Hillsborough

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that human rights were not invented when the convention was granted. However, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General responded to an urgent question yesterday, and responded well to the many questions that he was asked by Members.

The whole question of deaths that happen when there is some involvement of some element of the state is one of the concerns that I have had, which is one of the reasons why, for example, I have set up an inquiry into deaths in police custody. I think that we see many examples in which it is not clear whether the system is actually getting to the truth as it should, and it is right that we should look into and investigate that.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

This has been one of those occasions when I have felt very proud to be a Member of Parliament, and I commend both the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary for the roles that they have played. I also commend Liverpool football club, which I do not think has been mentioned yet. The club never told the fans that it was time to move on; it has always taken ownership of a terrible, terrible tragedy.

This was allowed to happen because, in the eyes of the establishment, football fans were less than human. As soon as the police and the establishment see groups of people not as individuals but as less than human, we enter very dangerous circumstances. Before these people, it was the miners who were less than human. Perhaps we should think about the way we treat disabled people, asylum seekers or the victims of child sex abuse today, and wonder whether we think that they, too, may be less than human. Perhaps that is a lesson for all of us to consider.

As soon as this tragedy unfolded, the first instinct of South Yorkshire police was to protect their institution and their reputation, and to think nothing of the people who died, and their families, because they considered those people to be less than human. That instinct that they experienced instantly in April 1989 appears to be just as strong 27 years later, given the way they have conducted themselves during this latest inquiry. I commend everything that the Home Secretary has done, but may I ask her to consider whether she believes that the people of south Yorkshire should have confidence in the current leadership of South Yorkshire police, and whether, indeed, she has confidence in the chief constable of South Yorkshire police? Might she take the opportunity of the final moments of this exchange, during which she has conducted herself so magnificently, to ask the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, from the Dispatch Box, to consider his position—not just for the sake of the families, but for the sake of all the people who rely on that police force?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman has referred to the leadership of South Yorkshire police. As I said earlier, people will vote for a police and crime commissioner next week, thus conferring that democratic accountability.

I responded earlier to questions from my hon. Friends about the wording of the statement issued by South Yorkshire police, but let me say again that I think it behoves them to recognise the import of yesterday’s verdicts. I hope that we will not see attempts to suggest that those verdicts were somehow not clear, or were in any way wrong. That jury sat through 296 days of evidence, and they were clear about the role of South Yorkshire police officers.