Second Reading Speech on the Hillsborough Bill
Previous Posts on Hillsborough https://www.davidalton.net/?s=hillsborough
Committee Stage Contributions
My speech on how crucial records had been concealed or destroyed
https://twitter.com/DavidAltonHL/status/2110020828293111951?s=20
Concealment and Destruction of Records
Lord Alton of Liverpool
(CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 31, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and Amendment 82, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie. The noble Baroness has made a very compelling case. I would like to delve deeper into two of the examples which she has given to the Committee this afternoon. One concerns, of course, the Hillsborough disaster itself, but the other concerns British service personnel who were exposed to radiation during atomic tests.
One reason why, in 1989, I tabled a Parliamentary Question in another place to establish what warnings had been given before the football match at Hillsborough on 15 April, when Liverpool and Nottingham Forest were drawn to play in the FA Cup semi-final, was that I was worried that the letter which I had sent to the Sports Minister before the match on 22 March would disappear into the ether. I was glad that an archive such as Hansard would ensure that that would not take place. It records that:
“The hon. Member wrote to me on 22 March about the arrangements at the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough on 15 April. No other representation was received. The arrangements for the match will be among the matters to be considered by Lord Justice Taylor’s inquiry”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/4/1989; col. 414W.]
That I was right to have worried that important information would disappear or that records would be destroyed or altered was more than borne out in the decades which followed, with the destruction, falsification and alteration or withholding of records. There were decades of dissimulation and decades of deceit. Outrageously, that became a hallmark of the response to Hillsborough, until, finally, it was exposed how crucial evidence was either destroyed, altered or hidden from official oversight.
4.00pm
Recall that Ken Sutton, one of the officials involved with the Hillsborough Independent Panel, testified that when they requested original police notebooks from the South Yorkshire Police, they were explicitly told that they “no longer existed”. Years later, during the statutory inquest, these same notebooks magically reappeared, with no explanation provided for why they were previously withheld.
Last week, during our proceedings in Committee, I referred to the systematic altering of police statements: 164 police officer statements were altered. Content that criticised senior police command, highlighted faulty police radio communications or mentioned historical stadium safety issues was intentionally crossed out and deleted before being forwarded to the original Taylor inquiry. Note, too, that unverified allegations and outright calumny regarding the behaviour of Liverpool fans were left intact and framed as facts.
Concealment went to the highest levels of Government, with the Cabinet Office restricting access to vital records. In 2009, a freedom of information request by the BBC, seeking minutes of meetings and briefings provided to the Prime Minister in April 1989, was refused by the Cabinet Office, citing policy formulation exemptions to keep the files hidden from public view.
In 1989, I asked a Home Office Minister
“at what level the publication of statements on 18 April by South Yorkshire police concerning the conduct of Liverpool fans at the Hillsborough semi-cup final was authorised”,
and if he would
“publish a copy of that statement and the name of the officer who made it; and … make a statement”.
I received this reply:
“Statements made by officers of the South Yorkshire police are a matter for the chief constable. It would not be helpful for me to publish statements or counter-statements which have been made about the circumstances leading to the tragedy, or to name those who made them. It is for Lord Justice Taylor’s inquiry to establish the facts”. —[Official Report, Commons, 24/4/1989; col. 404W.]
The names of the officers who gave the authorisation were not made known. The falsehoods were allowed to stand. Taylor did not establish the facts, nor did he discover the truth. It was left to the grieving families to continue to demand answers and to insist that justice should be done.
As the years went by, I made repeated requests for the legal cases to be reopened. In June 1992, the then Solicitor-General, Sir Derek Spencer, responded that the Attorney-General would
“take a decision on an outstanding formal application for consent under section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988 as soon as possible”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/1992; col. 644.]
Three years had already elapsed since the tragedy. If Ministers had acted in 1992, telling the coroner to reopen the case, it would not have become possible to hide behind the excuse that “the passage of time” impeded accurate recall of the details of what had occurred.
In 1998, in your Lordships’ House, I asked what account the Home Secretary and Lord Justice Stuart-Smith had taken
“in deciding against a fresh inquiry into the Hillsborough tragedy, of missing video tapes, changed statements by police officers, conflicting medical evidence and complaints of lack of impartiality in the original coroner’s process and in the granting of immunity from prosecution to police officers upon taking early retirement”.
The Minister replied:
“Lord Justice Stuart-Smith considered all the material evidence submitted to his scrutiny about the Hillsborough disaster. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary”—
Jack Straw—
“accepted his conclusion that there were no grounds for a fresh inquiry”.
The Minister told us that
“there was no new video evidence and the only missing video tapes were two tapes stolen on the day of the disaster, which remain missing. They were not police tapes and the judge was satisfied that they would not have shown anything significant”.
The Minister said that
“allegations of irregularity and malpractice are not substantiated”
and that the Lord Justice Stuart-Smith
“found no grounds to suggest that the original inquests were flawed or that complaints of bias against the Coroner were justified”.—[Official Report, 23/3/1998; col. WA 232-33.]
No substantial irregularities and no malpractice—of course, we all know otherwise now.
As Prime Minister David Cameron then told Parliament, the Liverpool fans had suffered a “double injustice” in both
“the failure of the state to protect their loved ones and the indefensible wait to get to the truth”.
In offering a full apology, he also admonished those who had denigrated
“the deceased—that they were somehow at fault for their own deaths”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/9/12; col. 286.]
In 2012, the Hillsborough independent panel report, led by Bishop James Jones, made nine recommendations on systemic archive reform that would prevent future destruction of critical records. These amendments underpin that.
I will simply turn to another example; I will not do so at great length. Back in the 1980s, I raised the position of former British servicemen who had been caught up in the atomic tests that had taken place on Christmas Island and in places such as Maralinga in Western Australia. I have taken the trouble to print off the speeches. It is notable that—I can perhaps say this as someone who once served as a Chief Whip—organising government business is always in the hands of the Government of the day. It was not really surprising then that just a handful of us attended those debates: one took place at 3.49 am and another at 4.31 am.
Truths can be buried in different ways. Nevertheless, the archives substantiate many of the complaints that have been made over the years about the destruction of records and the refusal to provide information to those who sought to achieve justice in their own cases. During those debates in the 1980s, I said that the then Minister’s failure to release all the data
“will run the risk of being accused of cooking the books”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/7/1983; col. 957.]
I complained about attempts to push the issue into the long grass and the commissioning of a survey by an organisation that veterans themselves believed would serve the department’s interests rather than the pursuit of truth.
Anyone who saw Victoria Derbyshire interviewing the former Veterans Minister on 2 September this year would have been shocked to hear him say that he had misled Parliament in 2018, when he had been given false information by the Ministry of Defence that no such radiological monitoring records existed. He described that as “an absolute cover-up” designed to delay the truth until the ageing veterans died.
So these amendments matter. They are about these situations—the atomic test victims and Hillsborough—but also about the infected blood scandal, Primodos, Horizon, the Post Office and many other instances. Records matter. Members of Parliament matter too, and we should have great cause to be concerned about their denigration for simply trying to shine a light on the truth. I hope that, when the Minister replies, he will say where we are up to in the new inquiries taking place into what happened to those atomic test victims. I strongly support these amendments
—
A single National Code of Ethics
Amendment 35,
Clause 10, page 10, line 31, leave out subsections (3) to (14) and insert—
“(3) Within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament regulations to make provision for a single national code setting standards of ethical conduct expected of public officials (the “core code of conduct”).(4) The core code of conduct must—(a) be based on the principles set out in subsection (2),(b) apply throughout the United Kingdom to public officials to whom this Chapter applies,(c) set standards concerning ethical conduct, candour, transparency and frankness in the performance of public functions, and(d) make provision about the practical application of those standards.(5) In addition to the core code of conduct, the regulations under subsection (3) must also contain—(a) the sanctions available for non-compliance with the core code of conduct,(b) provision for the independent investigation and determination of alleged non-compliance,(c) provision for the imposition and enforcement of sanctions,(d) appropriate provision for review or appeal, and(e) provision ensuring that the arrangements apply to conduct occurring while a person was subject to the core code of conduct notwithstanding that the person has subsequently ceased to hold the relevant office, employment or position.(6) The regulations must secure procedures which are independent and procedurally fair.(7) Nothing in this section prevents the regulations from making different procedural provision for different descriptions of case or sanction, provided that the requirements of subsection (5) are satisfied.(8) A public authority must take reasonable steps to promote compliance with the core code of conduct and to ensure that public officials for whom it is responsible are made aware of the core code of conduct.(9) The application of the core code of conduct to conduct occurring while a person is subject to it is not affected by the person subsequently—(a) ceasing to hold public office,(b) ceasing to be employed in public service,(c) resigning,(d) retiring,(e) being dismissed,(f) ceasing to perform a public function, or(g) otherwise ceasing to be a public official.(10) Accordingly, cessation of office, employment or public function does not of itself prevent—(a) an allegation of non-compliance being made or considered,(b) an investigation into the conduct,(c) a determination as to whether the core code of conduct was breached,(d) the imposition or enforcement of any sanction otherwise available in respect of that breach, or(e) any review or appeal arising from such a determination or sanction.(11) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative procedure.(12) Before laying draft regulations under this section the Secretary of State must comply with section (Core code of conduct: consultation and Parliamentary report).(13) In this Chapter—“public authority” has the meaning given by Part 3 of Schedule 2;“public official” has the meaning given by Part 2 of Schedule 2.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment replaces separate codes adopted by individual public authorities with one national core code of conduct made by affirmative regulations. It also preserves accountability for conduct occurring while a person was subject to the code notwithstanding that the person later leaves office, employment or public service.
My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Wolfson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, have provided the Committee with a very good curtain-raiser for Amendment 35.
This amendment stands with Amendments 51 and 61, in my name and those of my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead, and the noble Lords, Lord Murray of Blidworth and Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames. I am grateful to them, and indeed to other Members of your Lordships’ House who spoke at Second Reading and between then and now on this issue of one central ethical code.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, for his unfailing courtesy and engagement. He met my former Liverpool constituents, the mother and the sister of Andrew Devine, the 97th fatality at Hillsborough, and heard their anxieties about a plethora of conflicting and inconsistent codes of conduct, instead of one clear central code, capable of adding codicils or variations but clear on its essential elements. I acknowledge at the outset the importance of securing the enactment of this Bill without unnecessary delay, and I certainly have no intention of adding to that delay. I might say that I have just spotted the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, also in her place, and she too met the family of Andrew Devine. Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, as Ministers, have been exemplary in the way that they have dealt with the families still suffering grief after all this time.
The proposals in these amendments rest on three linked pillars: first, a single core code of ethical conduct; secondly, an effective framework for considering civil sanctions for serious non-compliance, and, thirdly, education and cultural change. In a way, each one reinforces the other. Clear standards should be understood, serious breaches must carry credible consequences, and our ambition must be to prevent misconduct in the first place.
Although Hillsborough brought us to this point, the Bill must serve far more than those affected by Hillsborough or by other disasters involving many victims. We have heard many of them referred to during earlier parts of our proceedings today. The protection afforded by a core code and the means of securing accountability for its serious breach must never depend on the number of victims or the profile or the publicity which their case receives.
I want to acknowledge a letter which the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, sent me only this morning, following a question that I raised last week in Committee and also at Second Reading concerning the duty of candour on universities where a student or academic may have died by suicide. That letter has been placed in the Library, and I hope that we can consider its implications on another group of amendments later in our proceedings. It obviously also has some relevance on a code of conduct that should be applicable to all.
The first pillar I have referred to is the core code, a single national code that would state the obligations everyone exercising public functions should recognise: honesty, integrity, candour, accountability, the proper keeping and disclosure of information, the correction of known error and service to the public. The Government said in answer to my Question HL3290 that approximately 6 million public sector workers are within scope of the requirement of codes. That is a powerful reason to make the common ethical foundation clear, accessible and consistent. In Answers to HL3135 and HL3136, Ministers have emphasised flexibility for individual authorities. I accept that need, but why should flexibility prevent a common minimum standard? If approximately 6 million people are covered across a large number of authorities, it makes little sense for each to reinvent substantially the same fundamental ethical obligations.
The common core should be worked out, consulted upon, as the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, said a few moments ago, and approved nationally. Authorities could then add specialist provisions. That would promote consistent understanding, avoid near identical codes and simplify future revisions. The code need not be fixed for all time in primary legislation. The Act can provide the authority, purposes, consultation duties and safeguards as our amendment seeks to do. The detailed core code and subsequent revisions could be made by, as we have argued, delegated legislation subject to affirmative approval by both Houses of Parliament. Parliamentary control and practical flexibility can then reinforce one another.
The second pillar of the amendment concerns sanctions. We are not asking Parliament now to fix the amount of a civil penalty, prescribe pension-related consequences or enact a completed sanctions scheme, but we do ask for a proper process of consultation and legislative development addressing the nature of sanctions, independent investigation and decision-making, fair procedures and appeal. Any eventual penalties must have adequate statutory authority and proper parliamentary scrutiny.
In November 2025, Sir Keir Starmer referred to disciplinary sanctions, including gross misconduct. At Second Reading on 1 September, the noble Lord spoke of expectations and consequences for breaches. The Government’s 2026 February annual report responding to the Grenfell Tower inquiry referred to departmental discipline and sanctions for egregious breaches. The outstanding question is how to make the principle effective where present mechanisms leave gaps. If enforcement is wholly at the discretion of individual authorities, common standards may be enforced inconsistently. One authority may investigate rigorously while another does not. Institutional self-interest, reputation or seniority may influence decisions or appear to do so.
One gap we might consider arises when serious misconduct does not appropriately lead to criminal proceedings, but internal employment discipline is inadequate. Another arises where the individual has retired, resigned, transferred or otherwise left office before a complaint is resolved. In reply to my Question HL3137, the noble Lord said that authorities are responsible for disciplinary consequences for those who work for them, but that does not answer the question of what happens when they no longer do. The consultation should address that question expressly with fair time limits and protection against retrospective punishment.
In HL3138 I asked how an individual could obtain an independent investigation and a remedy where internal discipline was inappropriate. The answer was that methods and outcomes depend on the circumstances and the authority. How, then, are the public to have confidence in consistent and independent enforcement, particularly where the authority itself is implicated? What common minimum safeguards will prevent serious cases being overlooked? Honest mistakes promptly disclosed and corrected should not be treated like deliberate concealment, obstruction, retaliation or persistent misconduct.
The third pillar of these amendments is education and sustained cultural change. The ambition should extend beyond instructing current public servants about employment obligations. The national core code should become a common civic standard. Its principles of honesty, candour, accurate records, fair treatment, correcting mistakes and raising concerns should be taught progressively from an early age. Citizens would then know what to expect of those exercising public power. A junior official could refer to a recognised common code when questioning an improper instruction. I ask the noble Lord to involve the Department for Education in considering teaching materials, consultation with teachers, a modest pilot and evaluation, building on existing citizenship education. Education alone is insufficient. Sanctions cannot create ethical culture. Together with leadership and fair enforcement, they offer a prospect of prevention.
Let me also briefly cite international comparisons, which offer useful experience, not ready-made templates. The United States has common federal executive branch ethics standards and ethics training; Canada has a federal values and ethics code with organisational supplements; Australia has statutory public service standards and graduated employment sanctions; New Zealand has an updated public sector code, effective in March this year, with common standards and organisational supplementation; and Ireland has an ethics commission with complaints investigation functions. These systems differ constitutionally and in scope. The relevant questions are: how common and specialist standards fit together, how guidance and training work, who examines serious complaints where an authority is implicated, and what happens after employment ends. Australian public service guidance, for example, makes it clear that employment sanctions cannot be imposed on a former employee. Consultation should test both the strengths and limitations of such approaches before any model is adopted.
Then, there is the question of economy. A common ethical foundation, drafted once, could reduce duplication in drafting, legal review, publication, training and revision. Amendment 51 concerns consultation and parliamentary process; Amendment 61 seeks consistency between the national core and other guidance, and they complement Amendment 35.
I ask the Government to accept the three principles I have outlined to the Committee: a common ethical foundation capable of revision under parliamentary control; consultation on proportionate and independently administered civil consequences for serious misconduct, including after departure from public employment; and education and sustained leadership as part of the cultural change. I beg to move.
The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power. Ben Jonson: “Stand For Truth: It’s Enough”
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, this Committee stage of the Bill is a good illustration in the context of the speech we have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, of why we need to go into the granular detail and why we need to look at what the implications may be. This also touches on what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, were talking about: how a Bill such as this could potentially have a chilling effect and why we have to ensure that it does not.
I was struck at the contrast between, for instance, the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who reminded us of how the media became involved in telling falsehoods about what happened at Hillsborough, and the role that the media can often play in being in the vanguard of exposing truth. It does not always fall one way or the other.
9.45pm
I was thinking, as I was sitting here, that I used to share this Bench sometimes with Lord Armstrong, who as Robert Armstrong went to the Spycatchertrial in Australia and used that very telling phrase about being “economical with the truth”—a far cry from Ben Jonson, who said:
“Stand for truth, and ’tis enough”.
This Bill, I think, is seeking to do that. It is about finding the truth, getting to the heart of the matter and doing what we can to put aside untruthful remarks, whether they are made by the media, officials or even politicians or human rights organisations—whoever it may be. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, was complaining earlier about the role that some campaigners can have sometimes in criticising Members of both Houses. I think part of this is the give-and-take of public life and politics, but it can go too far. We also have to guard against things such as cancel culture that try to stop proper debate. It is good that we are examining these questions in this kind of detail.
I want to specifically support Amendment 74, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar. We have yet to hear from him his specific reasons for this amendment, but it touches on something I raised earlier, in an amendment that preceded this, but also during my own remarks earlier today about atomic test victims. I have taken the trouble to go back to the debate of 19 December 1984, in which I participated, in which I said that, “The document”—we were talking about documents that had been concealed—
“gives the lie to the suggestion that service men were properly clothed or that proper precautions were taken”.
This was in the context of ex-servicemen who were at Christmas Island or Maralinga being deliberately, it was said, exposed to the effects of radiation to test how good the protections were, or how flimsy they might be. I said in the House:
“One paragraph describes what the Army set out to do in the tests. It is a Ministry of Defence document which was top secret. It reads: ‘The Army must discover the detailed effects of various types of explosion on equipment, stores and men with and without various types of protection.’ So the men who were to be involved in the atomic explosions were to be exposed to the effects of radiation … to discover what the effects would be on them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/12/1984; cols. 392-93.]
That is the very issue that was still being argued about as recently as 2 September. I referred to it earlier: the BBC Newsnightprogramme, where Victoria Derbyshire, doing her job in the media, cross-examined the former Veterans Minister Tobias Ellwood, who said he had misled Parliament because he had been deliberately misled by officials. These are really serious charges. I am not suggesting that someone should be prosecuted, but, given the harms test we were discussing earlier on, I would plead again with the Minister to take a look at this particular case and say what it is that we should be doing in those kinds of circumstances. What difference would this Bill make? If it would make no difference, I think we have failed one of its tests.
The other brief remark I want to make is about Clause 12 itself. I do not accuse the noble Baroness, or indeed my noble friend Lord Faulks, of acting in bad faith, which I think was the phrase the noble Baroness used earlier on, in any way. I do not think that they have acted in bad faith, of course; they have the absolute right to test amendments, but I would urge them to think very carefully before moving something as substantive as a clause stand part debate to remove a whole clause from this Bill. Clause 12 sets out the offence of misleading the public, which is fundamental to this Bill. I can only imagine the sense of bewilderment—perhaps even betrayal—among Hillsborough families who have worked so hard, tirelessly, for 37 years for a law to tackle the lack of accountability and injustice that characterised their experience. As we have heard repeatedly, many others have been denied justice and truth by a system that has favoured institutions and the powerful. If this clause were to be removed, it would represent a continuation –
Baroness Falconer of Margravine(CB)
The noble Lord has alluded specifically to something that I said. We all understand the commitment made by the Government in their 2024 manifesto, and I do not think anyone in this House would not wish to abide by that commitment. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, referred to it as a noble Bill, and I think the sentiment is widely shared that the things that have gone wrong in the past should not have happened under any circumstance at all, and that the circumstances of them were shocking—which is why we are here now—and reprehensible. However, to go back repeatedly, as the noble Lord has just done in speaking about Christmas Island and radiation and so on—
Baroness Anderson of Stoke on Trent (Captain Yeoman of the Guard) (Lab)
I apologise to the noble Baroness, but interventions should be short and ask a specific question.
Baroness Falconer of Margravine (CB)
When the noble Lord wishes to remind us that this all relates to those events of the past, will he accept—here is my question—that, as a whole, British civil servants and the British state do not set out day to day to harm people but set out to do a job in good faith, but the implication of some of the debates we have heard is that they do not do that and they actually set out intentionally to harm? Will he accept that?
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
No, I do not accept that. I do not think the noble Baroness could have been listening to what I had to say earlier today about the deliberate changes that were made, for instance, to police notebooks to tell the opposite of what had taken place. I do not think she listened to what I had to say about the 20,000 ex-servicemen, some of whom are still alive, who were exposed to radiation in those tests. The families of those involved at Hillsborough, many of whom are alive today, still mourn the deaths of their loved ones. If she heard what I had to say earlier today in relation to one of my amendments, she would know that the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, spent a lot of time with one of those families today, talking to the sister and the mother of someone who lived for over three decades before he became the 97th victim because he had been crushed at Hillsborough.
These are not theoretical or abstract issues; they are issues that have to be settled by Parliament, and I think the Bill seeks to do that. If it were not for our Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who waived the 30-year rule when he was Culture Secretary back in 2009, 450,000 pages of previously withheld documents would not have become public, and I doubt we would be here today.
I remind the noble Baroness of the title of the report by the Bishop of Liverpool: The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power. That title says everything that this House needs to hear about how we can be perceived outside. If we were to lobotomise the Bill by removing the whole of Clause 12—that is, after all, what a clause stand part amendment seeks to do, so I do not regard it as trying to look at the granular detail or provide improvements to the Bill—that would be very destructive indeed.
