Daniel Morgan: Independent Panel Report

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & Programme motion
Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The slight difficulty I have in setting out a timetable is that because we have not yet received the report, we do not know how long it is, the issues raised therein and so on. The Home Secretary is clear that after 34 years the family, understandably, wants this report and wants to see its conclusions, so the Home Office will be working expeditiously to lay this report before Parliament, as set out in the terms of reference of the panel review.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on securing this urgent question, and I should say that a member of Daniel Morgan’s family is a constituent of mine. It is the family who should be uppermost in our minds today, and they have said:

“This unwarranted and very belated interference by the Home Secretary amounts to a kick in the teeth”.

It is 34 years since Daniel Morgan’s horrific murder and we have had five failed police investigations, a collapsed trial, an inquest, but no justice for the family and no answers. The independent panel was set up in 2013 to find answers, and the expected publication date was 17 May, yet we have more delay. There is no doubt that the report considers profound issues of corruption and trust in institutions, but the Minister will be aware of the panel’s strong condemnation of the intervention of the Home Secretary, on the basis that it is

“unnecessary and is not consistent with the panel's independence”.

The justification given is to check on human rights compliance and to ensure national security is not compromised, but the independent panel itself said that a

“senior specialist Metropolitan Police team”

carried out a security check—-it has been done already—so can the Minister explain why a further security check is necessary?

In addition, the panel’s terms of reference make it clear that the Home Secretary’s role is limited to receiving the report, laying it before Parliament and responding to the findings. Can the Minister explain how this intervention and supposed check by the Home Secretary is consistent with those terms of reference? How will the Home Secretary be working with the family and the panel to address these very serious concerns? When will they actually agree a date finally for publication of an unredacted report, rather than prolonging the agony that the Morgan family have been going through?

[Victoria Atkins]

The right hon. Gentleman eloquently set out the terrible experiences of the family over the past three decades and more. It is precisely because of the trauma that they have suffered over the years that the review was commissioned. I know that the right hon. Gentleman joins us in wanting to ensure that the panel report is as thorough as possible and that it is now published. There is no disagreement at all between him and the Government on that. We want to publish the report but we have not yet received it. The Home Secretary will make arrangements for that in line with the terms of the review—that is what we want to happen. The Home Office is very much in conversation with the panel to get the report and make the arrangements. When that has happened, the report will be published.