Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Paul Waugh Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

This legislation is all about a fundamental rebalancing of power between the state and the citizens it is meant to protect and serve. We have heard powerfully today from many Members about the Hillsborough families and their enduring quest for the truth. Briefly, I would like to add the nuclear test veterans to that list of campaigners for justice, including my constituent, 88-year-old John Morris.

When John was stationed on Christmas Island in 1956, he was told that British troops were building a new runway. In reality, they were testing nuclear weapons, but the weapons that were intended to keep Britain safe from the Soviet threat were far from safe for the men who were out in the south Pacific—they were effectively treated like lab rats, with little or no protection from harm. John is one of 22,000 British troops who were exposed to radiation while on service in the 1950s, and who have campaigned for years about the cancers and other side effects they endured.

John’s son Steven died at just four months old from birth defects. For 50 years, John and his wife faced repeated indignities. They were wrongfully questioned on suspicion of having murdered their son, denied information about how and why their son died, and denied John’s own medical records. Finally, a coroner’s report suggesting that Steven’s lungs might not have formed properly was revealed. John himself has had cancer, and has had a blood disorder since he was 26 years old. He sent me a message today:

“Great news about the Hillsborough law…for us vets, it’s very positive”,

because it will

“make our lives much easier”

in getting the answers they demand. He is pleased that in September, the Prime Minister agreed to meet him to discuss the issue further, and he is looking forward to that meeting.

There is another Rochdale resident whose campaign will, I hope, also benefit from this new legislation: 83-year-old Sylvia Mountain, who used the pregnancy test drug Primodos, which has already been mentioned by some of my hon. Friends. She gave birth to her son Philip in 1963, but Philip died of birth defects just 22 days after he was born. Today is the anniversary of the day her baby died, 62 years ago. Sylvia was told by doctors at the time to stop being “hysterical”, and has been told that no medical records exist to explain her son’s death, but many other women who were prescribed Primodos suffered similar birth defects in their children, as well as stillbirths and miscarriages. Victims of the Primodos test are still waiting for answers. For more than half a century, these families have faced a culture of concealment—of suppressed evidence, misleading official conclusions, and denial of responsibility.

John and Sylvia—two Rochdale pensioners in their 80s, whose lives have been overshadowed by tragedy and loss in ways that are very different, but also very similar—personify the decades of injustice that this legislation is intended to prevent from ever happening again. I pay tribute to both of them for their resilience in the face of unspeakable tragedy and suffering, and am proud to have them as my constituents. John and Sylvia want the state to recognise its responsibilities before it is too late for them and others like them. It is in their name, and that of all the other victims of state power and cover-ups, that I welcome this landmark Hillsborough Bill today, a Bill that it has taken this Labour Government to make a reality.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

That brings us to the wind-ups. I call Mike Wood.