Hillsborough

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is both a sadness and a pleasure to contribute to the debate. I thank the panel for its diligent work in pulling together all the evidence and finally laying bare the truth that has now been shared with the world, and I thank the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who managed finally to persuade his Government, quite rightly, to start the inquiry. I also thank the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) for her diligent work going through the papers in the Library and using her legal mind to ensure that work on the issue kept going.

Just over a year ago, on 17 October, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) made his tremendous contribution to the Backbench Business Committee debate, when we got to debate Hillsborough in this House for the first time in a very long time. Not long afterwards, a colleague said to me, “I know that’s all very powerful, but I don’t understand why it’s still an issue. The Taylor report said it.” Indeed, the Taylor report said it. In many people’s minds it may not have gone far enough, but it laid the blame firmly at the feet of South Yorkshire police. To give credit to the Hillsborough independent panel, it has been able to show the scale of the cover-up.

I spoke quite emotionally in the Chamber when the Prime Minister read his statement last month, and today I have already said that I am still sick, angry and incredulous at the cover-up. The families of the victims, their friends and those who have been keeping the campaign alive for 23 years may be sick, angry and incredulous today, but they are vindicated in the campaign that they have been pursuing.

I want to thank the Attorney-General. I appreciate that he is a man of great legal diligence and wants to go through the paperwork, but the announcement that he made in the written ministerial statement was welcome—that he would be applying not just for one inquest to be set aside, but for all 96 to be set aside, so that the many inquests that were restrictive in nature could be put aside. I also thank the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Health for their continuing diligence on this matter.

I will not relay again all the different issues, but I have been trying to put myself in the mind of the former Member of the House, to whom my hon. Friends the Members for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) have already referred. No Liverpool fan will ever forget the tragic events that happened in another country, in Heysel, just a few years earlier, when other football fans were resentful at what had happened because all teams were banned from European football as a consequence of what happened that night. I do not want to read out again the statement to which my hon. Friends referred, but I will always struggle to understand how someone could repeat a few days later the smear of somebody who implied that Liverpool fans were sexually abusing a dead person, and indeed were going to go further than that. I realise that that person cannot be in the House to defend himself today and I know that he has expressed his regret.

It was made clear today that two forms of investigation are needed—one into what actually happened on the day, and one into the potential cover-up. Of course it will be for a court of law to make that decision. Since the last time we discussed the matter, a school friend has contacted me by e-mail to say that he did not go into the stadium that day because he saw the police officers opening the gate, he saw what was going on and he walked away—and thank God he did. I hope that such evidence will be put to people, even though they may now be quite elderly. As we heard earlier, when one of those officers retired on medical grounds, it was decided not to pursue justice. I know that there was a private prosecution, which did not end as we may all have wanted, but I still hope that such people will be brought to justice.

One of the things I would like to say to the people who have kept the fight going is “Please, have a little more patience.” That may seem a terrible thing to say after 23 years, but people were patient for the unveiling of all the terrible things that came out in the Hillsborough independent panel report. Although we can say freely in the House what we believe, it is important that we allow justice to come to its full term and that the IPCC or the special prosecutor, if that is deemed appropriate later, is brought into play. One of the things that I hope those outside the Chamber will recognise is that we know that Parliament has let people down in the past, but there is unanimity here today that Parliament is definitely on their side and we will not let people get away with it.