other matters that he considers relevant. However, although the Secretary of State must publish the report, he must do so only

“as the Secretary of State thinks fit”—

and presumably when he thinks fit. There are also to be redactions for data protection and the catch-all public interest exemption, which means that any report that is published may well have worrying and suspicious omissions or black lines through its text.

I can be very clear with the Committee that publications dealt with in that way—with redactions by the Secretary of State, and published only via the Secretary of State when he gets around to it—will do nothing other than fuel controversy about cover-ups. They are the very antithesis of the kind of reporting and transparency envisaged under the Bill that Lord Wills and I have brought forward. It would inspire more confidence if the public advocate reported on a regular basis to Parliament, so that it was clear that there had been no interference. It would be much better, if at all possible, to ensure there were no redactions.

The Government’s current proposals really will not do the job. I can see any such arrangements being viewed by bereaved families and victims not as something they can rely on and have confidence in, but as yet another part of the state machinery conspiring to keep them from the truth of what has happened to their loved ones, and to protect the state agencies in the line of fire. Whether or not that is true, that is what it will look like to those affected by the disaster.

I urge the Minister to let go of the control freak tendencies that appear to have been prevalent when civil servants were given policy decisions and thereafter gave some instructions to parliamentary counsel. I recognise that he may have inherited them from predecessors or even had them passed down from the predecessor of the current Lord Chancellor, who I hope has more sense than to think of the current drafting as a good idea. I hope he will change the way in which this report-writing clause is legislated for. The Minister cannot go wrong if he arranges for the report—unredacted, please—to be made to Parliament, when there will be significant public interest following any disaster. What could be more transparent than that?

[Anna McMorrin]

I rise to support the amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I gently say to the shadow Minister that while those processes exist, they are—as we have seen from admonitions from Mr Speaker—not always adhered to by right hon. and hon. Members, who on occasion are called to order for straying into sub judice matters on the Floor of the House. Although a process exists by which the Speaker can rule and can admonish, it is not universally the case that all right hon. and hon. Members will fully adhere to that without having to be called up by the Speaker. We need a degree of caution with respect to legal proceedings, particularly as we are seeking not only transparency but justice for victims and survivors. I would be very wary of anything that could even potentially prejudice that.

The Secretary of State can ensure that IPA reporting occurs only during appropriate periods in the aftermath of an incident. I reassure the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood that if the advocates wish to produce a report when it has not been requested, they can still contact the secretariat and consult with the Secretary of State. Of course, any such requests will be properly and fully considered. Although I understand and appreciate the desire for advocate agency in the reporting function of the IPA, I believe that the current drafting of subsection (1) will ensure that that is balanced against the need to consider the wider context of any report’s content.

Turning to amendment 77, I reassure hon. Members that under the clause, the Secretary of State must publish any report that they receive from the advocates. It is our intention that those reports be published as swiftly as possible, notwithstanding previous comments. When it is most appropriate for the reports to be laid before Parliament or referred to the relevant Committee, I reassure hon. Members that they will be.

However, as was alluded to just now, there may be instances when it is more appropriate for the report to be published through other means, especially if it is an interim progress report. Having the advocates report to the Secretary of State ensures that discretion can applied in deciding on the most appropriate method, whether that is laying a report before Parliament or publishing it on the IPA or gov.uk website. Again, that depends on the report’s content and nature, and other proceedings. If the report is published on a website, it will be publicly available, and can still be discussed in Parliament in a debate secured by the usual means.

I want to clarify that our clauses do not prohibit reporting at any of the points set out in amendment 78, or indeed sooner, if the Secretary of State makes a request. It is likely that while an incident is active, the Secretary of State will request an annual report from the IPA, and a report after the conclusion of an incident.

[Maria Eagle]

It sounds to me as though the Minister is accepting the amendment.

[Edward Argar]

I gently ask the right hon. Lady to let me make a bit more progress. She may not be so confident when I have finished; we will see. As I previously stated, if the advocates wish to report when they have not been requested to, they can raise that with the secretariat, which will then consult the Secretary of State, who will consider any requests carefully. The inclusion of provision giving the Secretary of State discretion allows for the required flexibility when it comes to the frequency of reports.

--- Later in debate ---

I am determined to ensure that the IPA is able to speak freely, and I reassure the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood that those discretionary abilities of the Secretary of State would be used only when and where necessary. I recognise the importance of getting that right, so I am happy to continue working with her on those provisions, and, if necessary, to return to them on Report, depending on the conversations we have.

[Maria Eagle]

I am slightly disappointed by the Minister’s response on what seemed to me a straightforward set of amendments that would simply increase transparency. I heard what he said about further work. I am slightly worried that he is saying that there will not be any reports from the IPA until after every possible kind of legal action has ended. That worries me, because we are then talking years. That will not inspire confidence in families affected by disasters. However, given that the Minister has tried to be constructive, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Anna McMorrin]

I beg to move amendment 25, in clause 29, page 22, line 15, at end insert—

“(5A) An advocate must provide periodic reports, at least annually, to the Secretary of State, regarding relevant events and occurrences.

(5B) In any case where an advocate is of the opinion that the duty under section [major incidents: duty of candour] has not been discharged, and the matter has not been effectively resolved, a report shall be sent to the Secretary of State as soon as possible.

(5C) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament any reports received under (1) and (2) within 14 days of receipt, and where appropriate, refer the content to relevant Parliamentary committees.”

This amendment would require a public advocate to provide reports to the Secretary of State about relevant events and to report if, in their opinion, public authorities or public servants have not complied with the duty of candour in NC3.

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[Anna McMorrin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A lack of candour frustrates the fundamental purpose of inquests and inquiries, as we heard in the evidence sessions. Candour is essential if we are to reach the truth and learn from mistakes, so that similar tragedies do not occur in the future.

Public bodies such as the police have consistently approached inquests and inquiries as though they were litigation. They have failed to make admissions, and often failed to fully disclose the extent of their knowledge surrounding fatal events. For example, South Yorkshire police have been repeatedly criticised for their institutional defensiveness in respect of the awful Hillsborough tragedy in 1989. A 1989 briefing to the Prime Minister’s office on the interim Taylor report on the Hillsborough disaster noted that

“senior officers involved sought to duck all responsibility when giving evidence to the Inquiry”.

It went on to say:

“The defensive—and at times close to deceitful—behaviour by the senior officers in South Yorkshire sounds depressingly familiar. Too many senior policemen seem to lack the capacity or character to perceive and admit faults in their organisation.”

A statutory duty of candour would compel co-operation, and so enable major incident inquests and inquiries to fulfil their function of reaching the truth, so that they can make pertinent recommendations that address what went wrong and identify learning for the future.

Failure to make full disclosure and act transparently can lead to lengthy delays as the investigation or inquiry grapples with identifying and resolving the issues in dispute, at a cost to public funds and public safety. A recent example is the Daniel Morgan independent panel, which was refused proper access to HOLMES, the Home Office large major enquiry system, by the Metropolitan Police Service over seven years. The panel needed access to HOLMES to review the investigations of Daniel Morgan’s murder, but the lengthy negotiations on the panel’s access led to major delays to its work. The delays added to the panel’s costs and caused unnecessary distress to Daniel Morgan’s family, and the panel concluded that the MPS was

“determined not to permit access to the HOLMES system”.

A statutory duty of candour would significantly enhance participation in inquiries by bereaved people and survivors, as it would ensure that a public body’s position was clear from the outset, and so limit the possibility of evasiveness. The duty would also direct the investigation to the most important matters at an early stage, which would strengthen the ability of the inquiry or investigation to reach the truth without undue delay. By requiring openness and transparency, a statutory duty of candour would assist in bringing about a culture change in how state bodies approach inquests and inquiries. It would give confidence to members of an organisation who wanted to fully assist proceedings, inquiries and investigations, but who experienced pressure from their colleagues not to do so. It would compel co-operation with proceedings, inquiries and investigations, dismantling the culture of colleague protection—for example, in the police service.

I am sure the Minister is aware that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has committed a Labour Government to introducing a Hillsborough law. That would place a duty of candour on all public bodies, and those delivering state services, going through inquests or investigations. I am sure the Minister will understand the compelling reason for strengthening the Bill, and will voice his support for the amendment and new clause.

[Maria Eagle]

I rise very briefly to support my hon. Friend’s amendment. A statutory duty of candour is an essential part of giving confidence to families caught up in public disasters. The Hillsborough law, proposed by the Right Rev. James Jones in his 2017 report to the Government, “The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power”, said as much. It is extraordinary that all these years later, we still do not have a Government response to that report, even though the report was delayed while criminal prosecutions were ongoing. They ended two years ago, and we still have not had the final response from the Government. We were promised it in spring this year. It is now summer. I was promised it by December 2021 in a debate on the Floor of the House, and it has not happened.

I really do not see what is holding up the response. I hope it is not that the Government do not want to implement its findings and points of learning, one of which was that the statutory duty of candour ought to be legislated for. I hope that the Minister can tell us when the response to that report will be published, because spring is long gone. The response is long overdue. The Hillsborough Law Now campaign would be pleased to hear from the Minister on whether the statutory duty of candour, the equality of arms at inquest and the other recommendations of Bishop James Jones will be accepted.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cardiff North for amendment 25 and new clause 3. I reassure her that Parliament will be kept up to date and made aware of any findings of the IPA. It would perhaps be helpful if I explained a little further the intention behind the measures. I addressed the effect of proposed new subsections (5A) and (5C) of amendment 25 when responding to amendments 77 and 78 tabled by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood. As I said then, the Bill does not prohibit annual reporting, and it is likely that while the IPA is active, an annual report will be requested. Additionally, it is our intention that any reports will be published as soon as possible, and when it is most appropriate to do so, they will be laid before Parliament or referred to the relevant Committee.

Proposed new subsection (5B) in amendment 25 and new clause 3 both relate to the duty of candour. I reiterate to the Committee that I fully understand that at no point is candour and transparency more important than in the aftermath of a major incident. The bereaved families and friends of the victims have an absolute right to understand what happened to their loved ones, and to understand what went wrong so that lessons can be learned. The Hillsborough families were denied that right in the months and years following the awful events of April 1989. Specifically, Lord Justice Taylor commented on the defensiveness and evasiveness of South Yorkshire police, but in truth, the families experienced obfuscation from a wide range of public bodies and agencies. It took decades of campaigning before it was established by fresh inquests that the 97 victims were unlawfully killed. I pay tribute to the Hillsborough families’ strength and tenacity in their prolonged campaign to ensure that other bereaved families do not suffer as they have.

The landscape in relation to duties and obligations on public servants has changed significantly since 1989. Most notably, the Inquiries Act 2005 places legal duties on participants, and there are sanctions for failure to comply. More recently, following the publication of Bishop James Jones’s report on the Hillsborough families’ experiences, the Home Office legislated for a duty of co-operation, which means that all police officers now have an individual responsibility to give appropriate co-operation during investigations, inquiries and formal proceedings, and to participate openly and professionally, in line with the expectations that we have for police officers, when identified as a witness. As I have said, a failure to co-operate is a breach of the statutory standards of professional behaviour by which all officers must abide, and could result in disciplinary sanctions, including dismissal.

We recognise that there is more to be done to ensure that public authorities are clear on the requirements on them in the aftermath of a major disaster. My right hon. and learned Friends the Lord Chancellor and Home Secretary recently met with some of the Hillsborough families to talk to them about the work done to address the failures identified by Bishop Jones, and to talk through the forthcoming Government response to the bishop’s report. That response will set out the Government’s position on the bishop’s points of learning on candour, and on the Hillsborough law and next steps. Ahead of that, it would not be right to impose a duty on advocates to report on the discharge of the duty. I will disappoint the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, but I cannot give her a date. However, I am reassured by ministerial colleagues that the report and response will be published shortly.

I am happy to return to this topic on Report, once that report and response can be read in the round. The right hon. Lady is always constructive, but I appreciate her disappointment. She would, at the least, like a date. I apologise, but I cannot give her that; I can say that it is due to be published shortly. In the light of that, I encourage the hon. Member for Cardiff North not to press the amendment. I have no doubt that we will return to the issue on Report.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Reeves]

I want to say from the outset that part 3 of the Bill had no pre-legislative scrutiny and there was a lack of consultation with the Parole Board. What that really shows, as I understand it, is that this policy was driven by the previous Justice Secretary. The current Justice Secretary is very reasonable; I hope that, along with his colleagues, he will look at these measures again and be open to our proposals.

The decisions to release John Worboys, Colin Pitchfork and Tracey Connelly rightly caused public outrage and undermined confidence in the Parole Board, but the proposals in clauses 35 and 36 are not the right approach. I will set out why new clauses 22 and 23 are so important. They both seek to give victims more of a voice and provide a mechanism for a check on Parole Board decisions, but they do so in a way that would give victims confidence. They would not undermine the separation of powers or the independence of the Parole Board, nor would they lead to the politicisation of Parole Board decisions.

Clauses 35 and 36 effectively give the Secretary of State a veto over a release decision on top tier prisoners. Our new clauses would give the Secretary of State a power to appeal a Parole Board decision to the criminal division of the Court of Appeal; give victims the power to refer their case to the Secretary of State to make an application on their behalf to the Court of Appeal; and expand the top tier cases in scope so that more victims could benefit. Likewise, the amendments would also expand the top tier.

The new clauses are far preferable to the current measures in the Bill, for the following reasons. First, the Parole Board acts as a quasi-judicial, independent and impartial body. Giving the Secretary of State the veto on its decisions would undermine that, and fundamentally change the application of the constitutional principle of the separation of powers between the judiciary and the Executive.

Nobody wants dangerous criminals to be released, but allowing a politician power over a release decision will leave them vulnerable to public or party opinion, which can run counter to the actual risk of reoffending. That could lead to decisions being made because they are politically or publicly expedient, not because they are properly considered or based on a fair assessment of risk. As the former Conservative Prime Minister Sir John Major recently stated in his lecture to the Prison Reform Trust,

“I do not see how (or why) the Justice Secretary would be able to reach a more just decision than the Parole Board. Any single Government Minister—however able or well-meaning—would be far more vulnerable to public campaigns and, under pressure, to make a harsher decision to appease them. This is a very slippery slope. I do not think that any politician should have that power, and I hope the new Justice Secretary will reconsider or—if he does not—that Parliament will deny it.”

He is absolutely right. That is why new clauses 22 and 23 seek to give power not to the Justice Secretary, but to the Court of Appeal, which will not bow to political pressure. That would maintain the separation of powers.

Clauses 35 and 36 are also likely to be incredibly costly. The Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment assumes that 20% of top tier Parole Board decisions to release will be vetoed, suggesting that about 150 people a year will not be released. The central estimate outlines that that will require an additional 640 prison places to be built, at a cost of £238.3 million and an annual running cost of £28.7 million. In total, the central estimate puts that policy at just shy of £0.5 billion. It is disappointing that in a Bill that is supposed to be about victims, the only money that can be found is for prisoners.

Furthermore, as the Justice Committee outlined in its letter to the Justice Secretary after its evidence session, the only way it could see the Justice Secretary being able to make release decisions to the same standard as the Parole Board would be, in effect, to create a shadow Parole Board in the Ministry of Justice. How much resource and focus would that take?

New clauses 22 and 23 are likely to be far more cost-effective. They would not need the creation of a shadow Parole Board to ensure that the Secretary of State could make decisions effectively; the Court of Appeal is already expert in such work. Allowing an appeal mechanism to the criminal division is likely to be much less expensive than creating a complex veto process, which is full of legal risk for the Government.

In addition, clauses 35 and 36 do not give a mechanism for a victim to challenge release decisions; they only give the right to the prisoner and the Secretary of State. New clauses 22 and 23 would give victims, who are supposed to be at the heart of the Bill, more rights by allowing them to ask the Secretary of State to put in an appeal against Parole Board decisions. In effect, that would mirror the unduly lenient sentence scheme and, if a referral were not possible, those victims would be given reasons why. Their rights would also be increased by the new clauses through the expansion of the top tier of cases. The other amendments in this group would do the same.

Under the Government proposals, only murder, rape, causing the death of a child, and serious terror offences are in the top tier for which a referral can be made. New clauses 22 and 23 and our amendments would expand the top tier to include sexual offences against children that fall short of rape. Most people would agree that all sexual offences against children should be treated with the utmost seriousness, and their exclusion from the list of top tier cases risks diminishing that. Under our new clauses and amendments, the top tier would also include manslaughter. That is particularly important, because many men who kill their partners or ex-partners are convicted of manslaughter and not of murder.

I turn to the impact of clauses 35 and 36 on victims. The independent Victims’ Commissioner for London, Claire Waxman, outlined in her written evidence to this Committee that she believed the clauses would compound victims’ trauma and suffering. In oral evidence, she said of victims:

“Putting these measures in gives them a false sense of hope. We are telling them that there is a chance that the Justice Secretary can veto the Parole Board decision and that the prisoners will not be released.

What will actually happen in reality is that, yes, the Justice Secretary might veto, but that prisoner will then have legal aid to appeal the decision. They will appeal every decision, pulling the bereaved families into even more distress and trauma.”––[Official Report, Victims and Prisoners Public Bill Committee, 20 June 2023; c. 30, Q68.]

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as giving false hope, the measures would extend the length of time it takes to get the decisions made, therefore extending the agony that people feel while not knowing what a decision will end up being?

[Ellie Reeves]

That is absolutely right. Not only do the measures give a false hope, but they will cause a huge amount of delay in the system before those primary decisions are ever arrived at. That is incredibly detrimental to victims.

The Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment supports the view of the London Victims’ Commissioner. Its estimates suggest that 75 cases a year will, after a lengthy process, result in the Secretary of State’s decision being overturned and the prisoner released. That does not suggest that clauses 35 and 36 will give victims more confidence in the justice system. In fact, the opposite is likely. As the solicitor Andrew Sperling outlined in his evidence to the Justice Committee, that is because the reforms would create a three-tier system of Parole Board, Secretary of State and upper tribunal. He said:

“What you have here is a system being set up that says that there needs to be a three-tier system, and that the Parole Board should not be capable of making decisions in the most serious cases.”

As the Law Society outlined in its written evidence, delays could have the result that

“fewer prisoners serving fixed sentences will be released on licence, instead being released automatically when their sentences end”.

That would create a public safety concern, as prisoners would return to the community without probation supervision, which would be concerning for victims and at odds with what the Bill is supposed to be about, as well as putting the public at risk. New clauses 22 and 23 would prevent those issues from arising, as they would create a more truncated route to a final release decision. Under our proposals, the Court of Appeal would make the final decision, rather than the Secretary of State, with the prisoner then having the right to appeal.

It is worth noting that in 2019 a reconsideration mechanism was introduced that allows parties to a Parole Board case to challenge a release decision. As Martin Jones, the Parole Board chief executive, outlined in an evidence session of the Justice Committee on the Bill, since the mechanism was introduced the Secretary of State has made 50 applications of reconsideration. Mr Jones said that

“in the last four years, the Secretary of State has been concerned about 50 of our decisions, of which, following reconsideration by a judge of the Parole Board, 12 have subsequently been set aside and then reheard.”

He went on to tell the Select Committee that, under the new proposals,

“20% of top-tier decisions may subsequently be set aside by the Secretary of State. That is in stark contrast to the fact that over the last four years, they have sought reconsideration for only 50 decisions. I am not sure how you jump from doing 12 a year to seeking to set aside hundreds of our decisions each year.”

I am aware that the Justice Secretary recently used the mechanism to request a reconsideration of the decision to release Colin Pitchfork, which I welcome, but new clauses 35 and 36 will seemingly make the mechanism irrelevant. New clauses 22 and 23 would complement the mechanism and provide another important check on Parole Board decisions by the Court of Appeal.

Finally, the Prison Reform Trust and a number of other stakeholders outlined in their written evidence that clauses 35 and 36 could lead to poorer, less transparent decision-making. We do not know what criteria the Justice Secretary will follow in exercising the new power. We do not know whether it will be exercised directly by the Secretary of State or under authority delegated to an official. If a prisoner released without the Secretary of State exercising their veto goes on to commit a serious further offence, we do not know whether the Secretary of State or their officials will be subject to the serious further offence review process or held accountable for any errors.

That brings us back to the point made by nearly every stakeholder providing evidence on part 3: why is the Secretary of State better placed to make a release decision than the Parole Board, which has heard the evidence and whose job it is to do this professionally? The reforms will risk poorer decision-making. At the moment the buck stops with the Parole Board, but, if it knew that the final decision rested with the Secretary of State, that could drive down parole decisions, conversely leaving the public less safe. As Caroline Corby, the chair of the Parole Board, stated when she gave evidence to the Justice Committee, the clauses

“could have an unintended consequence of making it more difficult for us to recruit judicial members,”

as the role could be seen as downgraded. That could risk the board losing such valuable expertise. Our new clauses would ameliorate those issues.

For all those reasons, I strongly urge the Government to look at their proposals again. They have attracted widespread concern and will undermine the separation of powers, risk the politicisation of police decisions and cost vast sums to implement. They could cause victims more harm and leave the public less safe. New clauses 22 and 23 would give the Secretary of State the power to appeal against a Parole Board decision in cases where they think that the decision is wrong, ensuring that another check is in place. Victims would also be empowered to ask the Secretary of State to appeal to the Court of Appeal. The amendments and new clauses would expand the top tier of cases, increasing victims’ rights and ensuring that some of the worst crimes are treated with the seriousness that they deserve. I hope that the Government will consider that carefully, and look again at their proposals.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

I turn to new clause 14, which also stands in my name. It is clear that while the Bill is supposed to support victims, it falls short for victims of major incidents. The new clause would compel organisations to face public scrutiny with honesty, especially during inquiries into state-related deaths. It would maintain a duty of candour, which is crucial for public servants to perform their roles with integrity and to call out harmful practices that endanger lives.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member who is about to intervene.

[Maria Eagle]

New clause 14 is much better than the Government’s provision in the Criminal Justice Bill, which relates to producing codes of practice only for the police. Does my hon. Friend agree that his new clause would be a vital part of implementing a full Hillsborough law, which is what our party calls for?

[Kevin Brennan]

In all candour, I agree. The need for the new clause could not be more urgent. It is rooted in a simple expectation that those in public service, from health to policing, must not only act diligently but expose and challenge dangerous practices. The duty of candour would be not just a guideline but a legal obligation, and it would be particularly vital in tragedies like Hillsborough. I commend my right hon. Friend’s campaigning over many years on that subject and on terrible tragedies such as the Grenfell Tower fire.

New clause 14 aims to shift from a culture of defensiveness to one of openness, and would support those who wish to contribute to inquiries but feel pressured to remain silent. The NHS duty of candour has been a step in the right direction, but we need to go further for all public authorities if we are to end the cycle of institutional defensiveness that not only delays justice but fails to safeguard the lives of our citizens.

The new clause seeks to break down those barriers of evasiveness and foster a culture of accountability, where seeking the truth becomes paramount. A statutory duty of candour would circumvent all such issues and direct investigations towards the most pertinent matters promptly and efficiently. Most important of all, it would bring justice to the victims and their families who, for far too long, have been let down by public bodies that are meant to do the right thing.

I turn to amendment 33, which again stands in my name. The Bill intends to improve protections for victims, but it neglects a significant group, which the Minister made reference to in his remarks: individuals plagued by the menace of persistent antisocial behaviour, who are often living in fear in their own homes. The amendment seeks to rectify that oversight by ensuring that the definition of “victim” includes those tormented by antisocial behaviour such that they meet the threshold for an antisocial behaviour case review. There is no good reason why that group of people should have to deal with all the same agencies as other victims without the benefit of the same rights, so they should be added to the victims code.

Members across the House will know of many people in their constituencies suffering from that kind of antisocial behaviour. It is a daily battle for them. It is not the mark of a just society that they should not be included in the code. Currently, those victims are left without the protections and support that the Bill extends to other victims. That is an unacceptable gap in the legislation. We must extend support to those affected by persistent antisocial behaviour. It is our duty to ensure that no victim is left behind. The Bill must demonstrate that our support for those victims is unwavering and our commitment to all victims is absolute. We must ensure that every member of our society can live in dignity and peace, to which they have a right. I heard what the Minister said on this matter, but it is not good enough.

I turn amendments 154 and 155, though I will not dwell on them. They seek to maintain Welsh Ministers’ responsibility for issuing guidance to independent domestic violence advocates and independent sexual violence advocates in Wales. In the Bill, the Secretary of State is slated to provide guidance to outline their roles, the services to victims, and collaboration with the criminal justice system and other victim support entities. We support enhanced victim support, but our concern pertains to the Secretary of State assuming responsibility for the guidance in Wales. The Welsh Senedd did not grant legislative consent to the Bill due to its reservations about the role of the Secretary of State for Justice. Welfare and safeguarding are devolved matters.

I will not go into great detail because of time, but whether by oversight or design, the UK Government’s assumption of responsibility creates a dual system with varying authorities responsible for victim support providers based on the nature of the assistance rendered. That cannot be the right approach for victims in Wales. Elsewhere, the Government have shown a disregard for devolution. I am not sure that it is deliberate in this case, and I genuinely hope that it is an oversight. The Minister’s raised eyebrows suggest that I might be wrong about that, and that I am being too generous to him and the Government. As he has displayed some willingness to amend the Bill in our direction in other areas, I hope that he will reconsider the drafting to prevent further encroachment on devolved powers and, more importantly, to avoid less clarity for those helping victims in Wales and for victims themselves. If he is not willing to support our amendment on Report, I would welcome at least a commitment from him—I hope he is listening—to give further consideration to this matter when the Bill arrives in the other place.

New clause 38 on independent legal advocates is also significant. It seeks to recognise that the criminal justice system as it stands does not provide an adequate means of upholding the rights of rape victims, who so often feel that they are on trial. The provision of free independent legal advocates for rape victims is not merely beneficial but fundamentally necessary. For far too long, sexual violence victims have navigated the treacherous waters of the criminal justice system alone, often retraumatised by the very process that seeks to deliver justice.

The new clause aims to change that reality, and by tabling it we aim to go further than simply leaving it to the police to ensure that they seek victims’ personal records only when really necessary. The new clause would give victims a real and reliable opportunity to challenge those sorts of requests when they go too far, by having an experienced advocate by their side. The new clause would fundamentally change a centuries-old legal system without endangering the rights of defendants. In doing so, it aims to rebuild the trust of victims—women and girls in particular—because our justice system will cease to function if people do not feel able come forward and report crime.

I turn to new clause 42 in my name and new clause 27 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North. I pay tribute to her incredible campaigning on this matter over many years and that of other Members who have campaigned alongside her. We have all been moved by the appalling infected blood tragedy. The Labour party wants to help ensure that justice and compensation for victims and their families are delivered urgently. I applaud campaigning advocacy organisations, alongside the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, which have worked so tirelessly to secure justice.

This issue has spanned many years and several Parliaments. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), set up the inquiry. Many Members and former Members—including Andy Burnham and the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, when they were Health Secretaries—advocated for such an independent inquiry. The Government have accepted that there is a moral case for compensation. The interim payments to a number of victims is an important recognition of that. I am sure that the Minister has seen the letter that the shadow Chancellor wrote over the weekend to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this matter.

New clause 27 provides a chance to show that the Commons supports the principle of delivering a compensation scheme and understands the urgency of delivering justice. New clause 42 relates to that, and would establish a deadline of 25 sitting days from the publication of the final report on infected blood for an oral statement to this House setting out how victims can access the scheme and what steps will be taken to establish a compensation body.

I hope that the Government will accept both new clauses tonight. The aim is to ensure that the Government move urgently after the final report is published. This evening’s vote is an important opportunity, and we are willing to work with the Government to ensure that a fair scheme can be set up and administered quickly. There is time before the Bill goes to the Lords for us to work further on that. It is a hugely complex matter. We are keen to work on a cross-party basis to shape a final compensation scheme that can deliver justice urgently. We await the final findings of the independent infected blood inquiry chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff. However, there is no reason for the Government not to move forward, especially as the King’s Speech committed to action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I commend the Minister for the excellent Bill and join Opposition Front Benchers in thanking him for bringing forward substantive amendments at this stage, rather than waiting to bring them forward in the other place. This is a good Bill. I will focus on victims of violent sexual crime and talk to my new clause 41, but first I will speak briefly in support of other amendments that I have signed.

New clause 19, proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), provides for a presumption of non-disclosure of counselling records for victims of rape and sexual assault, and it makes it clear, for the first time, that counselling is there to explore feelings, not as a source for revealing or investigating facts.

Four amendments are proposed by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion): amendment 15 would include in the victims code a requirement to inform all victims of their right to access pre-trial therapy; new clause 4 would place a statutory duty on the Parole Board to enable victims to make a personal statement; new clause 5 would require the compilation of single core data sets on victims of child sexual abuse, a crucial first step in promoting consistency and enabling a greater degree of insight into that terrible crime; and new clause 6 would require the Secretary of State to assess the adequacy of the number of independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisers. I do not normally support amendments that look for a report in six months, but in this case that is warranted to help give us, here in Parliament, confidence that the right priority is being afforded to such victims.

Taken together, the amendments proposed by the hon. Member for Rotherham would provide a significant strengthening of the rights of victims of sexual violence. I hope that the Minister will reflect positively on her intentions and ours, because they have cross-party support, even if he is not minded to accept them today. Given his earlier comments, I think he has some positive views about them.

I hope that extends to my new clause 41, which would, for the first time across the UK, provide for independent legal advice and representation for victims of rape and sexual assault. My new clause builds on the findings from the scheme trialled in Northumbria, under the leadership of the police and crime commissioners Dame Vera Baird and Kim McGuinness. The findings demonstrate that a significant proportion of requests for information for rape complainants’ private data were excessive; that those excessive requests had a significant impact on the wellbeing of victims; and that the legal guidance on the matter was not clearly understood, which led to wide variations in approach.

I believe a national version of the scheme, which could be created at reasonable cost to the taxpayer, would provide for greater confidence for victims as they go through what can be a highly intrusive and painful evidence-gathering process. There are international examples—this path has been trodden by others. There is guidance for it in Australia—in New South Wales—Ireland and, in total, in eight of 14 of the adversarial legal systems. I strongly urge the Minister to look at ways in which that could be put into the Bill.

Under my proposal, this access to independent legal advice would be provided to victims in six specified situations, so we are not creating an open door or a difference that would occur in other cases. That is important because decisions about how credible the victim is deemed to be are often what drive the decision to continue with a criminal case. That is not the case in many other sources of crimes. A national scheme providing victims of rape and sexual assault with independent legal advice and representation will ensure that victims’ rights are respected where their interests diverge from those of the police, the CPS and other criminal agencies.

My new clause 41 would ensure that victims, where appropriate, have access to legal advice that will give them the confidence that all that is being sought is all that is needed to enable a fair prosecution, and no more. The clause would provide a mechanism for accessibility and improve the quality, efficiency and consistency of investigations. I hope the Minister will look positively on this initiative.

[Maria Eagle]

I rise to speak in respect of some of the amendments and new clauses in part two: specifically, Government new clauses 22 and 23; Government amendment 60; Government new clause 24; Government amendments 76 to 82; and new clause 14, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on behalf of the Opposition, on the Hillsborough law duty of candour.

If these new clauses and amendments are agreed to tonight, the Bill will be better than it was when it began its life at Second Reading, and it will be better than it was even after it had been through a monumental Committee stage. However, the Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that it will not be perfect, and it will not be all that I hoped for in my Public Advocate Bill or my Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill—I have been introducing such legislation since 2016, and my hon. Friend the noble Lord Wills has been introducing similar measures in the other place since 2014—but it will be better than originally drafted.

I welcome the fact that the Minister has conceded that the Independent Public Advocate will be established as a standing appointment on a full-time basis. It is a shame that he has not seen fit to go a little further to enable the families affected to be the people who call upon the public advocate to act, rather than the Secretary of State. One of the points of my legislation, and that introduced by my noble friend in the other place, was to give the families some agency—some power to act in the earlier stages of the aftermath of a public disaster and affect the way the aftermath is dealt with.

The whole purpose of the legislation that Lord Wills and I proposed was to ensure that things do not go wrong in the aftermath of public disasters, as they have done after Hillsborough and other disasters. One ends up with years and years—sometimes decades and decades—of subsequent campaigns, fights and proceedings, legal and otherwise, that end up costing society millions and costing the families their health and often their lives. Stopping things going wrong in the immediate aftermath of disasters is a good aim for public policy.