Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Gill Furniss Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

It has been a massive privilege to have all the families appearing with us today. Without their presence, this law would not be being passed. Let me also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle), and all the Liverpudlian Members sitting behind me who have worked so hard over the years.

The failure to hold public officials accountable when they are at fault has been the foundation of innumerable scandals in our history. Just a few of them are Orgreave, Windrush, Grenfell, the nuclear test veterans, the infected blood victims and the post office workers. All those people have suffered at the hands of the state through no fault of their own, but, to our eternal shame, their suffering has been compounded by indifference, inaction and, in some cases, malice on the part of the very bodies that are meant to serve and protect them.

The need for change is clear. It is vital that we have a Hillsborough law worthy of the name, and I am very pleased that the Bill will meet that standard: I am certain that my colleagues on the Bill Committee and my colleagues in the other place will ensure that that happens. The introduction of a Hillsborough law was one of the most important manifesto commitments for me, if not the most important, and I greatly appreciate the Government’s affirmation that they will resist any attempts to water the Bill down. I believe that my colleagues and friends will do the same, and, as the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, I know that many of my constituents will strongly welcome that commitment.

On 15 April 1989, we were home to the country’s biggest sporting disaster. At the time, I lived just around the corner from the football ground, and I have never forgotten that day. I went out to buy a card for my best friend’s birthday, and I was walking down my street just after it had happened, when people were leaving the ground. At my local shops there was one telephone box, and there must have been 80 to 100 people queuing up beside it, in complete silence. Not a word was being spoken. As I carried on towards home, it became apparent that the people walking around in our community were completely dazed and traumatised by what they had seen happening on that day.

[Ian Byrne]

May I place on record my thanks to the people of Sheffield? On that day, they were magnificent in looking after the Liverpool fans who, as my hon. Friend has said, had no way to phone home. They showed unbelievable human kindness to those fans.

[Gill Furniss]

My neighbours and members of my community were opening their doors to people and giving them cups of tea, because they were clearly in shock, and also letting them use their telephones to tell their loved ones that they had survived. At that time, I was about nine and a half months pregnant. My daughter was born on 1 May, and every year when that date comes around I think of those who did not have a daughter at home, whereas I was lucky enough to have my baby. Today is a very emotional day for Sheffield, or at least for me, as I remember how it was—as I remember that that happened in the city where I was born and the city that I love. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby for reminding me that the few little bits that we could do meant something to those people, and I will be ever proud of my constituents for what they did.

The Bill is long overdue, and I apologise to the people sitting in the Gallery for that, because we should have done better in the past. For a long time, public bodies have not considered themselves to be accountable, which is why the word “accountability” is in the Bill’s title. I think we are now bringing home to people out there—people who work in other areas—the fact that they have always been accountable. We are just reminding them, and ensuring that there will be consequences for those who think that it does not apply to them, including prison sentences. That is only right.

I feel today that we are putting right the wrongs that have been long with us in our society. I agree with those who have said, “This is having a go at the working class, because they do not know any better, they have no money, and they cannot easily get hold of legal aid”—which, indeed, does not even exist now. I should like to think that today is a celebration of the people who have campaigned tirelessly over the last 36 years, because without them, we would not be here. I say to them, “You guys were really tenacious as friends of the victims, and you have kept going and telling everyone what was wrong.”

I absolutely concur with what Members have said about The Sun. I would never buy a copy of that paper, and I never have after that day, because the part that it played in this tragedy should be subject to an open inquiry so that we can see who collaborated in ensuring that it looked as though people were drunk, people were out of their heads on stuff and people had caused the tragedy, when they already knew that it was their fault. Let us never, ever see another such episode. I believe that the Bill is the way we will get through this, and that today will go down in history as the moment when the truth became known.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Since 1998, the Good Friday agreement has delivered a far more peaceful society in Northern Ireland, and that is really important. Restoration of power sharing was a significant milestone, and it allows the institutions to make progress on the most important issues to the people of Northern Ireland. We will continue to work with all parties to that end.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I was delighted recently to visit Chaucer school, a great school in my constituency with fantastic young people and innovative and motivated teaching staff, but 14 years of Tory government did not do enough for more than 300,000 children across the country attending schools that are stuck and kept receiving poor Ofsted judgments. Will the Prime Minister set out how this Government will tackle inequality and tear down barriers to opportunity through our plan for change?

Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Women (Maria Caulfield)]

Studying STEM A-levels such as physics can boost potential earnings and, with a growing demand for students with STEM qualifications in the jobs market, it is important that girls take that opportunity. We are therefore working with the Department for Education in funding the Inclusion in Schools project, which is designed to increase the uptake of A-level physics among students from under-represented groups, including girls.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

T4.   Homelessness is on the rise, and it disproportionately affects young LGBT+ people. The youth LGBT+ homelessness charity Albert Kennedy Trust has reported a 58% increase in new referrals over the past four years. Will the Minister work with Cabinet colleagues to better understand the specific challenges that people in the community face with homelessness and look at what more can be done to support them?

[The Minister for Equalities (Stuart Andrew)]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point. I am pleased to report that I have met colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and we have held a roundtable to discuss exactly those issues. One of the key elements, which we really need to do, is to gather the data so that we can better understand some of the causes and what the solutions might be to help those people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

2. What recent steps the Government have taken to help tackle violence against women and girls.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

12. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on tackling violence against women and girls.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)]

Tackling violence against women and girls is a Government priority. We have made significant progress since publishing the cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy and the tackling domestic abuse plan. That includes launching our national communications campaign “Enough”, resulting in tens of thousands of visits to the website, as well as £55 million of extra funding for CCTV and street lighting to prevent these crimes from happening, with £230 million committed cross-Government to tackling this heinous crime.

[Miss Dines]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for raising this. I remind the House that it is this Government who have acted in the most robust way possible. The landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was introduced in April last year, but this is about many things: prevention, education, supporting victims, pursuing perpetrators and doing good old-fashioned police work sensitively. I will take no lessons from the Opposition in relation to this sort of issue.

[Gill Furniss]

The levels of racist and sexist abuse uncovered in the London Fire Brigade are truly shocking. The independent review tells of women having to run a daily gauntlet of sexist abuse, and one woman even received video calls from a man exposing himself. Such incidents amount to nothing less than misogynistic hate crimes, so will this finally be the wake-up call that this Government need to class misogyny as a hate crime in law?

[Miss Dines]

I look forward to Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, tackling this issue—he has been rather slow on it. This Government are fundamentally in support of proper education to protect people, including women and all other vulnerable people within the force. The Opposition really need to look at their own leaders first, and this Government will continue to work hard.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty the Queen

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Saturday 10th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I rise to pay tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on behalf of my constituents in Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough. For people across Sheffield, Her Majesty was a great source of comfort and stability across her 70-year reign. She was our Queen; she belonged to us. We had good times and we had bad times, but all the time she held a special place in all our hearts.

I want to talk briefly about one occasion when the Queen’s importance to my city really shone through. In 2001, Sheffield had the great honour of welcoming Her Majesty as she opened the fabulous brand-new Millennium Gallery. It is impossible to overstate what this meant to the city. Never before or since have I seen so many people; it seemed like there were thousands in the streets of Sheffield just trying to catch a glimpse of their beloved Queen. Their joy, enthusiasm and anticipation were humbling.

Having been a council lead for arts and culture for just a few weeks, I had the privilege of meeting Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh at the door of the gallery, and I managed to curtsy without falling flat on my face—this was a great relief. She was incredibly generous with her time, ensuring that she spoke to as many people as possible. Her dignity, compassion and sense of humour shone through throughout the entire day.

That evening we welcomed Her Majesty to a very fancy dinner hosted by the then Lord Mayor. As Members can imagine, this was a carefully orchestrated occasion, which took many months of detailed planning. However, on the day, we learned that Her Majesty’s favourite drink was none other than Dubonnet and lemonade. Not having any to hand, we quickly sped to the Lord Mayor’s office to go through the drinks cabinet to see whether there was any there. I have to report that there was not. So someone was sent out to scour the streets of Sheffield, because there was no way Sheffield was going to be known as the one city that could not provide the Queen with her favourite tipple. I am pleased to say that we were able to find it just in time before the dinner. I will always have fond memories of that day—not least as it was one of only two occasions on which I have worn a hat. It brought such joy to Sheffield, bringing together so many people from across the city.

Her Majesty represented a unifying figure above the divides of politics, and everybody looked to her for comfort in good times and solace in bad. Her sense of duty was truly felt by all. I and all my constituents in Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough express our deepest sympathies and condolences to the royal family. We share in their grief and sorrow and will miss her greatly. May she rest in peace, and may God save the King.

Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

When the Prime Minister took office, he stood on the steps of Downing Street and promised to level up every part of Britain. He said he would close the opportunity gap and, in his words, unleash the power “of every corner” of the United Kingdom. In 2019, he came to Sheffield and made that same pledge. He continues to boast about levelling up as though it has been some gigantic success, but if we dig deep enough beneath the surface, we find that his legacy is one of broken promises, shattered communities and a failure to deliver. The public know that they cannot trust a word that the Government say. They have concluded that levelling up is just another empty slogan that will do nothing to help them in their everyday life.

The effects of 12 years of Conservative mismanagement are plain to see. Only if we remove the Conservative party from power altogether will we see these trends reversed, and today’s vote is a chance to do that. To take just one example, our local authorities’ budgets have been cut to the bone by the Prime Minister and his two Conservative predecessors. Sheffield City Council’s central Government grant has been cut by more than £3 billion in real terms since 2010, which has put an enormous strain on its budgets. The impact has been stark. According to the End Child Poverty coalition, 45% of children in my constituency are in poverty. That really is a shameful statistic. One of the basics of levelling up needs to be ending child poverty once and for all, but in my region, child poverty rates continue to rise year on year. This is not levelling up; this is levelling down, and families across the country are paying the price.

The Conservative party is truly unfit to govern, as it has shown time and again. I am of course pleased to finally see the back of the Prime Minister, but it is clear that whoever takes over cannot be trusted to truly level up. Instead of focusing on the real issues facing people, leadership candidates are trying to stoke culture wars and divide communities. Today, the Met Office warns that unprecedented heatwaves pose a significant risk of death, but the leadership candidates are not prepared to step up to the serious threats posed by climate change. They instead want to water down net zero targets and roll back green initiatives. Perhaps that is not surprising, given that one candidate has seemingly accepted tens of thousands of pounds in donations from a notorious climate change denier. The Conservative party is out of touch, out of ideas and, I hope, soon to be out of power. A new leader will not change any of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is the largest hospital building programme in a generation, and his constituents are going to benefit very directly. I can tell him that there will be a new integrated emergency care hospital scheme for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust at the Derriford emergency care hospital. On tech, he is absolutely right: the facilities will be at the cutting edge of modern technology, and that will really help drive up the quality of patient care.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Q14.   The victims of black cab rapist John Worboys were able to challenge the police’s failure to investigate his appalling crimes only because of the Human Rights Act. They would not have been able to do so under the Deputy Prime Minister’s new so-called Bill of Rights. Why does he want to stop women like the victims of John Worboys from making sure that police protect them from rape and sexual assault, and getting the justice they deserve?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for the opportunity to say that it was not the result of litigation that addressed the problems with the Worboys case. If she wants to look after victims in such cases, the Labour party should join us in supporting not just the Bill of Rights but our parole reforms, which will make sure that dangerous offenders are not released and that we protect the public.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for his continued work on this important issue. As we all know, poor body image can affect lifestyle choices, and physical and mental health, and is associated with lower confidence and low aspirations. So we have been taking steps to ensure that young people have the skills to keep themselves safe, through our work on media literacy and promoting understanding that the online environment is not always reflective of reality.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

T2.   Hymenoplasty and so-called “virginity testing” are disgraceful forms of abuse against women and girls. I was therefore pleased when the Government committed earlier this year to banning them. Will the Minister update the House on when this legislation will be introduced so that women and girls are protected from these inhumane practices?

[Gillian Keegan]

The Government are committed to safeguarding women and girls, which is why on 18 November 2021 we tabled an amendment to the Health and Care Bill to ban virginity testing, which passed unopposed in the House of Commons.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. He is right that across a whole suite of issues, including illegal migration, the proposals for a Bill of Rights with common-sense, sensible reforms will help us to address the problems. Once the consultation results come back, we will want to listen very carefully and proceed to legislation in the next Session.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

T8.   When my constituent Neil was 27, they discovered that they were the product of rape. Although they had been adopted as a baby by a loving and supportive family, this left them feeling hollow, cut adrift, scared and alone. Thanks to Share Psychotherapy, a fantastic charity based in Sheffield, Neil got the support that they needed, but so many like them do not have such services available. Will the Secretary of State commit to recognising in law those conceived from rape as victims?

[Dominic Raab]

May I thank the hon. Lady and express my solidarity in the awful and harrowing case that she refers to? If she writes to me, I will be happy to look at her specific proposal.

The overall level of funding for victims this year is three times the level in 2010. Through the victims Bill consultation, we are ensuring that victims are at the very heart of the criminal justice system. Our local as well as national justice scorecards will help to monitor where there is best practice within the justice system and where we are falling short, right across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

The key point is that we have lifted and removed the limit on sitting days in the Crown court for the moment. In February 2010, the last comparable full month when the Labour party was in power, the backlog in the Crown court was about 48,000. It was 40,000 in the month before we went into the first full lockdown. As anyone in the court system knows—our professionals and our judiciary—the pandemic has had a huge impact.

We are confident that we have a wide package of positive steps that we are bringing forward, including the funding that I just announced plus the steps in the Judicial Review and Courts Bill that will see more cases moved from Crown court to magistrates court. Perhaps with a new shadow spokesman—I welcome him to his position—the Opposition will finally accept the importance of those measures and join us in supporting the Bill on Third Reading.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to tackle violence against women and girls.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

19. What steps he is taking to protect women and girls from violent and sexual offenders.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

We have introduced legislation to tackle crimes including stalking, forced marriage and female genital mutilation in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will also introduce measures to crack down on serious violent and sexual offenders, including by ensuring that the most serious sexual and violent offenders spend longer in prison; to reform pre-charge bail to better protect vulnerable victims and witnesses; and to enable positive obligations to be imposed on those who pose a risk of sexual harm through sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders. The victims Bill consultation has also launched, which will ensure that victims feel properly supported.

[Gill Furniss]

Since Sarah Everard was murdered, at least 104 more women have been killed by men. That endemic violence against women must be met with the national urgency that it deserves. Will the Minister take the opportunity to show that he is serious about the issue by committing today to classing misogyny as a hate crime?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who raises this very important issue for all Members of this House. As she would expect, this Government take incredibly seriously the issue of violence against women and girls, and all our thoughts are with the families of those affected. Of course, I welcome the measures that we are taking on sentencing that I set out in my earlier answer. On misogyny specifically, we are grateful to the Law Commission for the detailed consideration it has given to its review of hate crime laws. We are of course giving that proper consideration, and we will respond as soon as we can.