Public Office (Accountability) Bill
House of Lords · Lords Chamber · 1 Sep 2026 · 63 speeches · Official Report
Second Reading
Moved by
That the Bill be now read a second time.
My Lords, I hope all noble Lords had a good break over the summer. As your Lordships might perhaps have noticed, we have been beavering away at the Ministry of Justice. If you get a call from No. 10, as I did on the last day before Recess, be careful what you wish for. I thank the many noble Lords who interrupted their summers to meet me; I appreciate their time and commitment enormously. It is a privilege to open the debate on this Bill. It is a long-overdue piece of legislation, one that will deliver one of the biggest constitutional changes in the relationship between the public and the state for generations. We should not underestimate its importance or the impact it could have. I start, as I should, by paying tribute to those who have fought to get us here. The Hillsborough families experienced the most awful injustice. The state turned on them exactly when it should have been on their side. They never gave up on the truth and, ultimately, getting the justice they deserved. They insisted that no one should ever have to go through what they went through. It is their courage and determination that have brought us to your Lordships’ House today with this legislation in front of us. I also pay tribute to Members of your Lordships’ House for their determined and courageous work over many years-indeed, decades. Many Peers here today have stood by the families and supported them. Please forgive me: I do not have time to mention everyone as time is short. I am also mindful that...
My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to the families of those who died at the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989. Their decades-long campaign for justice and accountability has demonstrated a resilience and dignity that should inspire us all. I am sure noble Lords are united in the determination that such a disaster should not happen again and that if such a situation were to reoccur, the institutions of the state should act with transparency and honesty. That is the spirit in which I rise to speak on this Bill today. Before turning to specific provisions, I must note something about the legislative journey of the Bill. In 2024, it was promised as one of the first Acts of this Government, and yet here we are two years later still debating the provisions. It is a Bill that now looks very different from its original proposals. At the very least, this speaks to the genuine complexity of balancing the duty of candour with the imperatives of national security. Despite the long wait to get to this point, the Government’s amendments addressing intelligence services were proposed with little more than 24 hours’ notice before the Commons scrutiny. This is arguably one of the most important areas of the Bill, with serious potential ramifications for safety and national security. Whatever one’s view on those amendments, they deserve more careful consideration than that timeframe allowed. It is therefore the duty of this House to provide the detailed and deliberate scrutiny that the Commons...
My Lords, I am a stand-in for my noble friend Lord Marks, who is sorry he cannot be here today. These Benches support the Bill. My noble friends, including a Liverpool voice, and other noble Lords will speak from involvement with various issues or scandals. However, we have concerns. The Bill should extend as far as the public would expect, be fully and straightforwardly enforceable, and be not only reactive but proactive. We look forward to working with the Minister, whom I welcome to his new position. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, for all that she must have done in the preparation of the Bill. Ethical conduct and candour should not need saying, but from the catalogue of disasters-not only what has lent the Bill its informal title-they clearly do. I echo the admiration expressed for the determination and sheer grit of the survivors of those disasters, their families and campaigners. I am glad to see the Nolan principles embedded; as we go through the Bill, we might test each provision against them. In a way, it is a pity it is not left at that. The more that is spelled out, the more significant is what is not. The Bill tells us what a public authority must do “in particular”. Lists are not exhaustive, but, leaving aside the technicalities of drafting, they will be the focus and so must be complete. To fulfil the “purpose” in Clause 1, enabling whistleblowing in safety is essential. Otherwise, candour is muzzled and the duty incomplete. The Bill needs to...
My Lords, like others who are going to speak in this debate, I start by acknowledging the pain of the victims whose grief and distress were compounded by the failure of the state. That is why we are here. This legislation, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned, has had a long and difficult gestation, caused partly by the difficulty in some cases of how to maintain a duty of candour alongside a duty of confidentiality and to maintain secrets. I wish to make three points. I am afraid the first one is pretty obvious, but there has been an awful lot of ill-informed commentary on this and I cannot avoid it. As you would expect, my main concern is that national security is not damaged. There are two aspects to this: first, the vulnerability of intelligence, which can be destroyed by slight references to it. I am going to be rather vain and quote from a speech I made in the Robing Room in 2010. Excuse me doing so, but in a moment, I am going to quote the noble Lord, Lord Butler-so somebody of greater authority. I said “intelligence is vulnerable. Individuals supplying it can be exposed, interrogated and killed. Our duty is to protect them. Operations can be compromised, techniques blown, ciphers changed. The targets of intelligence learn and improve their own techniques to conceal their actions from the authorities”. This means that intelligence must be protected and safeguarded, which is why systems have been developed so that intelligence can be safely used in court...
My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the ethics committee of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. I heartily welcome the Bill. I have spoken in this House on previous occasions regarding the need for a wide duty of candour. I am delighted that we are now making substantial progress. The role of public officials is and always must be one of stewardship, not dominance. To remain effective, this relationship demands the ongoing consent of the people, and that is possible only through honesty, transparency and the means for communities to get to the truth when things go wrong. This necessitates a higher standard of conduct for authorities which wield greater powers and capabilities. It requires resources to level the playing field when victims seek justice. This relationship is a fragile one, but it must be carefully maintained if public authorities are to retain the respect and trust of the people they serve. The introduction of a statutory duty of candour and transparency will be an important step towards strengthening this relationship and empowering the people to hold officials accountable when that trust is broken. As a young priest and industrial chaplain in Rotherham, I was deployed to the Hillsborough stadium when the clergy who had been present at the match were stood down. The sight of the thick, metal crush barriers at the Leppings Lane end, twisted out of shape by the sheer weight of human flesh and bone pressing down on them, still haunts me almost four...
I begin my speech with one thought in my mind: the 97 individuals who lost their lives on 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough, and their families and friends. It is through the tenacious campaign of those families and friends that we are here today. What occurred on 15 April 1989 was a shameful saga. It stains our nation. Various parts of the state colluded to cover up the truth and, worse, blamed the victims of the tragedy for the events. Clearly, that added grief to the already grieving families, not only immediately but over many years. It is a tribute to them-and they have never given up on getting the truth-that we are discussing this Bill today. Let us hope that the Bill becomes a living legacy for the victims of that tragedy. It is beholden on us to scrutinise the Bill in detail and to make sure that we get it on the statute book as quickly as possible. If Hillsborough was a lone event, that would be a serious issue, but it was not; there have been countless events where cover-ups by the state have led not only to victims not getting justice but to them having to fight for many years. I have been involved in fighting for justice for sub-postmasters with my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot. For the last 15 years, we have been working to help expose the truth around the Post Office Horizon scandal. Like the Hillsborough families, the victims of that scandal were lied to. Things were covered up; decent and hard-working individuals not only lost their livelihoods but...
My Lords, the Minister reminded us that, sadly, there have over the years been all too many examples of the abuse of state power, when those in public service have decided to act in a way that serves their institution, or indeed themselves, rather than the public whom they are there to serve. But, despite all those many examples, we must never forget, as other speakers have already referred to, that the origin of this legislation lies on the pitch at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989. We owe it to the 97 who died, and their families who have campaigned for so many decades, to make sure that we get this Bill right and that it will work. There has been a focus in some of the commentary on the issues of inquiries and investigations. But, of course, the lies, the manipulation of the facts and the misinformation at Hillsborough did not start at the inquest or at the independent panel; they started on and off the pitch on the day, 15 April 1989. That is why the wider issue of the duty of candour is so important, as is the aspect of the new legislation that the Government are introducing on misconduct in public office. Getting that right really matters for all those who have been affected by these abuses of state power over the years. There are two particular aspects of the Bill that I will focus on. The first is the protected information that has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, and the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, who both have significant experience in this...
It is my privilege to follow the noble Baroness and to commend the part she played as Home Secretary and Prime Minister in listening to the families. I hope the House will forgive me for reiterating words that have already been used this afternoon, but I have been reflecting personally over the last year or two on the 1989 disaster and whether I could have done a great deal more afterwards as the Member of Parliament in whose constituency the Hillsborough stadium is located. The commendations that have already been made to the families and campaigners, who have shown the most incredible tenacity and commitment to bringing about change, need to be reiterated, because making democracy work when you are suffering as they have suffered, with the emotion that they have felt, has been the most impressive yet tragic element of modern British democracy. I was not at the game-I was a very new MP for the area, and it was a semi-final-but my father-in-law-to-be was, and, to his death, he remembered it as though it was yesterday. My wife-to-be was a volunteer at the Sheffield Hallam Hospital, as a doctor, and I went to the Northern General Hospital and spoke to some of the 766 young men and women who were injured on that day. We were briefed by the police entirely wrongly. To this day I am grateful that, for once, I did not believe the police; other Members of Parliament did. The lies that were told on that day are a stain on the South Yorkshire Police and the force in general, but they...
My Lords, I start with apologies for the fact that I am commuting between the Chamber and the Grand Committee because of my involvement in the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. I very much welcome this Bill and profoundly thank the campaigners, survivors and bereaved families of Hillsborough, Grenfell, Post Office Horizon, infected blood, Windrush, nuclear testing, LGB personnel in the Armed Forces, grooming gangs, pelvic mesh and other scandals. With such a long list and long processes, one wonders: is the British state uniquely bad at preventing and righting injustices? The vow is “never again”. However, at the end of my remarks, I will raise fears about other areas where similar issues might be arising, even if they are not yet generally recognised as scandals. I worry that the Bill puts the chicken before the egg. Arguably, Parts 1 and 2 need to be reversed so that the obligation of ethical conduct comes first. If ethical conduct could be embedded, many scandals and inquiries, with their suffering, heartache and expense, could be avoided. It was bad enough for people to suffer wrongful actions and miscarriages of justice, but even worse that these became examples of institutional defensiveness, denial, obfuscation, delay and, as both the present Prime Minister and previous ones have said, cover-ups. I remind those who oppose the ECHR, such as those on the Benches to my right-who are even excluding from their party candidates who are sensible on this issue-that it was...
My Lords, the Minister made the case for this important Bill eloquently, and much of what I am about to say has already been said in some of the compelling speeches that your Lordships have heard today. The Bill has two key objectives: creating a duty of candour throughout the public sector; and creating a parity of arms in legal representation between the bereaved and victims and the state. I am wholly in favour of these objectives, but I worry that the Bill as it stands will not deliver them. Above all, I am not sure that the Bill will deliver what must always be the overriding objective when one of these terrible disasters happens; that is, to keep the interests of victims and the bereaved front and centre in the aftermath of any such disaster. I suggest that those interests can be summarised as follows: to find the truth about what happened and why, to find it quickly, and for accountability then to follow without delay. Without that, it is very hard for the victims and the bereaved to find any kind of closure after having suffered such terrible losses. For so very long, all of this was denied to the Hillsborough families and so many other victims of public disasters. The duty of candour aims to transform the culture of cover-up that has characterised the aftermath of public disasters such as Hillsborough, but transforming the culture of public organisations is notoriously difficult. That is particularly going to be the case when those in such organisations might feel...
My Lords, I have never been able to find the words to describe the calamitous events that took place at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989. I join with others in expressing, as I have previously done, my deepest sympathy with the families of those who lost their lives on that terrible day. I intervene in this debate to support the principle of the legislation before your Lordships and to explain some of the difficulties that Ministers face when our institutions-institutions in which, for the most part, we take great pride-fail to deliver justice. At the inquest, the coroner-controversially, and wrongly-excluded all evidence into what happened after 3.15 pm on the day of the tragedy, and verdicts of accidental death were returned. The outcome of that inquest was challenged by way of judicial review, but the court upheld the verdict of the inquest and specifically held that the cut-off point imposed by the coroner was not unreasonable. The families of the victims, as we have heard, continued, with incredible and sustained determination, to press for a public inquiry. It was against that background that, as Home Secretary, I replied to an Adjournment debate in the House of Commons on 17 December 1996. The debate was moved by Peter Kilfoyle, the then Member for Liverpool Walton, and he called for a public inquiry. In replying to the debate, I undertook to consider all the evidence to see what could be done, and after the debate I met those family members who had come to London to...
My Lords, I warmly welcome this Bill and congratulate the Government as a whole and Sir Keir Starmer for bringing it forward, albeit in a belated way. But it is very welcome that it is here. I have been incredibly moved by the power and the perception of every speaker. They have brought their own knowledge and experience to this debate. I think I am right in saying that I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House who was present at Hillsborough on that day in April 1989. I witnessed from the main stand the horrific events as they unfolded and saw the scores of casualties being brought out from the Leppings Lane end of the stadium and laid on the pitch. I do not think anyone in the ground fully appreciated-I certainly did not-the scale of the catastrophe that had taken place. Neither were we able to guess just how long it would take for the truth finally to emerge, a process made immeasurably harder by the obstructive attitude of several police forces, particularly South Yorkshire Police. For many years it attempted to put the blame for the disaster falsely on the Liverpool fans, claiming that it had been caused by hooligans fuelled by drink. As the noble Baroness, Lady May, said in her powerful speech, that lie started on the day of the disaster itself and persisted for years and years later. As early as August 1989, Lord Justice Taylor had published his interim report, setting out his findings on the causes of the disaster. It was highly critical of the police operation...
My Lords, I thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, for the very helpful and wide-ranging discussion we had last week. I also thank his admirable predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, for the time she set aside to see me with the mother and sister of Andrew Devine, who were constituents of mine in 1989. Having sustained terrible injuries, Andrew died in July 2021 from complications relating to the severe brain damage he suffered during the crush, becoming the 97th Hillsborough fatality. In the debate that I initiated in your Lordships’ House on 13 November 2025, referred to by my noble friend Lady Manningham-Buller, I referred to the hope of the Devine family that there would be one enforceable code of conduct for public officials, backed by meaningful sanctions. I raised this issue last week with the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, and I hope he will tell us what progress is being made in achieving it, and that he will commit to continue to engage with the family, and with the House, on how the code will work and what will actually be in it. Although this Bill is, of course, about more than Hillsborough, for me the story began in the run-up to, and the days which followed, the catastrophic semifinal played on 15 April 1989. Before the match, I had sent the Government correspondence questioning the suitability of the ground at Hillsborough. In the days that followed, I began asking questions, which went without answer for years and years on end. By way of example, I...
It is an honour and privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who has been a stalwart supporter and advocate for the Hillsborough families, right from the time the disaster occurred. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, to the Front Bench. We are lucky to have him in dealing with a Bill like this. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Levitt, who put in a huge amount of work in relation to the Bill before the Recess. I also pay a very profound tribute to the Hillsborough families. It is because of the Hillsborough families, and only because of them and the experience of the people who suffered at Hillsborough, that the Bill is here. It is an incredibly important Bill. It represents a fundamental shift whereby the Government and public authorities pay a price for not just a cover-up but deliberately not helping people who have the misfortune to suffer, as the Horizon postmasters and the Hillsborough families have, and as the people with infected blood have. Test the Bill by reference to what happened in Hillsborough. The disaster was caused by a catastrophic act of negligence by the police. As the noble Baroness, Lady May, said, the very afternoon they had done that, they spread lies to the media to try to deflect blame from themselves. The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, identified in his initial report that it was a catastrophic failure by the police, but that was obscured in the inquest that followed. At that inquest the public...
My Lords, it is with a heavy heart that I warmly support the Bill, because when I first became a public servant, now nearly 60 years ago, I would never have anticipated that, decades later, we would need to legislate to require public officials to behave with integrity and tell the truth-but we do. That is a cause for us all to reflect on the state of our public services, for which we in this House all have some responsibility. I think I am the only former Permanent Secretary speaking today, and I feel that responsibility very deeply. Like others, I want to congratulate those who have fought to uncover the truth and then to win support for a Bill that I hope will make the deceit, obfuscation and dishonesty that they encountered less likely in the future. I so admire what they have achieved but their fight should never have been necessary, any more than it should have been necessary for victims of the infected blood scandal. We cannot allow this to go on staining our public services in the way that it is, so this is a hugely important Bill and a hugely important moment. Inevitably, a lot of attention has been focused on the proposed new duty on public authorities and officials to act with candour at inquiries and investigations. Equally important is the part of the Bill that imposes a new duty on them to take steps to maintain ethical conduct “at all times”. I want to say a little about that, because the real test of the Bill’s success will be whether it helps to stamp out...
My Lords, no one in this country needs reminding of the terrible events which are summed up in that single word: Hillsborough. The pain of the deaths of 97 people remains raw in the communities affected, not least because this was no accident-these people were unlawfully killed. As though that were not bad enough, what followed was a national stain on our public services, which reverberates still and contributes to the suspicion that many of our citizens feel about the state itself-that it is not there to serve the many and, worse yet, that those who work for the state are often contemptuous of many of the ordinary people who just want to go around living their lives in peace and security-because what followed the deaths, terrible enough though those were, was a cover-up. Inquiry after inquiry has shown that the state subjected the families to lies and smears, all so that the people who were in charge would not be held responsible for the deaths. Members of your Lordships’ House have repeatedly paid tribute to the families because they never gave up. In the end, what was revealed was something which goes far further than just affecting the families. It is about the kind of society we want to be. At the various inquiries and investigations, the police lied, falsified their notes and got away with it, at least in part because they were represented by phalanxes of lawyers paid for by the taxpayer, when the families-the ordinary people-could not get legal aid. It looked unfair...
My Lords, I too pay tribute to the fearless campaigning by the victims’ families and survivors of Hillsborough, whose resilience, strength and courage over 36 long years in the face of unaccountable power and unthinkable injustice made this Bill a reality. Bishop James Jones should also be praised for his commitment, determination and dedication to getting us to this landmark point. The Bill is a welcome step on the road to improving openness and candour within public bodies, but it does not go far enough to protect victims of state injustice. The opportunity to strengthen the impact of the Bill should not be lost, so will the Minister confirm that the Government will ensure that the Bill has the strongest effect? Will he guarantee that a timetable will be set without delay to table secondary legislation extending the duty of candour in Clause 2, and that the extension will include public officials subject to serious complaints, sometimes affecting thousands of people? With this in mind, I draw attention to the Windrush victims and survivors-the generation who came, as British citizens, 78 years ago from the Caribbean, answering the call from Britain, the motherland, to come and help rebuild the country after the war. Yet the Windrush generation had to face adversity, discrimination, violence, rejection, racism and abuse. They could not get places to live. They had to take low-paid jobs even though they were qualified to take on senior roles. But with determination,...
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the opportunity to speak on this matter. I start by paying tribute to the victims of multiple tragedies that stretch from Hillsborough to Grenfell, who have given this country the chance to raise its head and feel good about itself in a law that is being passed that speaks to accountability, confidence in our democracy and the fact that we can open ourselves up and learn from incomparable disaster. I start with that, as this is utterly a positive. It is a tragedy-like the tragedies that have led to it-that it has taken so long, and the courage of the people who have suffered the most has brought us here. But, now that we are here, we should celebrate the fact that the UK is doing this. Regardless of the granular detail of the debate that will necessarily follow, or of the points that people who are more legally expert than me will make, the principle of this should not be underestimated. A country that is confident enough to do this is a country worth being proud of, and we should celebrate it in that context. If you look around the world, you see a distancing from this and a drawing away from this instinct. We should be pleased and proud, across all Benches, that it is coming here, even if we wish to debate the detail. My whole working life, from the shop floor to leading an organisation, was spent responding to the tragedies we are talking about today. I do not intend to list them, but some of them are the most significant losses of life...
My Lords, it is a pleasure and an honour, although rather difficult, to follow the noble Lord, who spoke movingly and from the heart about things he knows a great deal about. I thank him for what he has said. I apologise for having been less in the Chamber than I would have liked because of another Bill in Committee upstairs. I look at this Bill from the point of view of the sub-postmasters, and I declare an interest as a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. It was good to hear the remarks of my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, who also sits on that board. I have an initial question to the Minister from which everything else I say follows: does the Bill cover the Post Office, a so-called arm’s-length organisation? I believe that, because of the definition contained in paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Bill, the Post Office is covered, but I should be grateful for the Minister’s explicit confirmation of that. An important aspect of the Post Office scandal is that it began as a computer problem, both hardware and software, but rapidly turned into a human behaviour problem, as managers denied the existence of the computer problem. Perhaps they denied it first to themselves, but later, they certainly denied it to everyone else. Managers believed-or pretended to believe-what they were paid to believe, and therefore what they wanted to believe. We all tend to believe what we want to believe. But how does a duty of candour in practice apply in such circumstances?...
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his speech this afternoon, and the many Members across the House who made moving and powerful contributions, including the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett, Lord Bichard and Lord Roe, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. A long time ago, I was born in the wonderful city of Liverpool. I have identified with the city and its football teams ever since, supporting Liverpool almost obsessively, but always having a sneaking regard for Everton, too. That, by the way, was before Andy Burnham became Prime Minister. I have also found myself involved from time to time with improving education in the city. On 15 April 1989, the day of that terrible and tragic set of events at Hillsborough, I was the best man at a wedding. It was, incidentally, the wedding of my noble friend Lord Pitt-Watson. So, very unusually for me, I did not even think about football until the evening. I can remember the sense of shock and horror when I finally heard the news. I am humbled now, all these years later-far too many years later-to have the opportunity to speak in support of this important legislation and to publicly express my admiration for and sympathy with the Hillsborough families and all they have been through. Today, I have only one point to make. It is to reinforce one the Minister made originally and that others have referred to: while sanctions and enforcement are absolutely essential, if this legislation is successful, as we...
My Lords, I shall focus my remarks on a less frequented part of the Bill, Part 3, which repeals the common-law offence of misconduct in public office and replaces it by new statutory offences. It is almost six years since the Law Commission reported on this, after a detailed statutory consultation. The common-law offence is an ancient one, but fell largely into disuse during the 20th century. Attempts to use it again more recently have demonstrated its defects, notably a lack of clarity and precision. These defects created the potential for what the Law Commission described as misuse-for example, in prosecuting journalists-injustice, and a tendency to target junior rather than senior officials. The Law Commission recommended that the common-law offence be repealed and replaced by two statutory offences. It is to the Government's credit that this recommendation is given effect in the Bill. What remains for us, I suggest, is to ensure that the statutory offences have the clarity, the precision and the efficacy that the common law lacked. With that in mind, I have three concerns in particular. First, the Clause 13 offence is committed only if a person uses their office “to obtain a benefit … or to cause another person to suffer detriment”. Any defence lawyer worth their salt will take this as an invitation to argue that the offence can be committed only if a benefit is actually obtained or a detriment actually suffered. That may, to be fair, not be the Government’s view. A...
My Lords, it is a pleasure to begin the new term with support for this Bill. I begin with my tributes, first, of course, to the Hillsborough law campaigners-survivors, family members, lawyers, and supporters-a shining example to anyone who strives against grave injustice anywhere in the world. When this Bill passes, I hope soon, the achievement will be theirs, to the benefit of millions of others. I remember awarding them a Liberty human rights award at a star-studded ceremony 13 years ago. They were the real stars. Their struggle, as we have heard, began 24 years earlier in 1989, with the greatest sporting event disaster in our history and the long, corrupt cover-up that followed. It is sad that even in the two years since the last general election, there have been concerted attempts to create blanket exemptions and prevent anything now recognisable as the Bill’s central duty of candour reaching the statute book-so thanks are due also to the new Prime Minister, a long-time supporter of the campaign in and out of Parliament and government. His return to Westminster will no doubt have focused minds and shifted roadblocks. Thirdly, respect is due to my noble friend Lady Levitt, whose name graces the Section 19 statement of human rights compatibility on the face of the Bill. We shall miss her criminal legal expertise at the close of this debate, but it is so good to hear her participating with her characteristic distinction. I suggest that the whole House should support this...
My Lords, I share the mood of this House about the tragedy of Hillsborough. I pay tribute all those who have spoken so movingly and with great sensitivity about the long suffering that it has caused. They have drawn, rightly, on their own experiences. Surely the very least we can expect of all of us and of all public servants, elected and unelected, is that we should tell the truth to an inquiry. That should be a minimum requirement or expectation. Surely we should go further and expect all public officials facing an inquiry to collaborate willingly, to offer information and to share the relevant papers, rather than seeing it as a defensive measure they have to take to protect themselves and their small part of the public sector from proper scrutiny. They should want to get to the bottom of it to learn from the experience. How do you run a good organisation? You learn from your mistakes, as well as reinforcing your successes. I want to concentrate, in my brief remarks, on how important a properly enforced and widely accepted and adopted duty of candour is throughout the public sector to avoid another series of chapters of disasters of the kinds we unfortunately have to review today-everything from bad blood to the Grenfell fire, the Hillsborough disaster and the Post Office mugging some of its best employees. If we could get the public sector to adopt that more widely we would start to intercept problems early and avoid them getting out of control, and we would succeed in...
My Lords, I make it crystal clear that I support the Bill. Indeed, I would support a tougher Bill to include better protection for whistleblowing, because prevention is better than cure. As has already been said, it is clear that, without a national oversight commission dealing with inquests and inquiries, it is likely that such reports will continue to gather dust. I realise that we are going to be told these are issues for other Bills. I have heard that in the past many times. I have also learned that you need to act legislatively when you can. Even if you can get only 80% of what you need or want, take it then-because all the other plans and promises will be down the road by several years. We need these two things in particular to make a stronger Bill. We can get them put into the Bill. While several scandals are referred to in the volumes of briefing on the Bill, it is absolutely clear that the damage done to Hillsborough families over the decades has created the pressure and momentum for the Bill. At Inquest’s family listening project in 2025, a participant said: “It’s only when we had the Hillsborough Independent Panel did the families get full disclosure”. Without disclosure, “you don’t know what you’re up against”. We will again fail these families if we do not build in sufficient resources. This was the final point in the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller: we need the resources, because otherwise the extra work will be taken from front-line...
My Lords, I very much welcome the Bill. The Hillsborough families had not only to endure an unimaginable loss but then to spend decades trying to establish the truth about what had happened. Sadly, public institutions so often respond to appalling situations by becoming defensive, protecting their reputations, rather than by being open about their own actions. The duty of candour and assistance is a very important change, and so too is the attempt to address the inequality between bereaved families and public authorities at inquests and inquiries. However, there is an aspect of institutional failure, which I hope we can explore as the Bill progresses. The Bill quite properly deals with what institutions must do when something has gone badly wrong and an inquiry or investigation follows, but the history that has brought us to this Bill raises an earlier and important question: what on earth was happening inside those institutions while the wrongdoing was taking place? Many of our major scandals demonstrate that the eventual revelation was not by any means the first occasion on which anybody knew that something might be wrong. There had been warnings, complaints or people within an organisation who had tried to raise concerns, who often found themselves on gardening leave or signing NDAs for a sum of money. The abuse by Jimmy Savile was not uncovered-not because nobody had ever had concerns about him; the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse repeatedly demonstrated that...
My Lords, I am a panel member of the public inquiry into Orgreave, now a modern housing estate on the outskirts of Sheffield. In 1984, it was a major South Yorkshire coking plant. On 18 June 1984, Orgreave was the site of conflict between approximately 6,000 police officers from 28 different forces, led by the South Yorkshire police force, and approximately 5,000 striking miners, who were picketing Orgreave to stop coke being transported to British Steel blast furnaces. It was an extremely violent event. Miners and police officers were injured, some seriously. There were mounted police charges, including into the village of Orgreave itself. Short and long shields, truncheons and police dogs were used. The Orgreave inquiry was established to investigate what happened on that day, during which 95 miners were arrested and later charged with riot and unlawful assembly. The former, riot, at that time carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The first batch of 15 cases on the charge of riot were tried the following year, starting on 8 May 1985. The trial collapsed after 40 days when the prosecution offered no further evidence. In 1991, South Yorkshire Police paid £425,000 in compensation to 39 miners in response to their claims for assault, wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution. The Bill’s official title is the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. Its more common title is the Hillsborough law, in respect to the 97 football fans who were unlawfully killed on 15 April...
My Lords, at this stage in a debate it has almost all been said, but some things need to be said more than once, so forgive me. Nearly 37 years ago, 97 Liverpool fans were unlawfully killed at the Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield. Fourteen years ago, the Hillsborough Independent Panel published its report. Thirteen years ago, the High Court quashed the original inquest verdicts of accidental death. Ten years ago, at the second inquest, the jury returned a determination of unlawful killing. Eight years ago, the then Home Secretary commissioned a report on how we could learn from the families’ experiences “to ensure that the pain and suffering … is not repeated”. Those are not my words but those of the author of that report, Bishop James Jones, to whom tribute has already been paid today. He presided over the independent panel and he titled his new report with the powerful words already quoted today: The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power . The independent panel had listened to the families and analysed the documentary evidence in great detail. It had discovered three things which had not been revealed in previous inquiries: first, that the families had been treated with an astonishing lack of sympathy and compassion in the arrangements made and in their interactions with the police, seemingly bent on blaming the victims; secondly, that numerous police witness statements had been altered to tell the story that the police force wanted to tell; and,...
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the distinguished noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale. I too am conscious, as she said, that most things have probably already been said. None the less, this is such important legislation that it is crucial that those who want to do so participate in it, and that is why I continue to make my contribution. I want to start, too, by paying tribute to the families, because without them-without only them-we would not be having this debate today. The disaster that occurred at Hillsborough was not a natural disaster or an accident. It was caused by the failure of police officers at every level to do their job and ensure that the fans were safe. That failure, as we have heard, was compounded in the subsequent decades by deliberate, repeated lying and cover-up by the police, by the abject failure of the judiciary, courts and lawyers to uncover the truth, and by the terrible complicity of parts of the media, with one newspaper in particular fabricating stories to vilify the fans and sustain the lie that they themselves were to blame. I can recall immediately what I was doing on 15 April 1989 when the radio broadcast a newsflash that a major incident was unfolding at the stadium. My husband’s two younger brothers were among the Liverpool fans at that game, and like many other families we were desperate for news and watched on television the chaotic and heart-rending scenes as fans themselves rushed on to the pitch with make-do stretchers-but with...
My Lords, I too warmly welcome the Bill and pay tribute to all those who fought so hard to achieve it. If I may immediately pick up the point just made so forcefully by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford: how are we going to make the change envisaged by the Bill effective? It is undoubtedly necessary, but not yet in itself sufficient. Although this is indeed a milestone, we are not yet at the destination that everybody wishes to see of deep cultural change. How are we going to get there? I would like to confine myself to just two aspects of this challenge: one is public inquiries and the other is how to make the duty of candour effective. Astonishingly, we have no fewer than 26 public inquiries currently going on in this country. But as the Institute for Government report of December 2025 pointed out, that system of public inquiries is itself suffering from “systemic problems”, including cost, delay and failure to deliver change. As your Lordships’ own Statutory Inquiries Committee reported in 2024, in particular there is a failure to follow up on public inquiry recommendations, and that means that avoidable mistakes are constantly repeated. Therefore, I agree with the Institute for Government, which suggests that this Bill is a first step in the reform of our public inquiry system. There should be a clear system of consistently following up on inquiry recommendations, including by a committee of both Houses-or, failing that, a committee of this House-so that...
I support the Bill and the purposes behind it. We know that it is a priority for the Labour Government, in particular for my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. More importantly, it is important to the families who have lost loved ones at disasters, not least at Hillsborough. I of course endorse the tributes paid to the campaigners who have led to us being here debating the Bill today. My concern is with the Bill’s reach, and specifically whether it will reach the financial regulators. Make no mistake: when financial services go wrong, it causes real harm-pain and suffering, in the words of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale. It destroys lives, and there are examples of people who have lost their lives because of the harm that has been caused to them in the area of finance. I have two problems on which I would like more clarity from my noble friend the Minister. First, there is a need to be clear about what counts as a public authority for the purposes of the Bill. The definition in Schedule 2 turns, in the end, on whether a body has functions of a public nature. From my perspective, to take one, the Financial Conduct Authority plainly exercises such functions. It is also, in form, a company limited by guarantee, as are the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. I would like the Minister to confirm in the debate that these bodies will be included within scope of the Bill as it is worded at present; if they do not, we will...
I have rewritten chunks of my speech because other people have said what I was going to say and have said it better. I support the Bill and hope that the Government will listen to some of the amendments that will be tabled, because it can be improved. It seems that noble Lords from all around the House agree that it is a stain on the country when families who have suffered so much should then have to fight the state for the truth and for understanding that it did wrong. Public institutions should tell the truth, even, or particularly, when the truth is uncomfortable. Hillsborough should have changed this culture, but again and again what we are seeing is the same instinct-the same culture-to protect the institution rather than the people it has failed. All tribute to the Hillsborough Law Now campaign for the fact that it pushed so hard and made us listen. In fact, many of us have been calling this the “Hillsborough Bill” from the start. Of course, this goes much wider than Hillsborough. We have heard of the incredible losses that people experienced, but there is the Post Office scandal, the infected blood scandal, the Grenfell scandal and the Manchester Arena scandal-scandal after scandal where institutions cared more about protecting their reputation than they did about helping the people who have been impacted. The Bill will be an important step in changing that culture, but only if it is tough and only if we understand that you do not change a culture just with words. A...
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness’s enlivening contributions to our debates. May she go on boasting. Rightly, the Bill aims to ensure that the public service treats the public it serves with accountable candour and transparency. It is odd to feel that we need a Bill to achieve that end-it is something that should happen naturally between the public service and the public it serves-but, of course, we do, and we have had a number of Bills over the years that have dealt with public service conduct. I will mention another in a minute. The fact that it has taken 37 years to reach this necessary point is, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, reflected, a severe and lasting lesson for all of us who have taken any part in the public service. Again, it should not have to happen that way. What worries me about the Bill is not that we will, I hope, enact it-I am very much in favour of the principle of the Bill-but that we have done similar things before, not always with the success that we expected. We need to try to ensure that what emerges from the Bill delivers success for its aims. There is no room for complacency in our support for the Bill. I suggest that noble Lords, if they have not yet taken the time, read-just before they go to bed because it will be good bedtime reading-the very Long Title of the Bill. It illustrates in a few intense lines what we are trying to deal with here; it is not going to be an easy task. I commend, as others have done, the...
My Lords, it is a real honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. What I want to say has mostly been said but, still, I shall continue. I support the Bill because it addresses one of the most important principles in public life: when a state is responsible for serving the public, it must also be accountable to the public. The lessons of Hillsborough are painful and profound. When things went wrong, institutions closed rank, information was withheld, responsibility was deflected, and bereaved families were left fighting for the truth. That is why I particularly welcome the Bill’s duty of candour. Public authorities and public officials should have nowhere to hide. They should be required to act with transparency, frankness and honesty, and to assist inquiries and investigations in finding the truth. The Bill provides criminal sanction for serious breaches, which I wholeheartedly support as well. This matters because accountability cannot simply mean blaming an institution after the event. There must be a responsibility for the individual who makes decisions or who withholds information. In my public life over the last 30 years, I have seen some incompetent people in charge of important decision-making where their first instinct is to protect themselves, hiding behind institutions and their departments. Most say that they are acting in the best public interest. I welcome that the Bill also challenges that culture. Of course, we must be careful when forming criminal law....
My Lords, the Bill is about more than Hillsborough, but we would not be here today but for the unlawful killings at Hillsborough 37 years ago. It must be enacted without further unnecessary delay, but still with significant scrutiny to help make sure that it achieves its aims. As I said in our Hillsborough debate last November, it is welcome that the legislation will apply beyond public bodies to private bodies and contractors delivering public functions, but I fear that this principle will be undermined if subcontractors are not also included; nor will it be as effective as it should be if we fail to strengthen the whistleblowing protections so that breaches of the duty of candour cannot be buried. This may require the creation of an independent office of the whistleblower and other measures to ensure statutory protection for those who exercise candour and expose wrongdoing, perhaps among colleagues. I speak as someone from Liverpool who is mindful of how the deaths of the blameless victims and the lies about them affected my city. It took great courage and determination in the face of establishment cover-ups to finally get the truth to be accepted beyond Merseyside and to bring about this Bill, but it should never have required a change in the law to make police and public officials tell the truth. A change of culture is necessary as well as changes in the law. My fear now is that the Bill’s promise of accountability may be weakened by fragmented codes and inconsistent...
My Lords, the speech I am going to give this evening is one I wish I did not have to and did not feel obliged to. I am going to deal with elements of the Bill and the debate which relate to what the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, raised originally but have been covered by many other noble Lords in different parts of the House, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and the question of whistleblowing. It is how you establish the process of candour at a lower level within any part of public service, because the reality is that this Bill should never have been necessary in the first place. The two cases I will cite are examples of how, at a much lower level, things go wrong but people believe they can cover things up. I am in the fortunate position in the first example of being able to say that I have followed the processes in both cases. In the first case, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, was present when I was with officials only a few months ago saying, “Will you please answer the questions which I have been raising for four years?” Four years ago, I introduced the Ballot Secrecy Bill and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, advised me that I should seek counsel’s opinion through the Electoral Commission, which they and I did. Counsel’s opinion was provided in August 2022. I have a copy of it here. Only one other organisation was provided with a copy: the officials handling the Ballot Secrecy Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, touched on the matter earlier in relation to advice...
My Lords, I should declare an interest, I think. I am the unremunerated non-executive chair of the trustees of the Leicester law centre. That is perhaps relevant to something I will say in a moment. Like everyone else I have listened to, I warmly welcome the Bill and would like to see it in force as soon as possible. My main regret is that it has just taken so long to legislate changes that should have been law years and years ago. The yawning gap between the parties at inquiries and inquests has been obvious for a long time to anyone who wanted to notice. That these changes are at last to become embedded in statute is-I know I am repeating what many have said-due to the strength, patience and courage of all those who have fought so long and against so many obstacles set in their path. First and foremost, obviously, I mean those who lost family and friends nearly 40 years ago now at Hillsborough. Then of course there are those, whoever they are, and there are many, who realised the monstrosity of what had happened at Hillsborough and the monstrosity of the ensuing cover-up, and who remained determined to see justice for those killed and for future generations. I congratulate the Government on putting these changes into their manifesto and on bringing it to Parliament as a government Bill. However, to praise and support a Bill is not the same thing as saying it is perfect in its present form. I really want this to work as an Act of Parliament but I have to confess that, for...
My Lords, coming towards the end of this debate, I will not repeat points made in the truly excellent speeches we have heard across the House. I am going to focus on a slightly different aspect, which is none the less very relevant to the spirit of the Bill and merits becoming part of the letter of it. The Bill will impose a duty on authorities to “act with candour, transparency and frankness in their dealings with inquiries”. They will be statutorily required to act with accountability and openness. The Bill applies to government Ministers and government departments, but there is one respect in which the Government will not be required to act with such candour, transparency and accountability, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Despite the vast sums of taxpayers’ money spent on statutory and non-statutory inquiries, the Government are not required to be open with the public or give reasons if they decide not to implement inquiry recommendations. The UK has spent at least £1.5 billion on completed inquiries since 1990, with active ongoing inquiries continuing to cost taxpayers upwards of £200 million a year. These are eye-watering sums of taxpayers’ money. How can a Government be free to spend millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, of pounds of taxpayers’ money on an inquiry initiated because of “public concern”, and then be under no obligation even to give reasons to the public for rejecting its recommendations? The NAO has estimated that 55% of inquiry recommendations...
The noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, and earlier the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, raise a very important point. There is no point in passing a law under which you have to tell the truth at inquiries if, when the inquiries conclude, nothing happens. That is the problem with just passing laws. Maybe surprisingly, the one speech by the former Prime Minister and soon to be former MP, Keir Starmer, that I found moving and stirring related to the Hillsborough Bill. He said it was a law for the victims of “all the countless injustices over the years, suffered by working people at the hands of those who were supposed to serve them”. I genuinely choked up. He went on to name-check Horizon, Grenfell, infected blood, grooming gangs and Windrush. How depressing that we can all think of so many more examples of truth and justice being concealed behind the closed ranks of the state. The powerful speeches we have heard today reflect this. The idea of politicians admitting to this and even compelling public bodies and officials to be held accountable for state-related harms to ordinary people just feels momentous. Yet I have some qualms about overclaiming and hype, proclaiming that the law will shift the balance of power and lead to a culture change per se, as other noble Lords have noted. It all feels more serious than that, because, to be frank, we are in the midst of a democratic crisis. Over the Recess I read the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre’s report,...
My Lords, I welcome the Bill and congratulate all campaigners who helped to secure the duty of candour and extend human rights. However, I have several concerns. The Bill imposes a duty of candour only after a formal inquiry, inquest or government-led review has started. Such inquiries are preceded by years of toil, by whistleblowers and concerned citizens, but there is no duty of candour for those stages. There are numerous examples showing that state officials go to enormous lengths to conceal information and prevent reviews and inquiries. The DWP fought for years to avoid publishing a damning report into Errol Graham, who weighed just four and a half stone when his body was discovered by bailiffs attempting to evict him in 2018. His benefits were wrongly stopped. Subsequently, the DWP conducted a safeguarding review of vulnerable benefit claimants. The Child Poverty Action Group submitted a freedom of information request for a copy of the review. The DWP refused and spent £50,000 on legal fees to prevent this release. Three years after the original FoI request, a tribunal forced the Government to release the information. So can the Minister explain why there is no duty of candour at all stages when officials interact with the public at large? The Bill invokes the concept of protected information, which for years has been used to avoid accountability. Let me give just one example. In 2006, I began a five and a half-year chase to secure a document relating to the forcible...
My Lords, after a day of extraordinarily brilliant speeches from people who have an understanding that goes way beyond mine, I am going to keep to a fairly narrow topic: whistleblowing. The duty of candour is intended to deter wrongful behaviour and cover-ups and to expose them if they happen. That goal requires people to be confident to speak out-in other words, to blow the whistle-hopefully long before we reach the crisis point of an inquiry. Whistleblowers are also crucial voices at inquiries. But two fears hold people back from speaking out: the fear that the issue will not be investigated, and the fear that they will face detriment and retaliation for speaking out. The existing whistleblowing framework that we have in place today does not eradicate those two fears. Whistleblowers are regularly ignored, silenced, and often pay a high personal price-finding that their career and their financial future are in ruins. The protections that do exist under PIDA and under employment rights apply only to a very narrow definition of workers and not to many people whose voices are absolutely critical. The Bill takes some steps forward in Clause 10(5) by adjusting the code of ethical conduct. But the steps are not sufficient and, indeed, the requirements introduced into the code would almost certainly be met by the existing whistleblowing provisions in virtually every part of the public and private sectors-the very provisions that have tragically failed to prevent or expose serious...
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and I think she raises some really valid concerns about whistleblowing. I know it is late, but I am just going to take a moment to echo other noble Lords who have welcomed the Minister-the noble Lord, Lord Lemos-to his place. I too would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, for the care that she took on this Bill previously. I welcome this Bill. It is the result of many years of campaigning from the Hillsborough families. But, like the noble Lords, Lord Bichard and Lord Carlile of Berriew, I cannot help feeling slightly conflicted. When I told my husband what this Bill was about-making sure that when a public authority has failed, all those with any knowledge or responsibility will be completely truthful and transparent about what went wrong-he was incredulous. “Doesn’t that happen already?”, he asked. “Do you really need a law for that?” But no, as we know, it does not happen-as you well know if you have had the terrible misfortune to be part of any of the scandals of the last 30 years and more. That is the reality, and whatever we feel about it, on the face of it, that means that this is a very good Bill. It is about taking responsibility and holding public bodies to account, something that we all support across this House. But however good its intentions, this Bill is not a panacea, and I think it is really important that we are honest about that. Let us not overpromise, because if you are...
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson. There are a number of issues that we agree on, and I will not repeat them. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lemos on the work he is doing on the Bill and look forward to working with him on some of the issues that I have been working on. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Levitt, who is a very good friend, on the work she has done on the Bill and thank her very much for the time that she given to so many people. She has gone over and above. I thank the Hillsborough families and the families of victims of other awful incidents that have happened where people have not been able to find the truth, who I had the pleasure to work with and meet. I thank the organisations that arranged all the meetings that we were able to have, including our one-to-one meetings on Zoom and so on with families. It is so important, and they all welcome the Bill very much. I welcome this Second Reading of the Hillsborough law Bill. I start by paying my respects to the victims of the 1989 disaster and the bereaved families who have campaigned tirelessly for nearly four decades to receive their most basic need: the truth about what happened to their loved ones. I welcome the Bill and believe that it will significantly strengthen our judicial system and the processes that affect survivors, families and victims. The Bill embodies what the duty of candour is: to supplement and strengthen data and its disclosure. First, I will...
Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice
My Lords, so many of the points I was going to make have been made by others far more powerfully than I can, so I will try to be as brief as possible, given that we are coming to the late stage of the evening. Many of us here know what it is like to come up against an opaque, prevaricating, evasive state. I have had the honour of working with many whistleblowers over many years as a journalist and on the board of the Care Quality Commission, which itself missed Mid Staffs, for example. Let us remember, when we expect public servants to delegate their consciences to regulators, that the regulators are also very often flawed. By the way, not every whistleblower is genuine: there are many people with personal vendettas and many people who have become so emotionally harmed by their involvement in situations that they are not always coherent, so triaging these systems is very difficult. Not every case is simple, and not every case is black and white at all. That is one of the reasons why it is so important that we understand the nuance of this debate. One of the things I have observed over many years is that the more agencies are involved and the bigger the state becomes, the easier it is for people to cover up and pass the buck. That is one of the things we saw in the Horizon scandal, and it is true of almost every single scandal that we have in our public life. I would simply warn every single Member in this Chamber who has at some point in this debate proposed yet another...
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick
My Lords, as the final Back-Bench speaker I know a lot has been said, but I would like to give a perspective from Northern Ireland. I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate. I welcome the Minister, my noble friend Lord Lemos, to the Front Bench, and the participation of my noble friend Lady Levitt. I congratulate all those people who suffered immeasurable grief at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 on their tenacious campaigning. It is through their campaigning and that of many public representatives in Liverpool and beyond, including the current Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, that this landmark legislation was achieved. But we must not forget the victims of Grenfell, the Post Office scandal, the infected blood issue, sodium valproate and the mesh. On all these issues, people were confronted with a lack of closure, information and transparency. They deserve those things, and I hope that this legislation will be the vehicle that will provide them with that necessary closure, accountability, truth and, above all, justice. From a Northern Ireland perspective, I have a couple of questions for my noble friend the Minister. First, can he confirm when the legislative consent Motion will be approved by the Northern Ireland Executive and the Assembly, and whether he has had any discussions with the Executive and Assembly regarding the passage of the legislative consent Motion? Secondly, I have been contacted by the victims’ and survivors’ commission and Amnesty International...
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, to his new role and thank him for meeting with us last week. I also want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, for all the work she did on the Bill earlier in the summer. I declare an interest as a director of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Police Spies Out of Lives, which is run by victims in the Spycops case, came to the trust some years ago and asked us if we would help it find some support for the beginning of the inquest. “Yes”, we said: “Two years”. We are still funding it 11 years on, and that is an absolute scandal. I start with a tribute from these Benches to all the victims and families in the Hillsborough tragedy, but also to the many, many others to whom noble Lords have referred during the debate today. I am also grateful to the many organisations which have engaged with us and sent us briefings. Regardless of where the briefings have come from-whether charities working with victims of appalling injustice at the hands of the state, or legal and health bodies with formal roles in delivering transparent and accountable services-there is one clear message for this Government, which I think they should be encouraged by. We need this Bill, but it does need strengthening-we have heard that from most sides of the House today-or perhaps it will not work quite as Ministers want. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, said that we need a duty of candour because...
My Lords, at about 8.30 pm on the evening of Saturday 15 April I came home from synagogue with my late father. As we did every week, we conducted religiously our family’s two rituals. First, there was a short ceremony to mark the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the working week. Secondly, we turned on the radio to get the Liverpool score-and I will never forget what we heard. We did not get the result of a football match. Like the noble Lord, Lord Barber, who I think said that he tuned in after a wedding, we were confronted with a human tragedy. By that time some, but not all, of the terrible facts were known. The disaster had been unfolding in the national media for about five hours. Many had done their best to help, in dreadful circumstances. I think everybody who heard the personal witness of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester could not help but be incredibly moved by it. By the time we switched on the radio, the death toll was already appallingly high. Shankly, of course, had famously joked that football was more important than life and death. That night, we learned the terrible truth: it is not. I do not recall that we yet knew that there were 94 victims on that day, whose names are now inscribed on a fitting memorial. We rightly now mourn the 97, with the tragic additions of Lee Nicol a few days later, then later still Tony Bland and then, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, Andrew Devine, whose family went through particular pain, as the...
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for participating in this debate today. I think all noble Lords will agree with me that it has been an immensely powerful debate, with a deep sense of reflection and consideration, and I greatly welcome the sense of consensus and collaboration that has prevailed throughout the discussion today. That demonstrates-as does the whole genesis of the Bill-a phrase that my noble friend Lord Blunkett used: there is strength in adversity, and it is that strength and the spirit of that which we seek to draw on in taking the Bill forward. I particularly thank the noble Lords who drew on their personal experiences-I was very moved by that. I have to say that it is a humbling privilege for me to be responsible for progressing the Bill through your Lordships’ House. I am very proud to be doing that and to be following my noble friend Lady Levitt, who has done such a distinguished job to get us to where we are today. I will seek to address as many of the issues as I can, but I know I will fail. I have not a hope in hell of addressing all the issues that were raised in 45 speeches, and I am not terribly good at namechecking everyone who spoke, but I will try my best. On the detailed comments about scopes made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for letting me off the hook of having to reply to them all this evening, but I will respond to them in detail, both in writing and...
Bill read a second time.
Commitment and Order of Consideration Motion
Moved by
That the bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the bill in the following order: Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 11, Schedule 2, Clause 12, Schedule 3, Clauses 13 to 16, Schedule 4, Clauses 17 to 19, Schedule 5, Clause 20, Schedule 6, Clauses 21 to 28, Title.
I beg to move. Amendment to the Motion
Moved by
After “Whole House,” insert “but that Committee stage will not commence until the Minister has made a statement setting out which clauses and schedules of the Bill, including amendments made to the Bill, the House of Commons did not have time to consider on the floor of the House;”.
My Lords, I do not want to put myself in the doghouse, so I will only be a few minutes. This form of amendment was the only way I could raise the issue that I want to raise, which is, of course, to call on the Government to give us a list of the issues the Commons did not have time to consider. I want to talk about why it did not have time to consider them. I listened to every speech today, and it is absolutely clear to me that there will be lots of amendments from this House going to the Commons. The purpose of raising the issue in this way is to strengthen the role of the elected Members of the Commons at the expense of the Government. I will make two or three general points, and then I will relate these points to the Bill. In the Commons on Second Reading, every Bill is guillotined. It calls it a programme Motion. It covers up, and all the Bills are dealt with that way. We started that in 1997, and I freely admit that, on reflection, it was one of the mistakes we made. Governments always want to boast about the number of Bills they pass, which is done at the expense of scrutiny, because they make the programme Motion so tight. It is so tight that areas of Bills are left unscrutinised. So, the Bills arrive in our House with inadequate scrutiny. We end up sending more amendments back to the Commons than would otherwise be the case. Then, when they get to the Commons, the Government in the Commons-not here, of course-blame the Lords for MPs having to do more work on what we...
My Lords, you are not quite done with me yet. This is quite an unusual Motion and, as I understand it, it is about not only this Bill but the general scrutiny of legislation in the House of Commons. The entirety of the Bill was considered in a Commons Public Bill Committee in the usual way and again by the whole House on Report. In the Commons, the selection of proposed amendments for debate and for decision is not a matter for the Government, but all selected amendments were debated in that House in that House’s usual way. Both Houses work differently and they have their own procedures and practices. It is not for this House nor the Government to criticise those proceedings in the other place, as I am sure noble Lords would not want them to comment on the way we conduct our business. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.
My noble friend was not listening to what I said. The Government do the programme Motion, not the Members. It is the Government who propose the guillotine. It is the government Motion that puts the dates down and the times allowed-the Government, not the Members. The Members agree it because it is on a three-line Whip, and the Government decide whether to make a long Motion with more time or a short one with less time. It is the Government who do it-and every Bill is covered, by the way. Look at Commons Hansard . I am not criticising the Commons; we are not allowed to do that. The point is that the Members need to be strengthened against the Government. Do not forget that the Government are in charge of both Houses. The programme Motion still applies; when we have made our amendments to this Bill they will go back to the Commons to be delivered under the programme Motion. The Commons will have maybe an hour or 90 minutes to look at what we said, and there will be complaints such as, “Oh, it’s the Lords again. We need to reform them”. The Government Whips will be saying that to Labour Members who will be complaining about the work we are sending them. It is about time we got a bit of candour, openness and transparency on this issue. It is true that I tabled this amendment before the end of July, and the Government saw the amendment and withdrew the Motion. That is why it has only just appeared. I was asked whether I would do it on another Bill; I said that I proposed to do it...
Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.
Motion agreed.
House adjourned at 10.12 pm.