I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston cannot be here to move the motion because of her father’s illness. She really wanted to be here, and I fully support the new clause, so I am going to speak on her behalf.

New clause 1 proposes a post-legislative assessment, within 12 months of the passing of the Act, of how its provisions on the duty of candour and equality of arms are increasing public confidence in public authorities. Specifically, it would examine whether the internal processes of public authorities are fit for purpose in identifying and investigating failures as they first arise after major incidents. The assessment would also consider the role of the independent public advocate in evaluating how public authorities respond to affected individuals and bereaved families following such incidents.

The report would have to explore whether the powers of the independent public advocate should be extended to facilitate the gathering of information to support inquiries and investigations, to ensure that public authorities and officials act in accordance with the duty of candour. It would also have to examine the case for empowering the independent public advocate to instigate an independent panel, similar to the Hillsborough independent panel, and assess the costs compared with non-statutory and statutory inquiries.

The new clause would ensure that, soon after the Act comes into force, Parliament would receive a clear, evidence-based assessment of whether it is delivering on its aims, and whether the role of the independent public advocate should be strengthened to secure faster truth, greater transparency, and better support for bereaved families after major incidents.

When Hillsborough Law Now launched in 2022, it not only supported the measures in the Bill but called for the establishment of an independent public advocate with powers to set up independent panels like the Hillsborough independent panel. For more than two decades, the legal system failed to deliver truth or justice to the Hillsborough families. In some cases, it even facilitated the propagation of a false narrative, including by officers named in the IOPC report published this week.

It was the Hillsborough independent panel, which was established in 2009 and reported in 2012, that finally set the record straight. I wholeheartedly support that statement. Its process was non-legal, document-based and grounded in transparency rather than adversarial proceedings. In two years it achieved what the legal system had failed to do in 24. One of the key lessons of Hillsborough is that the legal system can fail. The two witnesses, Jenni Hicks and Hilda Hammond, spoke powerfully on behalf of this new clause, and the need to look at how panels in the style of the Hillsborough independent panel can help to achieve justice. I want to put on record that I thought they spoke really eloquently. We cannot claim to have learned the lessons fully unless we provide bereaved families with access to a similar process at an earlier stage.

The Public Advocate Bills introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston in the Commons in 2016 and by Lord Wills in the Lords in 2014, set out to create an independent public advocate with meaningful powers, including the authority to instigate independent panels akin to the Hillsborough independent panel. The intention was to give bereaved families a route to truth and transparency at an early stage, and to ensure that public authorities could be held to account quickly and that failures in process could be addressed before they became entrenched.

However, the office of the independent public advocate, as currently established under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, does not yet carry the powers originally envisaged, as the independent public advocate outlined in last Thursday’s evidence session. I think she is open to having more powers to achieve what my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston is looking to set out with the new clause. As it stands, the office of the IPA lacks the statutory authority to gather evidence from those affected, and it cannot initiate independent panels to collate information and assess public authorities’ actions.

I cannot say it strongly enough: the Hillsborough independent panel uncovered what happened at Hillsborough because it had access to the police documents and the reports, so it could see the scale of how some police officers had changed the evidence of those who were at Hillsborough. I include in that my own father, whose report of his experience at Hillsborough was changed beyond all recognition. When he eventually saw what the police had put down for him, it caused him great distress, along with many others. What my right hon. Friend has outlined in the new clause is so important, and without the powers in it the advocate cannot replicate the approach that finally succeeded in the case of Hillsborough, when transparency, document disclosure and independent oversight finally brought truth, in a fraction of the time that the legal system had taken.

The gap in the powers has real consequences today for families who experience disasters or major public incidents. If we are serious about learning the lessons from Hillsborough and other tragedies, which I believe we are, we need to ensure that the independent public advocate has the appropriate authority and resources to act effectively, and that Parliament can scrutinise whether the office is delivering on its intended purpose. New clause 1 would provide for that, and I support it fully. I urge the Minister to consider what my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston laid out in the new clause, and to discuss how we move forward on it.