Dominic Raab has announced ministers will set up an “independent public advocate” (IPA) to support victims and families of people killed in major disasters, including by helping them to “navigate” the inquiries and inquests that follow.
The justice secretary described the proposed advocate as part of the government’s belated response to the ordeal suffered by bereaved families after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, where 97 people were killed in a crush at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Bereaved families and survivors were forced to struggle for decades against a campaign of lies mounted by South Yorkshire police, who sought to blame those who attended the match for the disaster, rather than admit to police crowd management failures.
Telling the Commons that the new IPA would help make sure the “appalling injustice” of Hillsborough could never happen again, Raab said it would support families through legal processes, including “helping them to understand their rights – such as the right to receive certain information at inquests or inquiries, and signposting them to support services”, such as financial or mental health support.
However, the government’s plan for an advocate, which Raab also set out in a letter to Hillsborough relatives on Monday, was immediately criticised by families and Labour MPs, who said it fell crucially short of the public advocate they have long called for as part of proposed “Hillsborough law” reforms.
The former prime minister Theresa May, who promised a public advocate in the Conservatives’ 2017 manifesto, also expressed scepticism, calling for Raab to clarify whether the IPA would be truly independent and be able to “compel the provision of information and evidence to the families.”
The model families have campaigned for has been presented repeatedly in the Commons by the Labour MP Maria Eagle and been blocked by successive Conservative governments. It is focused on preventing cover-ups by quickly securing all documents from the police and other organisations involved in a disaster. Having had her public advocate bill blocked 12 times in the last two sessions of parliament alone, Eagle is due to present it again on Friday.
Eagle told the Guardian: “This is not the public advocate that we have worked on; it’s a signposting exercise that may have its merits but it is not independent, and does not fulfil the main purpose, which is to torpedo cover-ups, by securing key documents at an early stage.”
Steve Reed, the shadow justice secretary, supported Eagle’s points in his response to Raab in the Commons, saying: “The government’s proposals are too weak to prevent cover-ups.”
The Hillsborough law proposals supported by families include Eagle’s version of a public advocate, a statutory “duty of candour” for police and other public bodies, and for bereaved families to have equal funding to public bodies for legal representation at inquiries and inquests.
Margaret Aspinall, the last chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose son James, 18, was one of the 97 people killed, said she was angry at the limited announcement.
“I have no trust in the public advocate as stated. We suffered a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up, and families need to have full disclosure. A proper public advocate should be introduced as part of Hillsborough law, so other families don’t have to suffer as we have,” she said.
Louise Brookes, whose brother Andrew, 26, was among those killed at Hillsborough, also said the proposal was not the advocate required. “This appears to be another process of the government being seen to do something but the reality is it’s all a distraction from Hillsborough law, and it seems to be their way of ensuring there will never be a Hillsborough law,” she said.
Steve Kelly was marking the birthday of his brother as Raab spoke – Mike Kelly, 38 when he was killed at Hillsborough, would have been 72. Of the proposal, Kelly said: “This is not what we asked for or wanted. Raab’s letter was patronising from the first par, talks of ‘amplifying the victims’ voices’ but everything is on their terms.
“This is being done to suit the government, not those who are in need of protection from the kind of things we had to go through.”
Michael Wills, a former Labour justice minister, who has proposed a public advocate in the Lords since 2014, said the plan must include families appointing the advocates, and securing “full transparency”. Wills was a key architect of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which had access to South Yorkshire police documents and produced a landmark report based on them in 2012.
As a result, the first inquest verdict of accidental death, which the families had campaigned against for more than 20 years, was finally quashed. In 2016 a jury who heard new inquests concluded 27 years after the disaster that the victims had been unlawfully killed due to gross negligence manslaughter by the police officer in command, Ch Supt David Duckenfield, and no behaviour of football supporters contributed to the disaster.
However, nearly 34 years on from the tragedy, families still do not feel that justice has been done, because Duckenfield was acquitted in 2019 of a charge of gross negligence manslaughter, and no police officer has been disciplined or convicted of anything related to the disaster or its aftermath.
Raab acknowledged the families’ ordeal in his letter, saying: “I am sorry that the processes and systems that were meant to support victims only served to compound your pain and suffering. That should never have happened, and we will continue to learn the lessons from that terrible experience following the unlawful killing of 97 innocent men, women and children.”
James Jones, a former bishop of Liverpool who chaired the Hillsborough Independent Panel, welcomed the announcement but called on the government to respond in full to the 25 recommendations he made for reform in a 2017 report to the Home Office.
“I welcome the announcement of a public advocate as a step in the right direction, and believe it can be fleshed out in the parliamentary process,” he said. “I want to press the government to respond in full to my report, and l hope that we will get Hillsborough law, so that the lessons of Hillsborough and other disasters are learned.”
Responding to Eagle and Reed in the Commons, Raab said the government would do further work on the objections made, but that he was wary of a public advocate duplicating the role of an official inquiry. The government has committed to responding to Jones’s report in the spring.
