Hillsborough: Collapse of Trials

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make a statement on the collapse of trials relating to the Hillsborough disaster and subsequent developments.

I am sure that the whole House would want to join me in paying tribute to the immense courage, determination and patience of the families of the 96 people who died in the Hillsborough disaster, and of those injured who, 32 years on, continue to grieve about the events of that truly terrible day.

The collapse of the case concerning two former police officers and a solicitor who are charged with perverting the course of justice for allegedly having altered statements to be provided to the 1990 Taylor inquiry was the final opportunity for the families seeking justice for what happened at Hillsborough. As the House will have seen, the trial judge in that case ruled that the offence of perverting the course of justice could not have been committed because the inquiry was carrying out an administrative function for the Home Secretary and was not a process of public justice. As such, the prosecution was not able to establish a key element of the offence of perverting the course of justice and the case was unable to proceed any further. Of course, as Lord Chancellor, it is my duty to respect that decision.

Since the Taylor inquiry, the Inquiries Act 2005 was introduced, which allows inquiries to take evidence on oath and to compel witnesses to give evidence and to produce documentary evidence. Section 35 of that Act also makes it an offence to commit acts that intend to have the effect of distorting, altering or preventing evidence from being given to the statutory inquiry. It is also an offence intentionally to suppress or to conceal a relevant document or to destroy such a document.

Members will be rightly concerned as to what, if any, effect this may have on current public inquiries, such as the Grenfell inquiry, the undercover policing inquiry and the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. Each of those are statutory inquiries and each has been set up under the aegis of the 2005 Act, which means that, should someone seek to distort, destroy, conceal or suppress evidence in any of those inquiries, that Act provides that those actions will constitute a specific criminal offence. Indeed, the common law offence of perverting the course of justice may also be an appropriate offence to charge if the elements of that offence are made out.

This is a very important urgent question and I wanted to make sure that it was debated, quite rightly, today. The Lord Chancellor took longer than I expected, so if Members feel they need to take longer, will they please bear in mind that I want to make sure that everybody gets a fair chance to have their say about this very important matter?

I thank Lord Chancellor for his careful and thoughtful words.

It is 32 years since the 96 people were unlawfully killed having gone to watch a football match, primarily through the gross negligence of the South Yorkshire police who should have been protecting them. Five years since the inquest verdicts, after six men were charged with 14 offences, only two charges were even put to the jury. Twelve charges were thrown out or withdrawn and just one conviction was secured, for a health and safety breach, resulting in a £6,500 fine. Yet since 2016, the families and survivors have been silenced to prevent any prejudice to the criminal proceedings, necessitating the cancellation of all public memorial services, including the 30th anniversary, and preventing them from correcting the record when the Hillsborough slurs about fans causing the disaster have been repeated—and they have been repeated in court and outside court.

Does the Lord Chancellor agree that it is a catastrophic failure of our criminal justice system that nobody has been held accountable for these killings and that it has taken 32 years for things to fail so badly? Does he think that the Crown Prosecution Service has any questions to answer about the charges laid, the vigour with which they were fought, and the CPS’s failure to challenge the reintroduction of the Hillsborough slurs when the families themselves could not because they were silenced? Does he accept that the utter failure, over 32 years, of our criminal justice system to do justice for these people requires changes of the law to make sure that families who are bereaved in public disasters never again have to endure this extended ordeal, after so many years trying to get truth and justice?

The Lord Chancellor seemed to say that he wants to learn lessons, and I welcome that, so will he consider enacting measures in the Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill, which is designed to stop things going wrong in the first place—that is the key to stopping things going wrong in respect of public disasters—and in the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill? Will he work with those of us in this House who have been campaigning on this issue to get it right for the future?

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I pay tribute to her for the consistent work that she continues to do in this area. She has asked a number of questions, and she will perhaps forgive me if I cannot answer them with absolute specificity, but I will do my very best. I will start by reiterating the apology that David Cameron made. That is the Government’s position—no ifs, no buts.

With regard to the prosecution, clearly, it was right for the case to be brought and, as I have said, as Lord Chancellor, I have to respect the process. However, that has had quite a consequence for the families.

The important work that now needs to be done by colleagues in the Home Office—I have taken the trouble to speak to Home Office officials this morning—is to focus on Bishop James Jones’s 2017 report and work with the families to ensure that those recommendations are carried out. The focus has to be unrelenting, and I want this to take months, not years. Obviously, the families need to be at the heart of it—“nothing about them without them” clearly has to be the watchword—and I am confident, in the light of the work done by David Cameron, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and now by the Home Office, that that approach will very much be taken.

In regard to the work that the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood and others, including Lord Wills, have been doing on the independent public advocate, I want to assure the hon. Lady that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that bereaved people are supported and given a proper voice throughout the process. A Government consultation was conducted in 2018, and the responses to it were rather varied. I propose to do some more work on that process more swiftly, and to bottom-out what the options might be in ensuring that any service is independent, has the confidence of those who use it and makes a difference, particularly in major public inquiries where many lives have been lost. I know that that has been the focus. I will work with the hon. Lady to ensure that the consultation will look at what the threshold might look like and at the overall impact. I do not think we need to create some huge public body; I know that that is not the hon. Lady’s intention. I now want to give this careful and close attention, and I am sure she will work with me on that.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has acknowledged that the collapse of this trial has been the final blow to the Hillsborough families in their desperate search for justice over so many years. He has referenced the independent public advocate. In 2017, I pledged:

“To ensure that the pain and suffering of the Hillsborough families…is not repeated, we will introduce an independent public advocate who will act for bereaved families after a public disaster and support them at public inquests.”

We are now four years on, so can I urge him to act swiftly in this matter? We have established our former colleague here in this House, Nick Hurd, as a ministerial representative working with the Grenfell families after that tragedy, but I would say to the Lord Chancellor that I see that role as quite different from the role of an independent public advocate. The independence of the public advocate is incredibly important. The Lord Chancellor wants to get it right, but please get it right quickly.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to her for the approach that she took not only as Prime Minister but as Home Secretary throughout those years, particularly after the first report by Bishop James Jones in 2012. I well remember being a Back Bencher in this House and raising the issue of potential criminal charges, and now here we are, nearly 10 years later. I take the point about time, but I know that she will appreciate that I want to get this absolutely right. I want to make sure that anything that we do chimes with the aspirations and needs of those who might use such independent advocates. Our work will be fruitless if it does not achieve those aims.

We now come to the shadow Secretary of State, David Lammy.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who has been at these issues in this House for 24 years on behalf of her constituents and others.

The Secretary of State will know that inquests have since found that 96 victims were unlawfully killed by the negligence of others. The authorities who were supposed to protect the 96 that day instead failed them. More than five years ago, the South Yorkshire police commander in charge on the day of the Hillsborough disaster admitted not only that he had inadequate experience to oversee the safety of the 54,000 people, not only that he accepted responsibility for the deaths, but that he lied, telling the then secretary of the Football Association that Liverpool fans should be blamed for getting entry through a large exit gate when, in fact, he ordered the gate to be opened himself. These lies—these pernicious, ugly mistruths—have caused incredible pain to the families of the 96, who were already in despair and obviously experiencing grief.

The collapse of the most recent case at the end of last month is yet another kick in the gut for the families of all those who lost loved ones at Hillsborough. It is nothing less than a national scandal that not one person responsible has been punished or held to account in the criminal justice system for these deadly failures. The lack of justice in this case is undermining the very concept of a public inquiry. After a tragedy like this, the system only works where there is good faith. There is clearly bad faith in respect of the Hillsborough tragedy, and we must legislate so that this can never happen again.

The travesty of Hillsborough is not a one-off. We can see parallels in the experience that the Grenfell families are going through at this time. Do the Government now accept that they need to change the law? Another tragedy, another 32 years of injustice—we clearly need to do something. This does not have to be a partisan issue. The former Prime Minister, as we have heard, yesterday expressed the need for legislative change after the most recent trial collapsed because, although it was accepted that police evidence had been altered, it did not constitute perversion of the course of justice as it was evidenced to a public inquiry. Authorities must be held to account and victims must be given the support that they need. The proposals to ensure that this takes place—the Public Advocate Bill and the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill—are ready to go. We cannot have more cover-ups, more lies and more pain for bereaved families. Truth and justice matter. Will the Secretary of State today commit to working cross-party to change the law not only to secure justice for the families of the 96, but to ensure that this does not and cannot ever happen again?

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and, of course, I reiterate the commitment that I made to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) to work across the House. Those are not just words; that is backed up by the consistent work that this Government have done both in the incarnation of the previous Prime Minister and, indeed, when David Cameron was in office.

The right hon. Gentleman refers to changes in the law. I have already alluded to my intention with regard to the additional work to be done on how an independent public advocate service might work. I am also mindful of work that the Law Commission has done on potential changes to the offences of misconduct in public office, which are clearly tied in with these matters. On the matter of perverting the course of justice, I have made it clear that inquiries under the Inquiries Act 2005 could indeed be covered by that common law offence, which is a significant difference from the Taylor inquiry, which was, if you like, an administrative inquiry ordered by the Home Office, which formed the basis of learned trial judges’ decisions. I am confident that the current inquiries under the 2005 Act—indeed the future covid inquiry—would be covered, subject to the evidential tests being met by the common law offence of perverting the course of justice as well as the section 35 offences that I referred to in my initial statement.

Nothing can take away from the grief and heartache that the Hillsborough families have suffered. The system, for various reasons, has prolonged that suffering, and this has been rightly brought to our attention by the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle). She is a fellow member of the Justice Committee, and all Committee members would want to extend their deepest condolences to the families at what must be a very trying time.

Will the Lord Chancellor recognise that we have to be cautious in moving to legislative change in relation to the specific facts of this case? This is a case in which a legal decision—a point of law—was argued by very experienced counsel on both sides in front of a very experienced High Court judge. Conclusions may have to be made, as he has set out, as to what should come from that, but legislative change may not be appropriate where we are dealing with a very fact-specific set of circumstances and the particular legal status of the Taylor inquiry.

Will the Lord Chancellor also recognise that he has received from the Justice Committee a report that highlights the way in which, in a number of important areas, the coronial inquest system fails, regrettably, to protect and support bereaved families both in large cases of great public attention such as this and in smaller ones too? The report makes a specific recommendation that legal representation should, as a matter of course, be available to families in cases where there has been a disaster that has significant public consequences or where state agencies such as a police authority are themselves legally represented, so that the families can get their concerns aired and their desire to challenge and scrutinise the evidence heard by their own representatives at the inquest stage earlier in the proceedings?

I am grateful to the Chair of the Justice Committee. I think I should correct the record; it was, of course, the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) who asked the urgent question. I know that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) is similarly supportive, and I am sure that she is more than grateful to be referred to, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, who is in the Chamber.

My hon. Friend is right to talk about the excellent report that his Committee has done. We will respond to it by the end of July, and my officials are working on that response. His question draws out some important points that we should all remember when it comes to inquests. Inquests are processes that are designed to uncover the facts. They are not trials; they cannot be trials. This brings us back to the essential point for the families. The families have put their faith in the criminal trial process as a way of responsibility—people being held to account. However comprehensive the inquest process was—and the inquest chaired by Sir John Goldring was, indeed, a very comprehensive and thorough piece of work that all of us can reflect upon and understand—it was never going to be a trial.

The point I seek to make is that we must ensure that, when we talk about equality of arms, which is a very important point that underpins the hon. Lady’s campaign, we do not turn to some sort of adversarial blame game. That would be wrong. It would be a disservice, frankly, to bereaved families, and it would be a misunderstanding of the coroner’s function. Article 2 widens the provisions of the inquest to allow for wider consideration to be given, but it is important that all of us focus upon the function of an inquest and the fact that any changes to be made should not detract from its essential quality.

The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human tragedy at a football match at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield on 15 April 1989. I pay tribute to those who lost their lives and the families who have spent decades in pursuit of justice.

In 2016, the inquiry findings concluded that 96 victims were unlawfully killed due to gross negligence. Police errors in planning, defects at the stadium and delays in the emergency response all contributed to the disaster. The behaviour of fans was not to blame. The 32-year battle for justice by the families shows that the English legal system is in dire need of reform. It has failed to provide any real accountability for these unlawful deaths and a cover-up that extended from the police lying and omitting crucial details to the media narrative shifting, blaming fans for their deaths, and a long, hard fight for the truth. The collapse of the latest trial means that no one will be held criminally responsible. Margaret Aspinall, who lost her 18-year-old son in the disaster and is the former chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, has called this outcome a

“cover-up of the cover-up of the cover-up”,

saying that families have been

“put through a 32-year legal nightmare looking for the truth and accountability.”

Given the collapse of the trial, how does the Minister plan to promote confidence in accountability for public servants and in the idea that fair justice is ensured in the English legal system? The ruling that the Government inquiries are not a course of public justice and that in effect public servants cannot be held legally to account for evidence provided to them is incorrect and risks creating a dangerous precedent for those who wish to withhold or amend evidence for future inquiries. What action will the Minister take to ensure that the system of inquiries is not compromised by this ruling?

In the hon. Lady’s sensitive and appropriate invocation of the memories of the 96, it is right to pause to remember that 50 years ago the Ibrox disaster happened in Glasgow, a major disaster costing many, many lives.

And the one with Bolton Wanderers, too.

Indeed, Mr Speaker; you are quite right to add that to the record.

What brings those two tragedies together, although they are separated by time, is the fundamental approach that was taken to safety then. It seems that public order trumped safety, and the attitude of the then authorities was about the containment of potential unruly behaviour rather than the fundamental issues of safety. That lazy thinking, which seems astounding now in 2021, underpins many of the ways in which disasters such as this happened—or near disasters, which on many occasions were averted only by mere good luck or circumstance. That is an important point to reflect on. We cannot go back to those days. The care and safety of fans at matches have to be paramount and at the centre of any considerations by police and other agencies responsible for safety on these important occasions.

I have in my previous answers dealt with many of the proper points that the hon. Lady raises. I will reflect in this way: with regard to the inquest process, I think she will appreciate the important need for me to balance the imperative of ensuring that those who have been voiceless have a voice while at the same time making sure that we do not do anything inadvertent to close down opportunities for frankness. Although the Inquiries Act has done a very important job in making clear what is covered not just by statute but by the common law offence of perverting the course of justice, just because an inquiry might not be held under its aegis does not mean that there should be some retreat from principles of honesty, openness and integrity. That should not be the case. It should not just be about the letter of the law being there; it should be about the spirit of behaviour by everybody. That is what I want to see, and I know that it is what hon. and right hon. Members want to see too.

It is hard to disagree with the reported comments of Deanna Matthews that it is “ludicrous” for the search for justice to have ended in this way, particularly when the community in Liverpool have had to fight so hard for so long to uncover the truth. What does my right hon. and learned Friend consider is the key lesson for the Department he leads to prevent things like this from ever happening again?