Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Wills Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wills (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an important Bill. The Government deserve credit for seeking to address many of the ways that victims of crimes and public disasters have been let down by the state over the years. I pay tribute to the Victims’ Commissioner, as many others have tonight. The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, deserves credit for the way in which she has campaigned tirelessly on behalf of victims for over a decade.

However, it is disappointing that, in many areas, the Government have not gone as far as they could have done, and should have done, to provide better protection for victims. In his opening remarks, the Minister said that his door was always open, and he has certainly proved that to me personally. I hope that he has taken careful note of the number of speakers who tonight have said that this Bill just does not go far enough.

Why, for example, have the Government not introduced a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation, to ensure that children who have been forced into committing crimes are recognised as victims, not as perpetrators? Why, for example, are victims and survivors of rape who have had the courage to report appalling acts of sexual violence still being denied adequate legislation and guidance to prevent intrusive and inappropriate requests for survivors’ personal records? That forces them often to choose between vitally needed therapy and the pursuit of justice. Furthermore, there is no adequate means of enforcement of the victims’ code.

I want to focus my remarks on Part 2 of the Bill, relating to victims of major incidents. This derives from my two Private Member’s Bills, which endeavoured to set up an independent public advocate to act on behalf of the victims of large-scale public disasters and those bereaved by them. It has been a long journey to get to this stage. I introduced my first Private Member’s Bill nearly a decade ago. Since then, I have campaigned to get it adopted by the Government, as has my colleague and friend in the other place, the right honourable Maria Eagle MP, who has campaigned to get a similar Bill adopted there. The proposal went into the Conservative manifesto in 2017, and into the subsequent Queen’s Speech. And so finally here we are.

Throughout this process, successive Ministers and their officials have been generous with their time in consulting me. I place on record my thanks to all of them, including most recently the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy. I am particularly grateful to the former Prime Minister, the right honourable Theresa May MP, who immediately saw the merits of this proposal when she was Prime Minister and has campaigned for it ever since. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, for her kind remarks about this; she was a very important member of that team that first brought the independent public advocate into seeing a serious possibility of legislation. She also deserves tribute for her part in this long journey to where we are tonight.

The Government have shown themselves willing to listen, and the version of Part 2 that is now before your Lordships’ House is a significant improvement on the original, profoundly flawed draft. However, it still will not deliver what victims of public disasters and those bereaved by such disasters want and need. The extraordinary persistence, dignity and solidarity of the Hillsborough families’ campaign that generated the momentum that led to the development of the concept of the independent public advocate really deserve better.

The challenge—and it is a challenge—is to strike a balance between the impartial discharge of justice and good government on the one hand and protecting the interests and feelings of the bereaved and injured survivors on the other. My Bill sought to establish two fundamental pillars of a new system, based around the institution of an independent public advocate, both of which this Bill fails to deliver.

The first pillar was transparency. Without it, the bereaved will never achieve anything approaching closure, and, without it, it is difficult and often impossible for the public policy lessons to be learned and necessary reforms made. The second pillar—and this is important in everything that we have heard tonight about what the state should be doing better for victims—was ensuring that victims and the bereaved have some agency in the process. No longer must they be left on the sidelines, dealing with unimaginable grief and loss while the state proceeds, apparently on their behalf, but without giving them any agency in the process. The Government’s proposals do not provide any guaranteed mechanism for securing full transparency, such as the Hillsborough independent panel achieved, and they deny victims and the bereaved any effective agency.

The Government’s view appears to be that, as His Majesty’s Government are democratically accountable, they must be able to wield the executive power for which they will be held to account by Parliament and the electorate. This is not an unreasonable approach, but it does not mean that they should deny bereaved families any effective agency at all in these matters, which is the current position, and nor can it justify any failure to maximise transparency. Again, that appears to be the current position of the Government.

As I have suggested before in your Lordship’s House, one way forward might be to specify that the Secretary of State, in proceeding with an independent public advocate, must act with regard to the dues of bereaved families, the benefits of an independent public advocate and/or an inquiry and/or a Hillsborough-type panel, including in relation to cost, timeliness and transparency, and any wider public interest. Crucially, I have suggested that the Secretary of State must—not may—produce a debatable report to Parliament justifying why they have proceeded as they have done and why, if they have not exercised this power, they have not done so, and that this debatable report should be produced as soon as possible after the public disaster. James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool, in his masterful report, to which the Government have only just responded, points out that any delay allows these public organisations to protect themselves, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, has just said, and produce a false narrative. We saw that demonstrated graphically in the case of the Hillsborough disaster.

As the Bill progresses though your Lordships’ House, I will bring forward amendments to try to achieve greater transparency and greater agency for the families. I hope the Government are really listening and will find it in themselves to adopt them—I cannot see any reason why they should not.

Finally, I take this opportunity to urge the Government to reconsider their long-delayed and half-hearted response to Bishop James Jones’s report on the Hillsborough disaster, aptly titled The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power, and to use the legislative opportunity of the Criminal Justice Bill, or indeed this Bill, to introduce a statutory duty of candour for those operating across public services, such as policing, health, social care and housing. By requiring openness and transparency, a statutory duty of candour would assist in creating much-needed cultural change in how state bodies approach inquests and inquiries. It would give confidence to individual members of those organisations who want to assist such inquiries and investigations but may be experiencing quite intolerable pressure, in many circumstances, not to do so. We must see an end to these sorts of evasive and obstructive practices by state bodies following deaths in these circumstances. We have seen, all too often, the damage that this causes, not least following the Hillsborough disaster. A statutory duty of candour would help end this.

The families bereaved at Hillsborough fought a dignified, indomitable campaign for decades to secure truth and justice for those they lost. By ensuring that those similarly bereaved in future never have to endure what they endured, the institution of the independent public advocate will be a legacy for their struggle and for their loved ones. I ask the Government to make it a meaningful legacy and give all the Hillsborough families hope that the Government will be prepared to amend the Bill in the ways I have described.

Public Advocate Bill [HL]

Lord Wills Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wills]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Wills (Lab)]

As some noble Lords may remember, this is the second time I have moved that this Bill be read a second time. The first was more than seven years ago, when it received wide cross-party support. I then outlined how the Bill, which provides better support for victims and families bereaved in public disasters, had grown out of my experience as a Minister who devised the Hillsborough Independent Panel. This Bill has been on quite a journey since then.

The concept of an independent public advocate to support victims of public disasters and families bereaved in them, which is the heart of the Bill, was adopted by the then Prime Minister, the right honourable Theresa May. I pay tribute to her steadfast and continuing support for this concept. She ensured that it was part of the Conservative Party manifesto in 2017 and in the following Queen’s Speech. Since then, Ministers and a consultation came and went, the years went by and nothing happened. My right honourable friend and colleague in the other place, Maria Eagle, repeatedly and heroically introduced a Private Member’s Bill derived from this one in the other place and still nothing happened, but finally, this year, the Government incorporated some elements of my Bill—this Bill— into the Victims and Prisoners Bill, and I place on record my thanks to everybody in the Government, Ministers and officials, who made this happen. I am grateful for their unfailing courtesy over the past seven years in consulting me about this Bill. However, welcome as the Government’s proposals for an independent public advocate are, they are none the less based on the fundamentally flawed assumption that the system as a whole works generally well on behalf those bereaved by, or otherwise victims of, large-scale public disasters such as Hillsborough, so no radical change is needed, merely some improvements around the edge. That is what their proposals represent in contrast to the proposals in this Bill.

If that is indeed the Government’s assumption, I am afraid it is wrong. The fact that, finally, the families bereaved at Hillsborough have been able to achieve much of what they campaigned for over so many years—decades—should not lead to any complacency about the systems currently in place to respond to such public disasters. When the full record of what happened after the Hillsborough disaster is eventually made public, it will show, I believe, how the successful outcome of the Hillsborough Independent Panel was the result of a whole series of fortunate coincidences. There was nothing inevitable about it. Above all, it was the extraordinary persistence, dignity and solidarity of the Hillsborough families’ campaign that generated the momentum that led to the panel and its achievements. This will not necessarily be replicated in similar situations in the future. The system remains fundamentally broken in the support and agency it offers such families.

Now, the government Bill will make progress. Regretfully, I must assume that mine will not in the same way. As a result, I do not intend to rehearse the detail of my Bill in the way that I did seven years ago. Instead, I want to focus on the crucial elements of this Bill that the Government have omitted from their own and to urge them to think again.

Sadly, we must assume that such tragedies involving large-scale loss of life will recur. My Bill seeks to provide a better way of responding to them and does so on the basis that there is an identifiable pathology in the process that follows pretty much all public disasters. The nature and extent of a public disaster demands a response from government. The same questions are asked: who is to blame? What can be done to prevent it happening again? Finding the answers does not put the bereaved families anywhere near the centre of that process. The state naturally assumes for itself the dispensation of justice and the needs and wishes of victims, including the bereaved, are not always paramount. As the process unfolds, there is an inevitable tendency for those in official positions, with all the resources at their disposal, who fear that they might be blamed in some way for what happened, to close ranks. They often skew the results of any investigation, as they are in a position to do so, often funded by the taxpayer. The report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel graphically illustrated this pathology in action, in the way it exposed the behaviour of the police, but it is not only the police that are susceptible to these sorts of behaviours.

As I said seven years ago,

“the interests of justice and good government would not necessarily be best delivered by removing the state altogether from the process of responding to public disasters”.

That clearly is not the case. I said:

“The challenge, therefore, is to strike a better balance between the impartial discharge of justice and good government and protecting the interests and feelings of the bereaved and injured survivors”.—[Official Report, 29/1/16; col. 1521.]


My Bill seeks to establish three pillars of a new system. The first is transparency. Without it, the bereaved will never achieve anything approaching closure and it is difficult, often impossible, for the public policy lessons to be learned and for necessary reforms to be made. The second pillar is the creation of an institutionalised, independent, adequately resourced advocate for the bereaved. Those bereaved in future public disasters should not have to rely on ad hoc remedies such as those that, in the end, delivered some progress for those bereaved at Hillsborough. Finally, the third pillar is the need to ensure that victims and the bereaved have some agency in the process. No longer must they be left on the sidelines, dealing with grief and loss while the state proceeds, apparently on their behalf but without giving them any agency in the process.

The Government have adopted only one of those three pillars, and that only in part. Their proposals do not provide any guaranteed mechanism for securing full transparency, such as that achieved by the Hillsborough Independent Panel. They deny the victims and the bereaved any effective agency. In giving them power to set up an independent public advocate, the government Bill gives the Secretary of State unfettered discretion about whether to appoint one. It gives them similarly unfettered power to dismiss them. They have unfettered powers over whether to appoint a Hillsborough-type panel to secure transparency. Moreover, it appears that the advocate, in its proposals, may produce a report only if the Secretary of State requests it.

The government proposals mean that the victims and the bereaved are being given no effective agency and that transparency might well be obscured. That is precisely what my Bill seeks to achieve. Now, the government view appears to be that, as the Government are democratically accountable, they must be able to wield the executive power for which they will be held to account by government and the electorate. This is not an unreasonable position at all, but it does not mean, in adopting that position, that they have to deny bereaved families any effective agency at all in these matters, which is the current position; nor can they justify any failure to maximise transparency, which, again, appears to be the current position. My Bill could easily be amended, and the Government could easily adopt it, to deal with these problems with the Government’s proposals.

One way forward, for example, might be to give the Secretary of State a legal power to appoint an independent public advocate and/or a public inquiry, but to specify in a way that would be subject to judicial review that they must do so with regard to the views of the bereaved families. The benefits of an independent public advocate, an inquiry and/or a Hillsborough-type panel include cost, timeliness, transparency and any wider public interests.

The points about cost, timeliness and transparency are crucial. One of the lessons of the Hillsborough public inquiry is what it achieved, even 20-odd years after the event, more swiftly and more cheaply than the two public inquiries that preceded it. It would be a much more effective way of securing public policy goals in my view, which is why my Bill is drafted as it is.

Crucially, the Bill also includes the provision that the Secretary of State must produce a debateable report to Parliament justifying why they have or have not exercised this power. That must be published as soon as possible after the public disaster. Any delay at all will only compound the grief and sense of loss of the bereaved families.

The families bereaved at Hillsborough have fought a dignified and indomitable campaign for decades to secure truth and justice for those who they lost. They were traduced in the popular press, particularly by the Sun newspaper, and by the former Prime Minister who has just resigned from Parliament. They have fought a dignified battle in the face of these terrible unjustified attacks on those who they loved and lost.

Today, I am asking the Government to make their legacy of the independent public advocate a meaningful one, and to give them hope that the Government will be prepared to amend the Bill in the ways that I have described. I hope that the Government give me that reassurance today, so that I do not have to persevere any further with a Bill that has already been waiting seven years to be brought into effect. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wills (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been a short debate, but I hope it has been another stage in making a profound difference to the lives of those who, in the future, may be involved in public tragedies, which, as the Minister said, are inevitable. I also hope it will make a difference to those who, out of a clear blue sky, find their lives transformed by a terrible public tragedy.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his powerful expression of the need for transparency and better support for the bereaved. I am grateful, as I always am, for the support of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, who reminded us all from direct personal experience that these are human beings at the centre of this. We have to remember that it is people such as his friend whom we have to try to support through this process.

I am also grateful to the Minister for his thoughtful, sympathetic approach to the issues raised by the Bill. I am encouraged—I hope I am not being misled—that he talks about focusing on the means rather than the end, on which we are all agreed. I find it most encouraging because it suggests that the Government’s mind is still open on the important points we have discussed. I hope I am not wrong in interpreting his remarks in that way.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I have to say that I give no commitment of any kind. I would not want anyone to read between the lines. All I am saying is that the Government will listen very carefully to the points being made.

[Lord Wills (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister; I would not dream of expecting him to make any commitments today, but I am grateful for his willingness to listen, because it suggests a willingness to accept amendments that go in a slightly different direction. He rightly points out that this is not the time to debate the Victims and Prisoners Bill, but I draw his attention to his remarks about the complexity of the processes in my Bill. I will not die in a ditch over the drafting of my original Bill; I said seven years ago and am happy to repeat now that I am perfectly willing to accept that it is flawed and needs improvement in many detailed ways. It has never been my intention that it should proceed verbatim, as it were.

However, I worry that, underlying his remarks, he may think there is something innovative about a lot of this, as his remarks about the data controller suggested. I therefore draw his attention to the fact that there are two existing, very successful models that my Bill draws on and which are at its heart. I urge the Government to examine them. The first is the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation; if the Government look again at the remit for that institution, it is very analogous to what is envisaged in my Bill. I urge them to think about adopting this proposal in the Victims and Prisoners Bill, in line with that.

The Minister talked about the complexity of the data controller’s role. It is not actually complex at all; it is literally on the model I initially devised for the Hillsborough Independent Panel—my second example—which everybody agrees was a tremendous success. However, its success was not due to the conception; the primary reason for its success was the extraordinary chairmanship of the right reverend Bishop of Liverpool and all its members bringing specific expertise. I also pay tribute to the Home Office official who provided the secretariat for that panel; it was outstanding work that showed just how wonderful our Civil Service can be. At a time when it is regularly traduced as “The Blob” and all the rest of it, one should look at the work of Home Office officials such as them and just be grateful that they work in public service.

There are existing successful models which this institution in my Bill is based on. I hope that, as we move forward in a co-operative, cross-party way—we have done so until now and I very much hope we can continue in that frame of mind—the Government will bear those models in mind. I look forward to exploring all these issues in due course as the Victims and Prisoners Bill comes before your Lordships’ House. In the meantime, I remain very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part and to the Minister, and I ask that your Lordships give this Bill a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Hillsborough: Collapse of Trials

Lord Wills Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, as Prime Minister David Cameron said when he made the apology in the other place, the families

“suffered a double injustice: the injustice of the … events”

themselves,

“the failure of the state to protect”

them

“and the indefensible wait to get to the truth;”

and also the offence of

“the denigration of the deceased.”—[Official Report, Commons, 12/9/12; cols. 285-86.]

When I was at the Bar, it was generally regarded as unwise or sometimes improper to comment publicly about your cases. I certainly commend that approach to anybody who says anything about the acts of the Liverpool fans. The Sun itself had to provide a full apology. It well behoves everybody else to read the Bishop Jones inquiry if they want to find out what the truth actually is.

[Lord Wills (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, those of us who have been campaigning in support of the Hillsborough families for many years welcomed the positive and sympathetic response of the Lord Chancellor in the other place, and it has been echoed today by the Minister. Does he agree that it is time to meet the demand of the Hillsborough families—that no one similarly bereaved in a public disaster in the future will have to suffer what they suffered for so long? Does he also agree that the Public Advocate Bill, as first set out in the 2017 Queen’s Speech, will meet that demand by giving the bereaved real agency in the aftermath of such disasters and the ability to set up a Hillsborough-type panel to ensure that the truth is never again covered up?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the Government fundamentally recognise the importance of placing the bereaved at the heart of any investigation that follows a public disaster. The noble Lord has worked in this area for a number of years and a Bill on this has been proposed. There was a government consultation in 2018, the responses to which were somewhat varied. As the Lord Chancellor confirmed in the other place last week, we will work at pace to ensure that we have a proper, full consultation on this important topic. He also reiterated that we will work on this on a cross-party basis. It is important that the independent public advocate does three things: first, it has to be independent; secondly, it must have the confidence of those who use it; and thirdly, and most importantly, it has to make a practical difference.