Hillsborough Disaster

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I rise to speak in this debate with a heavy heart but delighted that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) was able to secure it. I was proud to put my name to support the Backbench Business Committee and to the motion today.

The hon. Gentleman’s was a very moving and powerful speech. I am sure that I am not the only one who felt myself go, and I commend him for his composure when he bravely delivered the names of the 96 people who died either on that day or later. He voiced the anger, the frustration and perhaps the hope as well of many Liverpool fans and families, not just the fans from Liverpool and Merseyside, but those from across the country and, indeed, from around the world.

We all know that warm words will never bring back those 96 people. However, I hope that warm words and the clear actions that will result from the motion today will bring some comfort to those people who agonised on 15 April 1989. It was not one of those things where someone had to be there to understand how it affected people, particularly in Liverpool. We have heard compelling eye-witness commentaries today from the hon. Members for Halton (Derek Twigg) and, indeed, for Liverpool, Walton. I remember that it hit home at the school assembly on the Monday morning, when we were asked to pray for someone who had died who was a pupil at our school. That, again, twisted the knife ever further, and I did not even particularly know that person.

I intend to try to keep my comments short, so I will not mention all the contributions that have been made, but I thank the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who spoke so eloquently as well. I am unusual perhaps in being a red in the Coffey family—the rest of them are blues—but we are nevertheless united in our determination to see that justice is done today and in the future.

The right hon. Gentleman was eloquent in referring to the fact that there were deficiencies in the terms of reference set out in the 2009 report. I am delighted that he was gracious to have mentioned that, great achievement though it was, it is good to bring this back to the House today. Indeed, I am sure that there might have been nervousness when the motion was tabled. Officials and Cabinet Ministers, as perhaps happened back in 2009, may have fed one another’s anxiety that releasing Cabinet minutes and documents before the end of the time limit under the 30-year rule might not allow free discussion in future.

Perhaps that nervousness was triggered by the advice given and discussions that took place on the Iraq war—indeed, there is perhaps anxiety about information yet to be fully disclosed—but I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I was pleased to hear her words today that no stone will be left unturned and that full, unredacted papers will be provided to the panel. That is really important because, as has been eloquently described today, there is still a feeling of cover-up—the feeling that people are willing to make smears to cover up their own failings at the time. I am reassured by the determination of the House and the Government to ensure that the Hillsborough independent panel and the families have access to the information that they deserve.

I have a question that I appreciate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary cannot answer now. I encourage her to ensure that the panel has the full time to be able to do its work. The Bishop of Liverpool has recently recovered from illness, but he is also leading another panel that is due to report to Parliament within the next six months, so I should like to encourage my right hon. Friend to make certain that the secretariat is appropriately staffed to make sure that there is no delay in ensuring that the more than 2 million documents are gone through at a good pace, so that people hear the truth as quickly as possible.

I support what my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) said earlier about the BBC. It was kind of someone from the BBC to phone me to talk about why the BBC is continuing to press the Government on the appeal. I agree with my hon. Friend, and I say to them now that they should ensure that the process can go ahead unhindered, but it should wait its turn until the families have seen what information is held.

I have a final plea to football fans everywhere. It is not often that I support Sir Alex Ferguson, especially as people will realise the rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United, but I really do support what he said the other day: the time has come to end the vile chants about Hillsborough and—dare I say it the other way?—about Munich. I call upon premier league clubs to ensure that they do everything that they can to show that those vile chants should be treated as though they were racist chants. The clubs should hunt down the people doing these vile things—they might not realise how much it turns the knife again and again in the families and fans of our club—and ensure that those people are kicked out of football for good.

Madam Deputy Speaker, 15 April 1989 will never be forgotten in Liverpool. It will never be forgotten in people’s hearts. That will continue, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton said—so it should—but with the disclosure of information and the publication that will finally come, I hope that we can at least show people that the truth will be outed and that there is nothing to hide from the truth. We must ensure that those people who walked along the Leppings Lane will never be forgotten, and they never will be in the House.