Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families

Seamus Logan Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mrs Hobhouse, and I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate and for his excellent speech. Let me take ten precious seconds to point out that, apart from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), not one single member of His Majesty’s Opposition has come along to this debate.

Despite what the Prime Minister said on the 2 July, committing himself to the Hillsborough law, including criminal sanctions, The Times reported on 13 July that the Treasury was holding this up because of problems regarding funding for legal aid. My contribution to this debate is based on my long public service in health and social care, which spans four decades. Scandal, cover-up, service failure and outright abuse over those decades says to me that, despite the Nolan principles in public life, our leaders cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted to do the right thing unless they are legally required to do so.

There have been so many examples of whistleblowers in public life who, rather than being honoured for trying to put a stop to these failures, are hounded and harried by the very authorities they are seeking to challenge. That is why, more than ever, we need an office of the whistleblower, independent of Government and with the powers to enforce any duty of candour on public authorities. My public service began in the same organisation that was responsible for the Kincora children’s home scandal. Many of us in this place remember, all these years later, that we have still not got to the bottom of that.

I also want to point out that, in ensuing years, I witnessed large-scale failures in the care of older people, people with learning disabilities, children in care and other client groups, not only in this jurisdiction, but in the Republic of Ireland as well. In each and every case, the organisational system worked overtime to protect its reputation. Senior public servants, who should have come clean from the outset, worked hard to cover up these matters from full public view. That is why this law is so important, and I completely agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby, who introduced this debate.

As I said, behind this law is the need to give it teeth through the establishment of an office of the whistleblower. Public inquiries simply do not provide the answers we need. Just think of the late Dr David Kelly, who died more than 22 years ago, and why details about his untimely death were sealed for 70 years by the Hutton inquiry. In conclusion, I simply ask one question: why have the Government not yet set out how they expect the proposed legislation to work? The clock is ticking. People need actions, not words.