Public Office (Accountability) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Natasha Irons and Seamus Logan

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)]

Q This question is for Mr Guest. What legitimate reasons might a body have for not complying with the duty of candour? Can you think of any examples?

Tom Guest: That is one of the tests that we have tried to look at when we have been looking at the draft provisions. First of all, there is not a freestanding defence to the duty of candour—there is no reasonable excuse or anything like that—so the Bill is tightly drawn in that respect. There are also no viable defences elsewhere in criminal law that we can see, so the duty of candour is very tightly drawn to be complied with.

The one point that is important to draw attention to, in the interests of transparency and frankness, is clause 3(7), which makes it clear that

“The duty of candour…does not require a public authority…to breach any prohibition or restriction imposed by”

an Act of Parliament

“or a rule of law”.

When I say it is tightly drawn, it is not open ended. The public authority has to point to an actual Act of Parliament or a rule of law where the duty of candour does not require it to breach a prohibition or restriction. That is the one thing we wanted to draw to your attention, but otherwise there are no freestanding, wider reasons why public authorities cannot comply.

[Seamus Logan]

Q This question is for Mr Guest. For a member of the public like me, could you draw out the difference between what you would regard legally as “seriously improper” conduct and simply improper conduct? What I am trying to get at are examples such as someone who does not draw attention to a computer program that is clearly flawed; someone who decides not to tell anyone about a medical product that is harmful; or a situation in which there is a large-scale loss of life. For a member of the public, what is the difference between improper and seriously improper?

Tom Guest: Just to make it clear, you are talking about the clause 11 offence, because the clause 12 misconduct offence also uses the words “seriously improper”. I will take the examples you have given to be referring to the offence of misleading the public.

The advantage of the Bill is that it clearly sets a standard for a jury to apply. Every jury is going to have to look at the specific evidence in the case. What did the suspects know? What were they withholding? What means did they take? What did they know at the time? Was it in the heat of the moment? The jury must consider all the evidence, and it is not possible to cater for all the different factual scenarios that might apply. The advantage, though, is that you have clearly set out in the Bill a standard set of considerations for a juror to apply, and they are clearly directed at setting a threshold between improper and seriously improper. Clause 11(3) is about as clear as you can get when you bear in mind that it has to apply to all kinds of potential factual scenarios; it is clearly set out there how to apply that assessment of seriously improper.

Public Office (Accountability) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Natasha Irons and Seamus Logan

Thursday 27th November 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)]

Q Thank you so much for your testimony and your courage and for fighting for so long. It is a privilege to be on this Committee and to hear from you—and I apologise for our train system. I understand it has been a long journey and it has taken a long time to get here, but my question is: what will success look like in the future? What will it look like if the Bill is a success and does the thing we wanted it to do?

Jenni Hicks: What would be successful to me is getting to the truth more quickly and having a system that does not think it has the right to cover up the people in power, that tells the truth in the first instance, and has a good public advocacy team—I nearly called them the HIP—who help people not only by pointing them in the right direction, but help them get the information that they need and the documentation of that information, just as HIP did. That is imperative.

There are other good things, but you are totally depending on a culture change for the duty of candour, because this culture has been going on for a long time. That is why it has to be duty of candour with really stiff penalties if you are found out to be lying, not just excuses made or clever lawyers being able to interpret it in a different way. There are many versions of the truth out there, and the documentation is the truth, if you like. For me, that is what would be successful.

It would be successful if nobody else in this country had to wait 26 years to get a correct inquest verdict or 24 years to get the truth about how their loved one died, and nobody else had to go through being lied to for all those years about how their loved one died. The mud that the media put out there about what had happened still sticks in some places in this country. That will not help me, Hilda or any of the Hillsborough families, but it certainly will prevent anybody else going through what we have had to go through. That process is cruel; it is not right, and this country should be ashamed of putting bereaved people through it when the truth is as plain as the nose on your face.

[Seamus Logan]

Q I, too, salute your courage in your fight over many years to get to this point. The Bill is a landmark and will be something really good coming out of such a terrible tragedy, but it does not cover everything. We heard before lunch about things that other witnesses might like to see addressed. Hilda, is there anything that is not in the Bill that you would have liked to have seen included?

Hilda Hammond: I would have liked to see the NHS included. I know people have a duty of candour, but I am a retired nurse, so I know the NHS, and at the present time doctors and NHS workers—I will not say they hide behind it—are protected by the law of patient confidentiality. I may be missing it, but I cannot see anything in the Bill that addresses that and makes it clear that in something like this patient confidentiality should not stand in the way. It is a big hurdle, because doctors have been bound by it for years and years, and I do not know how you get around that. The NHS is a huge organisation, and it will be subject to huge amounts of litigation. That is one thing that really needs to be addressed.

We did not find out that Philip had gone to hospital—we did not know—until the following November, when his trainers came back with a hospital tag on. When we questioned them, they were all evasive and gave silly excuses. I said, “Well, did you attempt to resuscitate him?”, and they said, “Oh yes, he had electrode marks on him.” When I spoke to the pathologist, I said, “If a person is being resuscitated, someone puts the electrodes on, someone is getting IV access and someone is protecting their airway. You said there were no puncture marks on Philip.” Do you know what he told me? He said, “I don’t know whether you know this, but there is a cannula now that they put in and it doesn’t leave a mark.” Pure rubbish! Even on neonates you see where they have had the cannulas.

I do not know. Trying to get any information from the medical team is like a brick wall, isn’t it? I really think that is an important part of this law. It is such a good law, and you would not want it to fall at the hurdle of doctor’s being protected from telling the truth.