Hillsborough

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely will continue to work with the right hon. Gentleman on this issue. He is right that the names of the 96 have been cleared. Above all, I pay tribute to the work that he has put in with huge passion and dedication on this issue—it was a brave and right decision to set up the panel; it was not easy, as there have been previous inquiries, judicial reviews and the rest of it, but it was undoubtedly the right decision—and to what he has done to help people understand the nature of what I call this double injustice. There was an injustice about fact—about these dreadful things that happened that were not properly accounted for—but also an injustice of narrative and an inaccurate version put around which, as he put it quite rightly, means that the passage of time has made these things worse, not better.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his full and robust statement. I join him in paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and his colleagues, who have helped us get to this place today.

I hope that the Prime Minister agrees that today’s evidence clearly vindicates not just Liverpool football club, the families and the campaign, but all those who supported Liverpool and the people of Merseyside in saying that football supporters on that day behaved normally, and they were abused and vilified without justification. I hope that we have learned two lessons. First, when reports are conducted, as they were in two previous years into that ground, someone needs to make sure that they are implemented and not left on the table. Secondly, it should not take 23 years in this case, or a similar period in the case of the Marchioness, for victims to be able to put their case to the public and for a proper inquiry to take account of all those who have something to say. We do not do public inquiries and inquests well in this country; we need to do them much better in future.

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. On the specific point about learning the lessons of health and safety reports and of safety inquiries, I have not had time to study everything in the report, but I think that there will be new, detailed evidence about that issue. On the more general point, it is very important, as I said in my statement, for the people of Liverpool and Merseyside to see that the rest of the country understands why the sense of injustice is rightly as strong as it has been for all these years.