Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment
Debate between Mark Francois and Edward Leigh
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I rise to talk about Lord Anderson’s report on Prevent and the death of our wonderful fallen colleague and my dear friend, Sir David Amess, which was published last week. It is obviously appropriate to make this speech today, in the Sir David Amess Adjournment debate, which is rightly named in his honour. However, it is sad that this speech aims to draw attention to the way in which he and his family have been and are being let down by the Home Secretary and this Government.
The House is well aware that the Sir David Amess family would like a full statutory public inquiry into the death of their beloved father and husband. Last March, they met the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary at 10 Downing Street. They were supported by their former MP Anna Firth, leading London lawyers, and public affairs expert Radd Seiger, all of whom continue to support and help the family on a voluntary basis. At that meeting, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister asked the family to go away and work with Lord Anderson, to see if he could answer the dozens of questions they still have about why the killer slipped through the state’s safeguarding nets. Against their better judgement, the family did just that. They met Lord Anderson, along with their advisers and Anna Firth, in his chambers in the Middle Temple. They provided Lord Anderson with all the questions that they still needed answering, and they waited patiently for his report, enduring several more months of stress and anxiety. Both the Home Secretary and Lord Anderson specifically promised the family that they would see the report first, and in good time, so that they had time to read and digest it, and take advice, before being subjected to the glare of the media. You can only imagine, Mr Deputy Speaker, how deeply distressing the whole media circus is for the family.
Unbelievably, yet again, that did not happen. The family first learned that the report was imminent from an article in The Guardian, and when they received a text from a journalist saying that the report was due to be published soon. Clearly, rather than keep their word to the Amess family, the Government chose quite deliberately to leak the report to the press first. That is an absolute disgrace. The Amess family should have seen the report first, not last. That is a simply unacceptable way to treat any grieving family, let alone that of a distinguished parliamentarian. Once again, the Amess family were bombarded by the media, causing them great pain. All the media wanted, of course, was their individual soundbite, before the family had any opportunity to even read the 170-page report. The Home Secretary should feel thoroughly ashamed. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to apologise to Lady Amess and her family for this latest insult. The Government really need to do far, far, better on how they treat the victims of heinous crimes.
Critically, however, there is now no doubt whatsoever, following Lord Anderson’s work, that there must be a full public inquiry on why the string of failures that led to Sir David’s murder were allowed to happen, and on who was responsible, who will be held to account, and what will be done to ensure that there is no repeat. The Amess family have been told repeatedly by the Home Secretary and successive Ministers that lessons had been and would be learned by Prevent, including the lessons set out in the Prevent learning review, which took place shortly after Sir David’s death and was published earlier this year. Heartbreakingly, Southport happened three years later. The two cases are virtually identical. In both, the killer was well known to the authorities and to the Prevent programme, yet was allowed to slip through the safeguarding net. It seems, therefore, that lessons have not been learned.
The Amess family feel that both the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister were paying lip service to their agonising search for real answers when they finally met them at No. 10 in March. The family were assured by both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary that they took the family’s concerns extremely seriously, that they too felt the loss of Sir David acutely, and that they would leave no stone unturned to help the family find the answers that they needed.
I will finish with the words of Katie Amess herself—
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Before my right hon. Friend finishes, will he give way very briefly?