Gosport Independent Panel: Publication of Report - Statement

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:03 pm on 20 June 2018.

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Photo of The Bishop of Coventry The Bishop of Coventry Bishop 6:03, 20 June 2018

My Lords, like others, I was very moved by Bishop James Jones’s foreword and the way that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, put it, the panel thought to listen to and heed the concerns of those who have been aggrieved. I have been impressed by the methodology, I suppose, of the independent panel and the way it has done exactly as the Minister says: seek to work closely with the families and, so far as I understand, build its terms of reference from the particular concerns of the families, the aggrieved and the victims—the sort of questions they are wanting to ask. Have the Government made any assessment of whether independent panels are more effective than judge-led inquiries at not only excavating the truth in historic cases but, in so doing, thereby attending to the trauma of the bereaved?

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