Birmingham Pub Bombings: Legal Aid

Debate between Steve McCabe and Jess Phillips

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; I could not agree more. The families involved were told only yesterday that arrangements will be made for their legal teams to work with another firm and receive legal aid. Does the Minister think that three days’ notice on this matter is sufficient?

I stress how much I welcome the progress that has been made since I called for the debate. At that time, the families still had no idea whether they would be granted funding at all, even though they applied for exceptional case funding from the Legal Aid Agency in January this year, and the resumed inquest was granted in June. In the meantime, the families also applied to the Home Secretary to seek the use of the Hillsborough funding and administration scheme. The families have been given messages of support all along the way from the former Home Secretary, who is now the Prime Minister, the new Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary. However, those warm words proved to be little else. The legacy of what happened at Hillsborough marked for many a turning point in how the families of those bereaved or injured in large public disasters would be treated. Lord Wills, in speaking to his Public Advocate Bill in the other place, stated that when he met families of those that died in Hillsborough in 2009, one

“message that came through over and over again was that they wanted to find a way to prevent other similarly bereaved families suffering and having to endure in the way they had suffered and endured for 20 years.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 January 2016; Vol. 768, c. 1519-20.]

The Prime Minister should rightly feel proud of her role in how the Hillsborough families finally got justice, but I am afraid that the systemic problems that these brave families fought against still remain. The current Home Secretary said that funding the Birmingham pub bombing families through the Hillsborough scheme would not be appropriate, but I take real issue with that judgment. Both the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have cited the way in which the inquests on the 7/7 bombings were funded, even though the scheme that those families used is no longer available, as the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 removed it.

The bereaved Birmingham families feel that they were strung along by the Home Secretary on this matter, and ultimately let down. They tell me that she told them that she had written to the Justice Secretary to give her support for exceptional case funding from the Legal Aid Agency. When Julie Hambleton and I approached the Justice Secretary in Birmingham, she seemed to have no knowledge of the case. The families then received a letter from the Justice Secretary saying that neither she nor any politician could influence the outcome from the Legal Aid Agency, which seemed contrary to what they had been told by the Home Secretary.

With three days to go before the process is to begin, the families are informed of an arrangement that has strings attached. They feel they have been misled and fobbed off. I ask the Minister to bear in mind that these are families who lost their sisters, mothers, brothers, daughters and partners. They are just ordinary working-class people who are trying to fight for justice in the face of powerful actors whom they already do not trust. The appalling way in which the funding for their case has been handled pushes them—and, I have to say, me—into really doubting that those in power want to see justice done. As with Hillsborough before, this is a David and Goliath fight.

The former chief coroner, who will chair the resumed inquests, called for parity of funding in inquests where there is state involvement.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a valuable speech. On seeking parity, would it not be useful to know how much public money is being made available to fund the legal costs of the police and other Government agencies in this case, and how that compares with the help for the families?

[Jess Phillips]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The former chief coroner, who will chair the resumed inquest, called in his annual report for exactly the same level of parity. Parity of funding means at the rates available to other parties to the resumed inquests. West Midlands police has apparently set aside £1 million so far. Former police officers will be represented through the Police Federation, and Government Departments will no doubt be represented by lawyers from the private sector.

Tonight I ask whether the legal aid for the relatives of the victims of the Birmingham pub bombings is appropriate or sufficient. I accept that it might be appropriate in many circumstances, but Hillsborough gives us a successful model, and there has been no explanation of why that cannot be replicated in this case or, in fact, in future cases of this kind. That is in the gift of the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister.