Inquiries Act 2005 (Select Committee Report)

Lord Richard Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords, it was indeed a privilege to have been a member of the committee. The whole issue of public inquiries is now very much coming more to the fore in this country. Day by day we read of someone demanding an inquiry or an inquiry being set up, either a total inquiry into a particular issue or a partial one. It is a topic that is certainly current and of interest to a large number of people in this country. The Inquiries Act 2005 clearly needed post-legislative scrutiny to ascertain how it has been working and what amendments, if any, should be made to its operation. The committee heard a variety of evidence and came to some stern conclusions.

If I may say so, it was as good a committee as I have served on. I echo the tributes that have been paid to the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, who chaired the committee with determination and good humour. He kept us at it and in the end we produced a unanimous report, save for the one slight qualification which the noble Lord who preceded me has referred to. It is a good report. We were extremely well served by Michael Collon and his staff, and by our special adviser, Professor Carol Harlow.

One has only to look at the list of witnesses who came before the committee to see the quality of the evidence that they gave. I do not propose to read the list out because it is set out in the report, but if any Member looks at it, he will see included in it a number of people of distinguished lineage and great experience who have either set up inquiries, or participated in them, written about them, dealt with them, have been subject to them or have given evidence to them. It is an impressive list.

Before I turn to the recommendations made by the committee, given that background, I must say a word or two about the attitude of the Government. It has been contemptuous and peremptory, and is indeed a good example of how Governments should not behave when faced with a powerful parliamentary committee report. It would be difficult, I think, to find a better instance of that. I would not wish to divert this debate into consideration of the Government’s behaviour, but it really was deplorable. Despite our efforts, and particularly those of our clerk, we were unable to obtain the attendance of a senior Minister. The Minister who actually gave evidence, Mr Shailesh Vara MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, had, to put it kindly, only a nodding acquaintance with the subject. I make no great criticism of him and he did his very best to assist us with what we were trying to do in our inquiry, but he really was not the right person for the Government to have fielded on an issue of this importance before a committee of this sort.

The government response to our report, which was presented to Parliament in June last year by Mr Simon Hughes, was extraordinarily negative and unhelpful. Clearly, whoever was responsible for that response could not have properly read the evidence that was given to the committee. The response was, quite frankly, so dissociated from the mass of evidence that the committee received that it was difficult to see how they could have come to the conclusions that they did. Such was the feeling of the committee that, although it had formally ceased to exist, we asked for a further meeting with Mr Hughes, which, as Lord Shutt has told us, took place on 29 October. After listening, he undertook to review the Government’s position and let us have a written response by the end of November. That response has never been received.

Indeed, as members of the committee know, on 18 March this year the Ministry of Justice responded, saying that,

“the Ministry of Justice and Cabinet Office are working together”—

that is nice to know—

“on the points you and Lord Shutt have raised, and they will be addressed by Lord Faulks in Thursday’s debate”.

Frankly, this is farcical. If the Government have changed their view, we will not be in a position to comment upon it because the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, will be speaking at the end of the debate. The Government have elevated obfuscation to an art form in the way in which they have dealt with this report.

On the merits of the report, I would draw the particular attention of the House to paragraphs 81 and 82. If I may, I will read them:

“We recommend that inquiries into issues of public concern should normally be held under the Act. This is essential where Article 2 of the ECHR is engaged. No inquiry should be set up without the power to compel the attendance of witnesses unless ministers are confident that all potential witnesses will attend”.

In the next paragraph, we said:

“We would not however remove the possibility of an inquiry being held otherwise than under the Act, for example where security issues are involved, or other sensitive issues which require evidence to be heard in secret. Ministers should give reasons for any decision to hold an inquiry otherwise than under the Act”.

I also draw the attention of the House to the evidence given by Mr Vara. He was asked whether there should be at least a presumption that, if an inquiry was being set up, it should be under the Act. Mr Vara replied:

“I see no reason for not having that presumption … certainly the Act is there and it is there to be used … it is a first port of call”.

I was very content with that answer. Unfortunately, he subsequently went back on it in further evidence, telling the Committee that:

“To the extent that I may have led the Committee to believe that there is a presumption, I am saying that I do not know the answer. I am not aware of the word ‘presumption’ being used in the Guidance”.

I find this evidence extraordinarily disappointing. The 2005 Act was passed after very considerable parliamentary scrutiny. That there are some aspects of its operation which need amending is undoubtedly true but, by and large, and particularly if it were to be altered in accordance with our recommendations, the Act should stand as the normal way in which public inquiries are conducted. The fact is that the powers of compulsion under the Act are always helpful. Even if rarely used, they act as a useful weapon to persuade witnesses to attend and give truthful evidence. I can see no reason why that presumption should not be accepted by the Government. Of course there are the exceptions that I just referred to but, prima facie, if a public inquiry is to be set up, then it ought to be set up under the Act that Parliament passed dealing with the issue of public inquiries and which we have now inquired into.

We pointed out various amendments that should be made to the Act. I do not propose to refer to those in detail today, but they are set out from page 89 and Members of the House can read them if they wish to. Suffice it for me to say that they provide a comprehensive analysis of the terms of the Act and of the ways in which it could be improved. One defect we pointed out, which has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, was in relation to the rules, particularly on warning letters. We pointed out that if that could be dealt with, it would make the operation of inquiries under the Act quicker and less stressful for those carrying them out. We recommended that rules 13 to 15 should be revoked and a rule substituted giving the chairman discretion as to the circumstances in which a warning letter should be sent.

Finally, I believe that this report is a significant analysis of the way in which the 2005 Act operates. It was a serious piece of work, taken seriously by all those who took part in the committee, and deserved better treatment than it has received from the Government.