Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary — House of Commons, 2019-02-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Douglas Gordon Ross (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), and I was delighted to sponsor the debate, along with him, coming to the Chamber tonight. It is important that the Backbench Business Committee found the time for it to take place here on the day after the anniversary of the Macpherson report. This will be a useful examination of where we are as a Parliament, both looking back and looking forward. A number of the things I will say this evening are things that I said in the Select Committee when we held our first evidence session on this issue. I think that they are worth repeating in the Chamber tonight. When we questioned Baroness Lawrence, I said that I had still been at school when Stephen Lawrence was murdered. I cannot for the life of me remember his actual murder, and I do not remember seeing the news in the days and weeks after it, but I almost feel as though I have grown up with the Stephen Lawrence murder and the different investigations and trials—failed and successful—that have taken place. Sadly, this has been a part of British life, and it was part of my childhood as I grew up. This shows the importance of one man’s tragic death and what it meant to his family, and why, decades later, we are still speaking about Stephen Lawrence’s death and also his legacy, which I shall come on to in a moment In the Select Committee, I also mentioned a fascinating documentary that many people have seen, "The Murder that Changed a Nation". It was compelling viewing for many reasons. It showed how, had it not been for a number of critical interventions, we might not have been standing here in Parliament tonight talking about a crime that had been solved or about the positive aspects of Stephen Lawrence’s legacy. We may still have been discussing much of the tragedy What would have happened had it not been for a very determined family? Baroness Lawrence and Neville Lawrence fought day in, day out to get justice for their son, but they should not have had to. They should have been grieving like any other parents would have been in those tragic circumstances, but they were not given the opportunity to grieve, because they had to fight for justice for their son. They did not just have to fight for a few days or weeks; they have fought for decades and continue to fight. That is simply not good enough Another aspect that occurred just by chance was the discussion, meeting and publicity with Nelson Mandela. Had that not happened—had Nelson Mandela not met the family and said what he did—perhaps the case would not have got the publicity it clearly deserved. I am glad the Policing Minister is here to respond to tonight’s debate, because although we must never forget that there is rightly much criticism of policing in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, were it not for the dedicated service of Clive Driscoll, a police officer, we may never have got the justice that Stephen rightly deserved. This police officer was told, "Take these files about the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Your job is to shred them, to destroy them, to get rid of them." As he was going to go about his duty, he looked at these files and his suspicions grew stronger and stronger. That officer was very alarmed at what he saw and read, and he knew that it was possible to get from these files justice and ultimately the convictions we have seen of the two men found guilty of Stephen Lawrence’s murder. But for that police officer, and others who were determined that the previous failings of the police, which are well-known, would be overcome at some stage, we may not have been in that place I have spoken for a few minutes about coincidences, but for which we may not have got to the stage we are at now. The final one is Neville Lawrence’s relationship with the editor of the Daily Mail and, thus, its headline in February 1997. How can it be that a country such as the United Kingdom, even in the late 1990s, relied on a frank and startling front page of a newspaper that only really came about because the editor—had it been anyone else at the newspaper this would not have happened—knew Neville Lawrence, had listened to him and had been shocked at what he heard? This editor decided that despite the legal representations made to the newspaper saying, "You cannot print a front page like that", he would go ahead and do it As I was preparing for this debate, I thought again about how they are just four examples of things that could have easily gone the other way. We may have had a family who were so steeped in mourning that they could not have pursued this with as much vigour as the Lawrence family did. We may have had a police officer who did shred those files. We may never had the meeting between Nelson Mandela and the family. And we may never had that front-page article. Where would we have been as a country if those four incidents had not happened? I shudder to think where we would have been Let us now look at where we are. I was privileged to serve on the Select Committee with other Members who are here this evening and to hear evidence from Baroness Lawrence. Right at the beginning of her evidence session, she said that it seems as though "nothing seems to have moved." We looked at the 70 recommendations from the Macpherson inquiry and judged whether they had been met, partially met or not met, and whether they had been met within any specific timescale. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to this, because Baroness Lawrence was very critical and very clear in her view that they had not been met; this has fallen by the wayside I then looked back at the previous Home Affairs Committee report on this, "The Macpherson Report—Ten Years On", which was published on 14 July 2009. It said that "67 of Macpherson’s 70 recommendations have been implemented fully or in part." How could one Committee think that, whereas at the very start of our inquiry, looking at the same report 20 years on, we are finding confusion and uncertainty on how to judge whether these recommendations have been enacted, followed and met, fully or in part? We as a Parliament and the public need to know how we assess the progress of these reports. It is right that the Macpherson inquiry went into great detail, took a considerable amount of evidence and came up with a stark report with recommendations that were going to root out the problems seen in the Stephen Lawrence murder and thereafter. How can parliamentarians and our constituents have faith that these reports do not just sit on a shelf, and do not get produced to great fanfare and nothing further? It would seem that 10 years on from the inquiry the Home Affairs Committee thought things were good, so I am worried that a further 10 years on we are getting clear evidence from one of the people most involved in this incident that things have not moved on. Baroness Lawrence is saying that it seems that nothing has moved on.