Public Office (Accountability) Bill

My Lords, I hope all noble Lords had a good break over the summer. As your Lordships might perhaps have noticed, we have been beavering away at the Ministry of Justice. If you get a call from No. 10, as I did on the last day before Recess, be careful what you wish for. I thank the many noble Lords who interrupted their summers to meet me; I appreciate their time and commitment enormously. It is a privilege to open the debate on this Bill. It is a long-overdue piece of legislation, one that will deliver one of the biggest constitutional changes in the relationship between the public and the state for generations. We should not underestimate its importance or the impact it could have. I start, as I should, by paying tribute to those who have fought to get us here. The Hillsborough families experienced the most awful injustice. The state turned on them exactly when it should have been on their side. They never gave up on the truth and, ultimately, getting the justice they deserved. They insisted that no one should ever have to go through what they went through. It is their courage and determination that have brought us to your Lordships’ House today with this legislation in front of us. I also pay tribute to Members of your Lordships’ House for their determined and courageous work over many years—indeed, decades. Many Peers here today have stood by the families and supported them. Please forgive me: I do not have time to mention everyone as time is short. I am also mindful that it is not just the Hillsborough families whose work has brought us to this point. There has been a coalition of families and campaign groups who have fought for the truth, and I thank all of them on behalf of the Government for the Bill being debated today. I am pleased to note that some of them are in the Public Gallery today and many others will be watching our proceedings, and I am sure that all speakers in this debate will keep that in mind. I warmly welcome them to your Lordships’ House today. We have seen time and again why the Bill is so vital. The Post Office Horizon scandal, infected blood, Grenfell and, most recently, the shocking Nottingham maternity scandal all involved a lack of candour and efforts to conceal the truth. In some cases, attempts were even made to create false narratives against the victims. As well as these well-known examples, we must also bear in mind the many individual cases where the state has not just failed in its duty but actively worked against the people it has wronged. That is disgraceful. The public should be able to expect that our public institutions will do everything reasonably possible to prevent serious failures happening. They should also be able to expect that, when something does go wrong, those institutions will tell the truth and—this is a key point to which we will return in the debate—tell the truth quickly. That requires more than candour when someone is called to an inquiry, inquest or investigation. Public servants must know that, when something has gone wrong, there is an obligation to come forward and say so. They should be able to do so without fear of professional consequences, and it should be clear what is required of them. If they believe there is wrongdoing or behaviour that falls below what is expected, there should be routes for them to report that. The aim of the Bill—I stress this point—is to change the culture of public bodies once and for all. No family should have to fight for the truth about what happened to their loved ones, no family should face a profound disparity in legal representation and no public official should be in fear that they will be asked to lie, conceal the truth or stay silent. That is our intention for the Bill. I will set out the measures in the Bill, starting with the two duties of candour that it creates. The first is a statutory duty of candour and assistance, requiring all public servants and officials to come forward proactively, as I have said, and act with candour, transparency and frankness in all inquiries and investigations seeking to establish the truth. Failure to comply, with the intention of impeding the investigation, or being reckless in doing so, will be a criminal offence punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment. The duty will apply to statutory and non-statutory inquiries, coroners’ investigations and inquiries called by local authorities, with a power for Ministers to extend it to other types of investigation through secondary legislation. While principally focused on the public sector, it will also apply to private sector bodies such as those delivering public functions, those with health and safety responsibilities and relevant public sector contractors. These measures will apply across the United Kingdom and I thank the devolved Governments for their close work with officials in the Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet Office. I know there has been particular interest in how the duty will apply to the intelligence services. The Government have always been clear that the intelligence services are within scope, but we have listened to concerns about the application of the duty to individuals and the handling of sensitive information. Amendments made in the other place ensure that the duty applies fully to all current and former intelligence services personnel, while using established procedures to protect national security information. What this means in practice is that, where an individual employee of a national security body receives a request under the duty for protected information, they must pass that information to the head of the relevant authority, rather than directly to the inquiry or investigation. The head of the authority is then responsible for providing that information, subject to existing legal and practical safeguards on disclosure. Where necessary, restrictions on disclosure can be sought through existing legal routes including, in exceptional cases, converting proceedings into a secure statutory inquiry. The amendments also make it clear that responsibility for notifying an inquiry, inquest or investigation about sensitive material rests with the national security body to which that information belongs. Where another public authority holds a copy, it must inform the relevant national security body, allowing that body to assess the material in its wider context and ensure that the appropriate safeguards are applied. This means that the duty applies in full to the intelligence services, while providing confidence to the public and our international partners that sensitive national security information will continue to be protected. I particularly thank the chair and members of the Intelligence and Security Committee for their constructive work with the Government in reaching this clear and balanced position. This Bill also establishes a legal duty for public authorities to promote and maintain high standards of ethical conduct, including having a code containing a professional duty of candour for all public servants. These codes will be rooted in the seven Nolan principles and must set out clear expectations for conduct, consequences for breaching them and routes for reporting misconduct, making protected disclosures and raising complaints. Public authorities will, in turn, have a duty to promote and maintain high standards of ethical conduct among their employees. This is a cornerstone of the Government’s approach. While codifying good practice is important, the purpose here is to go further: it is prevention. We want to create a culture in which wrongdoing is identified and confronted early, before institutional defensiveness takes hold and failures are compounded by attempts to conceal them. Hillsborough demonstrated the terrible consequences when public servants deliberately mislead the public and the media in order to spread a false narrative. The families were denied the truth and that injustice persisted for decades. This law should provide a powerful deterrent against such conduct ever happening again. This Bill therefore creates a new offence of misleading the public. It will apply where a public authority or official intends to mislead the public, or is reckless as to that possibility, and knows or ought to know that their conduct is seriously improper. That is a deliberately high threshold. The conduct must involve significant or repeated dishonesty on matters of significant concern to the public. The act must cause or risk causing harm—whether economic, physical or psychological—and must represent a significant departure from what would have been expected of that person in carrying out their functions. These safeguards ensure that minor or inconsequential matters are not criminalised. Likewise, legitimate activity such as undercover policing will not be affected. The offence is targeted at serious misconduct of the kind we witnessed at Hillsborough. Those convicted will face up to two years in prison and an unlimited fine. The Bill also replaces the common-law offence of misconduct in public office with two new statutory offences: seriously improper acts and breach of the duty to prevent death or serious injury. This will bring greater clarity to the law, defining who is covered, the conduct that is captured and the consequences of abusing public office. It will ensure that officials who abuse their position or fall short of the behaviour expected of those in public office will continue to face serious consequences, including up to 10 years in prison for the offence of seriously improper acts and up to 14 years for breach of duty to prevent death or serious injury. Let me turn to the Bill’s measures in respect of legal aid. Too many bereaved families go to inquests seeking answers about the death of a loved one, only to find themselves facing the full weight of the state. Public bodies arrive with experienced lawyers, while families without access to publicly funded support are left to represent themselves, meet the costs personally or turn to crowdfunding. This is a massive and indefensible asymmetry. This Bill will address that profound imbalance. It will ensure greater parity by providing bereaved families with access to help and advocacy, regardless of their financial circumstances, while removing burdensome bureaucracy at one of the most difficult moments of their lives. The cost will, rightly, fall to the relevant public authorities, or their responsible government departments, where they are interested persons at an inquest. The Bill will place a duty on them to consider whether their own legal representation is necessary and proportionate, taking account of the support available to families and their obligations to support the investigation and establish the facts of what happened; but effective participation is about more than representation. The experience of families in this situation has informed our approach, and the Bill will require guidance setting clear principles for how public authorities should participate in inquests. It will also empower coroners and inquiry chairs to raise concerns about the conduct of public authorities or their legal representatives at an inquiry or inquest. The principle is simple: an inquest or inquiry is not a contest to be won. Those representing the state should approach it not as adversaries but with sensitivity and respect, and with the proper purpose of helping to establish the truth, learn lessons and provide bereaved families with the answers they deserve. The measures I have set out today are substantial but the principles behind them are simple: first, that we should create a culture in our public institutions that prevents failures happening in the first place; and, secondly, that where something does go wrong, the truth must come out—fully, candidly and without delay, because delay has a cost. Every year spent fighting for answers is another year in which families live with uncertainty, their grief prolonged by unanswered questions. Difficult truths are always painful, but concealing them, or allowing them to emerge only after years of struggle, prolongs and significantly compounds that pain. This House brings formidable experience to the issues addressed by the Bill, and I know noble Lords will want to scrutinise it closely. I can say on behalf of the Government that we will approach that scrutiny constructively. I look forward to hearing contributions from across the House today and to working closely with noble Lords as the Bill proceeds to the later stages. We cannot undo the injustices that brought us here, or the pain and anguish endured by those who, through no fault of their own, were forced to fight for the truth, but we can learn from all this. We can seek to prevent the failures of the past happening again. We can ensure that when public institutions do fail, the instinct of the state is not to close ranks or to wait to be challenged but to come forward, tell the truth, account for what went wrong and put it right. I beg to move.

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to the families of those who died at the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989. Their decades-long campaign for justice and accountability has demonstrated a resilience and dignity that should inspire us all. I am sure noble Lords are united in the determination that such a disaster should not happen again and that if such a situation were to reoccur, the institutions of the state should act with transparency and honesty. That is the spirit in which I rise to speak on this Bill today. Before turning to specific provisions, I must note something about the legislative journey of the Bill. In 2024, it was promised as one of the first Acts of this Government, and yet here we are two years later still debating the provisions. It is a Bill that now looks very different from its original proposals. At the very least, this speaks to the genuine complexity of balancing the duty of candour with the imperatives of national security. Despite the long wait to get to this point, the Government’s amendments addressing intelligence services were proposed with little more than 24 hours’ notice before the Commons scrutiny. This is arguably one of the most important areas of the Bill, with serious potential ramifications for safety and national security. Whatever one’s view on those amendments, they deserve more careful consideration than that timeframe allowed. It is therefore the duty of this House to provide the detailed and deliberate scrutiny that the Commons schedule did not permit. I thank the Minister for engaging constructively with the concerns we raised. His recent letter to me engaging with some of my early concerns, and his willingness to meet with me ahead of this debate, demonstrate that the Government are prepared to engage in genuine dialogue. The questions I raise today are therefore presented in a spirit of collaboration and constructive feedback. We seek to understand the Bill better, not to obstruct it. With that in mind, I turn to several matters that merit the Minister’s attention. The first is the scope and operation of the duty of candour. Clause 1 sets out the purpose of the Bill, but the duty of candour itself is framed in expansive and potentially uncertain language: to act “with candour, transparency and frankness … promptly and proactively; with full disclosure of evidence—and without favour” to one’s own position. This raises important questions about when this duty is engaged and how it operates in practice. Clause 2 requires a person to notify an inquiry that their acts or information may be relevant. When is a person subject to this obligation? Is it constantly triggered, or only when an inquiry has been formally established? The Minister’s letter helpfully suggests that this obligation can be “switched off” depending on circumstances—for instance, in a large inquiry, where it would be impractical to require all potential witnesses to come forward—but what mechanism exists to switch it off? Who decides to switch off this obligation? What recourse does an individual have if they believe the obligation has been wrongly triggered or applied? Furthermore, Clause 3 provides that the duty does not require breaching obligations under other legislation. However, the Bill creates many new duties. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain whether the duty of candour interacts with existing statutory duties—for example, the duty of candour already embedded in National Health Service regulations and the Freedom of Information Act’s exemptions. I also invite the Minister to explain whether any guidance or code of practice is planned to clarify these interactions. The Bill as drafted also raises issues relating to evidential burdens and the long-standing right against self-incrimination. Clause 2 contemplates the extension of the duty of candour to “other investigations” beyond inquiries, and it would appear that this might include police misconduct investigations. However, here we face a potential difficulty: if a public official is required under Clause 2 to disclose information or acts in the course of an investigation, and if they decline to do so without good reason, they may face prosecution under Clause 5. Yet if that investigation subsequently becomes criminal in nature, that same official might face the consequence of self-incrimination. The Bill does not require an official to incriminate themselves, but it does inadvertently create a trap whereby an official must choose between incriminating themselves or facing prosecution for a breach of the Clause 2 duty. I have been told that the Bill does not intend to compel criminals to self-incriminate, but I must confess that I remain unclear as to how this will work in practice. Perhaps the Minister can provide clarification today on the interplay between the duty of candour and the privilege against self-incrimination. Clause 6 has also been a source of concern. I know that other noble Lords are taking a close interest in this part of the Bill so I will not go into it in detail, other than to say that the burden placed on the security services must be closely monitored to ensure that they are properly resourced and that their operational requirements will not be constrained by this further burden on their resources. There will also need to be a means of assuring foreign services with whom we exchange intelligence that this legislation will not weaken control of sensitive material. Rather than simply saying that existing safeguards will be sufficient, it would be better for the Government to provide clear guidance on how existing controls will be operated under this new regime. I expect we will return to this in Committee. I turn to Clause 10, which imposes a duty on public authorities to promote standards of ethical conduct. I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate, either today or in writing before Committee, what analysis the Government have undertaken on the costs of this requirement and what assessments have been made of its likely effectiveness. There is always the risk of a further bureaucratic burden being placed on authorities which are not properly resourced. Finally, I turn to some suggestions for the Minister for the creation of certain new offences to improve public official accountability. The Bill creates new statutory offences to replace the common-law offence of misconduct in public office. These include the offence of misleading the public under Clause 11 and the offence of seriously improper acts under Clause 12. We are anxious to explore whether these provisions adequately capture two scenarios: first, the deliberate misleading of a Minister by a civil servant; and secondly, the deliberate destruction of documents by a public official. These are grave matters and I am unclear as to whether the proposed new offences would capture them. I would be grateful to the Minister if he could explain the Government’s perception of these issues. The Bill addresses matters that are of profound importance to public trust in state institutions and the House has a duty to scrutinise it carefully. I am confident that, with the Minister’s continued engagement, we will do so constructively. I look forward to further discussion in Committee.

My Lords, I am a stand-in for my noble friend Lord Marks, who is sorry he cannot be here today. These Benches support the Bill. My noble friends, including a Liverpool voice, and other noble Lords will speak from involvement with various issues or scandals. However, we have concerns. The Bill should extend as far as the public would expect, be fully and straightforwardly enforceable, and be not only reactive but proactive. We look forward to working with the Minister, whom I welcome to his new position. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, for all that she must have done in the preparation of the Bill. Ethical conduct and candour should not need saying, but from the catalogue of disasters—not only what has lent the Bill its informal title—they clearly do. I echo the admiration expressed for the determination and sheer grit of the survivors of those disasters, their families and campaigners. I am glad to see the Nolan principles embedded; as we go through the Bill, we might test each provision against them. In a way, it is a pity it is not left at that. The more that is spelled out, the more significant is what is not. The Bill tells us what a public authority must do “in particular”. Lists are not exhaustive, but, leaving aside the technicalities of drafting, they will be the focus and so must be complete. To fulfil the “purpose” in Clause 1, enabling whistleblowing in safety is essential. Otherwise, candour is muzzled and the duty incomplete. The Bill needs to prevent problems. A comprehensive whistleblowing policy, including a duty to investigate concerns, should not be optional. So often, we hear from victims: “No one in future should have to experience this”. They and the campaigners working alongside them, over such long periods, are to be congratulated. What a powerful phrase is that of the right reverend James Jones: “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”— so apt for the feeling of impotence that so many have had to battle. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain the involvement in the new regime—“landscape” might be a better term—of the Independent Public Advocate. GOV.UK prefaces the policy statement regarding the IPA with the explanation that it was “published under the 2024 to 2026 Starmer Labour government”. Is that some sort of disclaimer or distancing? I have seen it elsewhere. The IPA should be fully involved and adequately resourced to fulfil her role, which is complementary to what the Bill introduces. The scope, in the non-technical sense, of the Bill must reflect the realities. Public authorities do not do everything themselves; they use subcontractors, who use sub-subcontractors, and so on. There are agency workers too. It is not just a chain; it is a web. The Government have said that it would not be proportionate to subject all such bodies to the duty to adopt a code of ethical conduct and that the appropriate national authority will target relevant sectors. We need to unpack that and perhaps rebuild it. That responsibility must land appropriately has been highlighted by the recent report that the manufacturer of the cladding of Grenfell Tower has, in settling an action by its shareholders, paid them very considerably more than it paid to the families of those who died. That may not be directly relevant to the Bill but I wanted to say it, and that the whole state needs to play its part, whether or not it is a matter of candour. As we were reminded by headlines at the weekend, former postmasters and their families are still being frustrated in their efforts to overturn convictions and get proper compensation. Of course, we want to prevent the need for compensation. What is directly relevant is what public authorities are required to do to maintain high standards of conduct. We want mandatory guidance on compliance with the code and mandatory regulation requiring compliance with standards. I was struck by the CQC’s experience: it refers to differences in the quality of the duty of candour in services rated outstanding and good compared with lower gradings. Ethical standards are integral to successful services. National security will occupy some of our time. The Minister told the Commons that arrangements for some inquiries “remain available” and that existing practices, such as the use of security-vetted counsel, “can continue”. I have never felt entirely comfortable with arrangements for special advocates. Like their clients, they must rarely feel entirely satisfied with what they can achieve, given the constraints of closed material procedure. I am with Lord Bingham that their task is like taking blind shots at a hidden target, but I suppose there is no perfect solution. With the end of the legislation in sight, the focus will be implementation. If that is not effective then the rest is in vain, so the House will not be surprised that we are concerned about legal aid—not only resources and rates but the capacity of the profession and the detail of the scheme, which does not recognise the complexity of, for instance, the work entailed in an inquest and the amount of work required outside the hearing itself. Many of our points on the duty of candour are also relevant to the misconduct in public office provisions—inevitably, because this is also about ethics and accountability. Who is a “public” officeholder? What about private contractors and marrying up the duty with regulation? The “reasonable excuse” defence takes us into the territory of the reverse burden of proof, making the defence clearer and not setting an exceptionally high burden for the prosecution. I am persuaded that the Bill should align with the Bribery Act, that someone who is not a public official but instigates misconduct should be covered, and that the offence should not be dependent on a benefit having been obtained. This should be about prevention. Finally, to provide for parity at inquiries including inquests is a logical application of the underlying thinking. We must ensure that the reality achieves the objectives. We all have an interest in a duty of candour. Its application is relevant to me for a particular reason—which is rather indulgent, I may say. I have a Private Member’s Bill—it has had its Second Reading, so I suppose it is now the property of the House—which deals with the conduct of undercover police and intelligence operatives. Listening to some of the women deceived into relationships by spy cops has given me some insight into institutional defensiveness, and the layers of issues and of the ranks of people who have not been governed by ethics. It is a reminder that when something goes wrong, prevaricating or denying it compounds the damage. And that damage can be so corrosive. My noble friend Lord Marks has not signed off this speech. He will have plenty to say, and more cogently, in the next stages.

My Lords, like others who are going to speak in this debate, I start by acknowledging the pain of the victims whose grief and distress were compounded by the failure of the state. That is why we are here. This legislation, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned, has had a long and difficult gestation, caused partly by the difficulty in some cases of how to maintain a duty of candour alongside a duty of confidentiality and to maintain secrets. I wish to make three points. I am afraid the first one is pretty obvious, but there has been an awful lot of ill-informed commentary on this and I cannot avoid it. As you would expect, my main concern is that national security is not damaged. There are two aspects to this: first, the vulnerability of intelligence, which can be destroyed by slight references to it. I am going to be rather vain and quote from a speech I made in the Robing Room in 2010. Excuse me doing so, but in a moment, I am going to quote the noble Lord, Lord Butler—so somebody of greater authority. I said “intelligence is vulnerable. Individuals supplying it can be exposed, interrogated and killed. Our duty is to protect them. Operations can be compromised, techniques blown, ciphers changed. The targets of intelligence learn and improve their own techniques to conceal their actions from the authorities”. This means that intelligence must be protected and safeguarded, which is why systems have been developed so that intelligence can be safely used in court cases and in public inquiries—including with special advocates, who I think have been very successful—in such a way that the material can be germane to the conclusions of the court case or the inquiry but the most sensitive aspects of it protected. So, we have closed material sessions, public interest immunity certificates, special advocates and the ability to request that an inquiry becomes statutory, which gives it those protections. The British intelligence community has lots of experience of that. There is also a second point on intelligence, which is often overlooked. Here—copyright of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and his report into the weapons of mass destruction in 2004—this is really important, because it partly explains the way the Act is drafted, so that individual members of the services—the intelligence community—do not report externally but it goes through the head of the service. The noble Lord said: “The most important limitation on intelligence is its incompleteness. Much ingenuity and effort is spent on making secret information difficult to acquire and hard to analyse. Although the intelligence process may overcome such barriers, intelligence seldom acquires the full story. In fact, it is often … sporadic and patchy, and even after analysis may … be at best inferential”. What that means is that much is clear only with hindsight, that challenging decisions on where to focus resources are standard and that even the most knowledgeable intelligence officers and analysts may reach very different conclusions on the same material. There is also, of course, the practice of need-to-know, again to protect material internally, so that not everybody has the full picture. I believe that the safety mechanisms in the Bill for that area of our work, as it stands, are adequate. The second thing I want to talk about is ethics. I applaud what my noble friend Lord Evans of Weardale said in the debate which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, triggered earlier in the year on this subject. The Nolan principles—I used to remember them off by heart; I can usually get to six of them—are still pretty good. They date from 1995. They are not complete; there is nothing about how you behave towards other people, but they are still very important principles which I grew up on from 1995 onwards. I strongly support the view in the Bill that all public authorities should promote and actively maintain ethical standards, articulating what they are. Of course, intelligence work, as much other work, raises ethical issues—there is very little in government that does not—but we sought to maintain ethical standards. We certainly articulated them; sometimes we fell short, as organisations do. When I was there, we appointed an ethics counsellor. We had ethics built into discussions on operations, but if that was not sufficient, staff could raise issues with the ethics counsellor—the appointment still exists—and the issues raised would be brought to the board and considered. This is particularly important in an organisation which within the law has the powers to intrude into people’s privacy and do some quite interesting things. The final of my three points is that there are no extra resources to do this. Front-line staff will be taken off current work to service these demands—to service, if you like, the past rather than preventing the future. That is a real concern to me. I am, though, pleased by the involvement of the Intelligence and Security Committee. It is sometimes assumed that this was imposed on the intelligence community—I look at the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, who leads it at the moment. In fact, it was sought by my service for many years before we got it, and I see the noble Lord, Lord Butler, nodding, because we valued the idea of parliamentary scrutiny of what we were doing. The Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office being involved is also important. Finally, I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, who rang me in a red stripy T-shirt in the middle of August on the hottest day and spent a good amount of time—I was equally smartly dressed—talking about the Bill and what it is trying to do. If I am ending on a flippant note, I do not mean to suggest that this is not very important legislation; I look forward to engagement at all subsequent stages of the Bill.

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the ethics committee of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. I heartily welcome the Bill. I have spoken in this House on previous occasions regarding the need for a wide duty of candour. I am delighted that we are now making substantial progress. The role of public officials is and always must be one of stewardship, not dominance. To remain effective, this relationship demands the ongoing consent of the people, and that is possible only through honesty, transparency and the means for communities to get to the truth when things go wrong. This necessitates a higher standard of conduct for authorities which wield greater powers and capabilities. It requires resources to level the playing field when victims seek justice. This relationship is a fragile one, but it must be carefully maintained if public authorities are to retain the respect and trust of the people they serve. The introduction of a statutory duty of candour and transparency will be an important step towards strengthening this relationship and empowering the people to hold officials accountable when that trust is broken. As a young priest and industrial chaplain in Rotherham, I was deployed to the Hillsborough stadium when the clergy who had been present at the match were stood down. The sight of the thick, metal crush barriers at the Leppings Lane end, twisted out of shape by the sheer weight of human flesh and bone pressing down on them, still haunts me almost four decades on. The bereaved families I met at the stadium were desperate to know why their loved ones had perished. I could listen to their concerns, I could—and did—offer my pastoral support, but I had no answers to their questions as to how the tragedy could have happened. In contrast to the welcome my colleagues and I received at the stadium, a few days later when I offered my services at the local police station, knowing that many officers would have been present and traumatised, I was told bluntly that outsiders were not welcome. That itself told a story. Almost immediately, and for years to come, supporters were blamed for the tragedy, accused of drunkenness and of arriving intentionally late and without tickets. It was against this backdrop of deflected blame that the families of the victims bore responsibility to campaign for the truth of what happened that day—a process that took them many decades and came at enormous emotional and financial cost. The vulnerable and grieving should never carry the weight of securing accountability on their own; nor should the burden of proof fall on the bereaved at a time of such great loss. In this House and far beyond, we all owe a great debt of gratitude to my right reverend friend, Bishop James Jones, a former Member of this House, who has already been mentioned. He worked long and hard, including facing down severe political pressure, to complete and present his report on Hillsborough. It nearly did not happen; he was nearly stopped. Drawing on his conclusions, I strongly support the commitment to assign additional public expenditure to legal aid for bereaved family members, ensuring equal and fair participation in the course of justice. In my own diocese in my time as Bishop, we have witnessed another profound tragedy: the Manchester Arena attack. The circumstances were very different, but it demonstrated the same important principle: bereaved families, and those injured and maimed physically and psychologically, deserve access to the truth, and transparency and accountability are essential for victims to seek true justice. In Manchester, after an initial locally commissioned inquiry had been substantially thwarted by a failure of candour, a second statutory inquiry was established. It examined security failures, emergency response shortcomings and lessons for the future. Families were active participants in the inquiry. Many of the lessons it established were drawn directly from their experiences. Nothing can erase the suffering that the victims and their families experienced that day and in the years that have followed, but I believe that we eventually reached a point where the protection of the public, and the needs of the bereaved and injured, were no longer consistently left playing second fiddle to the reputation of public authorities. I hope that the introduction of a legal duty to assist in such investigations may enable victims and families to get real answers that they can trust and to get them much more quickly than in the past. By a quirk of history, before my time in Rotherham, I served close to the Orgreave coking plant during the 1985-86 miners’ strike, and many of the miners were my parishioners. That incident pre-dates Hillsborough, but it has taken until the past few months for a much-needed inquiry to be set up. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Sheffield, who is unable to be in his place today, is chairing that inquiry. I pray—and I mean that—that, even before this Bill is enacted, all those who are called to give evidence before him will operate within the spirit of candour for which it seeks to make statutory provision. As the Bill moves forward, there are a couple of matters of detail that I will seek to follow. First, I am keen to see how we properly protect public sector whistleblowers. All too often, those who first draw attention to wrongdoing pay a heavy personal price and their careers are wrecked. Secondly, I hope we can maintain the application of the duty of candour to private sector bodies that are contracted to provide services on behalf of a public body all the way down the sometimes lengthy subcontracting chain. The duty must not be amended in your Lordships’ House in ways that would incentivise the outsourcing of functions in order to get round the Bill’s aims and purposes. In times of great tragedy, communities are held together through trust, dignity and mutual care. We found that in Manchester in 2017. We all—public officers and citizens alike—have a responsibility to care for one another, to seek out justice and to rebuild. When authority figures are not held properly accountable, and denial and defensiveness are enabled, our communities are further fragmented. The mutual respect that binds our communities can be maintained only through transparency, accountability and ongoing public scrutiny. The Bill will go a long way towards strengthening the principles of moral leadership and trust that empower our public officers to serve the people effectively. Once we have given it our thorough consideration—as we must—I pray that it will be enacted, and all its provisions commenced, as swiftly as possible.

I begin my speech with one thought in my mind: the 97 individuals who lost their lives on 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough, and their families and friends. It is through the tenacious campaign of those families and friends that we are here today. What occurred on 15 April 1989 was a shameful saga. It stains our nation. Various parts of the state colluded to cover up the truth and, worse, blamed the victims of the tragedy for the events. Clearly, that added grief to the already grieving families, not only immediately but over many years. It is a tribute to them—and they have never given up on getting the truth—that we are discussing this Bill today. Let us hope that the Bill becomes a living legacy for the victims of that tragedy. It is beholden on us to scrutinise the Bill in detail and to make sure that we get it on the statute book as quickly as possible. If Hillsborough was a lone event, that would be a serious issue, but it was not; there have been countless events where cover-ups by the state have led not only to victims not getting justice but to them having to fight for many years. I have been involved in fighting for justice for sub-postmasters with my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot. For the last 15 years, we have been working to help expose the truth around the Post Office Horizon scandal. Like the Hillsborough families, the victims of that scandal were lied to. Things were covered up; decent and hard-working individuals not only lost their livelihoods but went to prison; and 13 tragically took their own lives, including Martin Griffiths, who stepped in front of a bus, as highlighted in the ITV drama documentary. Added to that has been the mental trauma of the families and children of those affected. I am very pleased that the Government are now recognising that by providing compensation to them. As I said, it would be bad enough if Hillsborough was the only tragedy, but it is not. The Post Office scandal has been called one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in this country. It is the state—the Post Office lied, the state lied. The Government hid behind the fact that the Post Office was an arm’s-length entity to not put forward the truth. They spent £100 million of taxpayers’ money to defend the indefensible when the postmasters took them to court. Obviously, that led to the truth finally coming out. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, will say in his contribution that over the years, the facts were there but we were just lied to. Parliament was lied to. Therefore, I welcome the Bill and hope that it will shed some light and change the culture. It is not just about individual institutions but about looking across the public sector. In the Post Office case, with the duty of candour, you would have thought that once the scandal broke after the court case the Post Office would be forthcoming. It was not. It took it another three years to admit—I and others campaigned to highlight it—that there was a system that was used previously to Horizon, called Capture. We are still fighting for justice for those individuals. The Government have provided compensation, but 27 are still waiting for their convictions to be overturned through the Criminal Cases Review Commission. I urge the Government to follow the last Government’s approach to Horizon on those. Should this Bill be needed? No, it should not, if we were in an open and honest situation. But we are not. We have situations here where the state, or various parts of it—it is a cultural issue—have come together not only to deny the truth but, on occasions, to lie and cover their tracks. I turn to the point around the security services, as chair of the ISC. As the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, said, we have been very closely involved in this Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, asked why it has taken so long. It has taken so long because it has been very important to get it right. I just echo the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller: the security services, under the procedures that are in place at the moment, are content that they will protect those agents. The important point is that it is not the individual agents who will have a duty of candour; it will be the agency heads. Having spent many hours not only with the committee but also just me and the deputy chair in discussions with agency heads and the families, I think we have come to a point now where we can recognise that it does cover the agencies, but also puts in place very clear safeguards—that are already there, actually—to ensure that the secrets to which the noble Baroness referred to are protected. From the ISC’s point of view, we are content, as the Bill stands at the moment, that there are enough protections in place to cover our security services. This is the last point I would like to make. I mentioned the word “culture”, and it needs to change. I do not think, to be honest, that this is the end. We also need to look at the inquiries issue. It takes far too long for victims to get justice. Compensation has to be reinvented every time. I know that Professor Christopher Hodges, who is the chair of the Horizon compensation advisory board, has been doing some work with government to look at whether we need a beefed-up ombudsman with parliamentary oversight to ensure that inquiries do not go on and victims get justice far more quickly, as they should. In closing, I just say that passing this Bill is important, and let us hope that, from the tragic events of 1989, some good comes.

My Lords, the Minister reminded us that, sadly, there have over the years been all too many examples of the abuse of state power, when those in public service have decided to act in a way that serves their institution, or indeed themselves, rather than the public whom they are there to serve. But, despite all those many examples, we must never forget, as other speakers have already referred to, that the origin of this legislation lies on the pitch at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989. We owe it to the 97 who died, and their families who have campaigned for so many decades, to make sure that we get this Bill right and that it will work. There has been a focus in some of the commentary on the issues of inquiries and investigations. But, of course, the lies, the manipulation of the facts and the misinformation at Hillsborough did not start at the inquest or at the independent panel; they started on and off the pitch on the day, 15 April 1989. That is why the wider issue of the duty of candour is so important, as is the aspect of the new legislation that the Government are introducing on misconduct in public office. Getting that right really matters for all those who have been affected by these abuses of state power over the years. There are two particular aspects of the Bill that I will focus on. The first is the protected information that has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, and the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, who both have significant experience in this area. I recognise that this is a conundrum. There is a need to ensure that people can get to the truth while at the same time protecting our national security interests, and there has been much debate about this. I recognise from the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, that the ISC’s view is that this section of the Bill is adequate and appropriate. I am very grateful to the Minister and his officials for meeting me and my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton last week, when we were able to discuss some of these issues. But I fear that this section of the Bill—Clause 6—is rather cumbersome, and the more cumbersome a piece of legislation is, the more opportunity there will be for mistakes to be made and for unintended consequences, and the more resources will be required. I do not know whether the Government have made any attempt to consider what the resource implications for the relevant public authorities of this aspect of the Bill could be. It is important that we ensure not just that we get to the truth and that people who are affected by abuses of the state are able to get to that truth but that intelligence and information that is necessary to keep us all safe can circulate to the relevant public authorities, our security services and others who deal with national security issues. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, referred to special advocates. I think they have worked extremely well, and are a very good example of a way in which these two issues of national security and getting to the truth can be met, so we can ensure that we meet those two objectives. I look forward to further debate on this and to probing aspects such as, in Clause 6(8), what happens if an application is made and rejected. The Bill is silent on this, but the Minister may wish at some stage to respond on that point. There is one aspect of the Bill which I am very sad about. It is that the Independent Public Advocate is not referred to in this Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has already referred to the IPA. In an ideal situation, there will be circumstances where it will not be necessary to move to a public inquiry; if the Independent Public Advocate can work with the families who are affected by a mistake by the state, they can get to the truth at an early stage and there will be no need to move to an inquiry. One of the complaints that I heard long and hard from the Hillsborough families at a very early stage in my time as Home Secretary was that there was nobody there for them: nobody on their side. The Independent Public Advocate is the person who will be on their side; who will be their voice; who will be campaigning for them; who will be working to knock down the barriers of bureaucracy that the state puts in place to try to stop the truth coming out. If we are going to look at this holistically, we need to ensure that the Independent Public Advocate is referenced in the Bill. Indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has said, the resources available to the Independent Public Advocate, whether they are part-time or full-time, is another issue that needs to be addressed. The IPA is part of this picture and should be in the Bill because, together, the Bill and the IPA could mean that, in the future, no one affected by abuses and mistakes of the state should wait decades for the truth, no one will feel that they are on their own in fighting for the truth, and, above all, the state will be on the side of the public whom it serves.

It is my privilege to follow the noble Baroness and to commend the part she played as Home Secretary and Prime Minister in listening to the families. I hope the House will forgive me for reiterating words that have already been used this afternoon, but I have been reflecting personally over the last year or two on the 1989 disaster and whether I could have done a great deal more afterwards as the Member of Parliament in whose constituency the Hillsborough stadium is located. The commendations that have already been made to the families and campaigners, who have shown the most incredible tenacity and commitment to bringing about change, need to be reiterated, because making democracy work when you are suffering as they have suffered, with the emotion that they have felt, has been the most impressive yet tragic element of modern British democracy. I was not at the game—I was a very new MP for the area, and it was a semi-final—but my father-in-law-to-be was, and, to his death, he remembered it as though it was yesterday. My wife-to-be was a volunteer at the Sheffield Hallam Hospital, as a doctor, and I went to the Northern General Hospital and spoke to some of the 766 young men and women who were injured on that day. We were briefed by the police entirely wrongly. To this day I am grateful that, for once, I did not believe the police; other Members of Parliament did. The lies that were told on that day are a stain on the South Yorkshire Police and the force in general, but they do not need to be a stain on the community I was proud to represent. I am saying this because, out of that terrible day and the immediate aftermath, the humanity and commitment of local people also needs to be remembered. There were those who took people from Merseyside back to their homes because cars were not usable and the tragedy had brought such emotional trauma; people who had lost their keys; people who, in those days, did not have a mobile phone and had to use local landlines. I say this only because sometimes, we need to balance the terrible things with the humanity that also emerges. I want to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wills, who will speak in a moment. When I was a very new Member of this House, he brought forward his Private Member’s Bill, and I was pleased to be a sponsor of it. As I said a moment ago, I have reflected on how little I did as Home Secretary, and I regret that deeply, because the time it has taken to bring about this Bill, and the recognition that goes with it, could have been shortened enormously if some of us had taken more responsibility at that time. Two Prime Ministers now have played their part. The current Prime Minister, my friend, paid tribute to Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons earlier this afternoon, and I pay tribute to Andy Burnham. He learned a terrific political lesson on the 20th anniversary, in 2009, at Anfield. Some of us have learned lessons like that over the years, and it is seminal. I want to say two or three things about the Bill. First, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady May, mentioned the Independent Public Advocate, who is here this afternoon. Unless this role is properly funded and supported, and unless the powers are adequate, it will not work. As the noble Baroness, Lady May, said, this is not about taking things to yet another public inquiry; it is about getting to the truth quickly and decisively and bringing justice in that way. The second issue is the security services, which have been mentioned already this afternoon. As Home Secretary, I was painfully aware of the sacrifice that many people made and the danger in which they put themselves. So getting this right will be important in ensuring not just that they cannot escape from actions that are totally unethical, but that we do it in a way that safeguards our national well-being. This is not about the legislation itself; it is about getting people to act ethically, and not to be dealt with by legislative process. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester mentioned not only his early time and his terrible experience in South Yorkshire all those years ago, which I have spoken about, but the work he is doing with the National Police Chiefs’ Council. The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, and I were painfully aware during the nine-month inquiry we undertook into the leadership of the police service in Britain that there is a desperate need for the ethics to be built into everyday life. I say to my good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, that there will be a cost, but the cost will be much less if people themselves take responsibility and act not just with humanity but with the ethics that ensure that those around them are not permitted to act fraudulently and against the best interests of the community. Finally, I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench, will he make sure that in reopening the stages of the Nottingham foundation trust inquiry, people are made to give evidence rather than escaping by having taken other jobs?

My Lords, I start with apologies for the fact that I am commuting between the Chamber and the Grand Committee because of my involvement in the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. I very much welcome this Bill and profoundly thank the campaigners, survivors and bereaved families of Hillsborough, Grenfell, Post Office Horizon, infected blood, Windrush, nuclear testing, LGB personnel in the Armed Forces, grooming gangs, pelvic mesh and other scandals. With such a long list and long processes, one wonders: is the British state uniquely bad at preventing and righting injustices? The vow is “never again”. However, at the end of my remarks, I will raise fears about other areas where similar issues might be arising, even if they are not yet generally recognised as scandals. I worry that the Bill puts the chicken before the egg. Arguably, Parts 1 and 2 need to be reversed so that the obligation of ethical conduct comes first. If ethical conduct could be embedded, many scandals and inquiries, with their suffering, heartache and expense, could be avoided. It was bad enough for people to suffer wrongful actions and miscarriages of justice, but even worse that these became examples of institutional defensiveness, denial, obfuscation, delay and, as both the present Prime Minister and previous ones have said, cover-ups. I remind those who oppose the ECHR, such as those on the Benches to my right—who are even excluding from their party candidates who are sensible on this issue—that it was because of the operation of the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act that inquests were reformed and justice was done for Hillsborough victims and others. This powerfully demonstrates how human rights can improve the lives of ordinary people. But as my colleague in the other place, Jess Brown-Fuller, put it: “the path to truth was blocked by people in positions of power and trust ”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/11/25; col. 668.] Victims of miscarriages of justice want the truth, even if they have to wait a long time for it. Last week, in relation to Greenlandic women who had contraceptive devices inserted without consent, Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, said: “I believe it is never too late to do the right thing”. Justice is something people want, alongside truth and accountability. As Labour MP Ian Byrne pointed out in the other place: “by 2020—31 years after Hillsborough—no public servant had been convicted, and no police officer disciplined. In fact, Norman Bettison, who was absolutely central to the cover-up, not only escaped sanction but was rewarded with a knighthood for his efforts—a title he disgracefully retains to this day. So yes, we got the truth, but justice? No ”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/11/25; cols. 680-681.] We need individual accountability and liability for senior people. Other colleagues will raise issues such as whistleblowing protections and parity of legal representation, so I will spend the rest of my time mentioning other areas of policy and practice where I fear scandals are brewing. They include the treatment of leaseholders, whether over works to address fire risks post-Grenfell or rip-off service charges from tax haven-based freehold owners and rapacious managing agents.