Dominic Raab, Secretary of State for Justice, announced he intends to push ahead with plans to appoint Independent Public Advocates (IPA) following major incidents, 5 years after the recommendation was put forward by Bishop James Jones.
In a letter addressed to the Hillsborough families from the Secretary of State for Justice, Dominic Raab MP, says he is determined to get the IPA setup ‘as soon as possible’, despite 5 years of no movement or communication with families.
In 2017 Right Reverend Bishop James Jones published ‘The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power’, a report outlining recommendations of changes to be made following the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster that claimed 97 lives. Among the recommendations was the need for an Independent Public Advocate to support victims and their loved ones. Raab’s plans to push this forward comes after years of stagnation, and only one of Bishop James’ recommendations is being implemented.
Plans to push ahead with the IPA raise the question, what about the remaining 23 recommendations that have effectively been ignored?
Reacting to the letter, Elkan Abrahamson, solicitor at Broudie Jackson Canter and director of Hillsborough Law Now, says:
“The engagement from this government with the Hillsborough families has been almost non-existent. In the five years since the then Bishop of Liverpool, Right Reverend James Jones, delivered his review into lessons to be learned from the Hillsborough Disaster, only one of his 25 recommendations has been implemented, this announcement means there are 23 recommendations still awaiting a response.
“We will be taking the Justice Secretary up on his offer to hear our views on the effective and independent development of this policy. Crucially, we will be reminding him of the many other recommendations which remain outstanding.
“We will be asking the Justice Secretary for the same commitment given to us by the Labour Party last year to reintroduce the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill.
“The Bill, often referred to as the Hillsborough Law, would, amongst other things, create a legal duty of candour on public authorities and officials to tell the truth and proactively cooperate with official investigations and inquiries. It also provides a ’toolkit’ to enforce compliance with the duty, which would both prevent obfuscation and cover-ups, and lead to much more focused and shorter inquiries, thereby saving millions of pounds of public money, and delivering swifter justice with much less stress to families and witnesses alike. Failure to comply would become a criminal offence, and the culture of denial that we have seen in other inquiries, such as Infected Blood and Grenfell, would be minimised.
“It is important to note that this law isn’t about Hillsborough families, arguably it’s too late for them, the damage has been done, but it could potentially have a transformative impact for every citizen caught up in future inquiries, such as the Covid-19 Inquiry. Changing the law would bring confidence that such inquiries and other forms of public investigations can get to the truth, rather than being seen as whitewashes.”
Raab has announced in his letter to the Hillsborough families that he will be legislating ‘as soon as parliamentary time allows’ to put the IPA on a statutory footing. Unfortunately, no timescale has been given.