Helping with inquiries

Eleven years ago this month, Sir Christopher Pitchford formally opened the Undercover Policing Inquiry. It was expected to take three years and Pitchford was able to continue sitting as an appeal judge.

Nearly two years later he stood down because of ill-health. The former High Court judge Sir John Mitting was appointed to replace Pitchford in 2017. Though the inquiry has not yet concluded, he too is planning to retire after publishing his latest interim report.

According to the Home Office, this is “an opportune moment to reflect on whether the inquiry as currently structured remains the most effective means of achieving its aims”. Ministers are “concerned about the length and cost of the inquiry” — more than £138 million so far.

But victims’ groups say they are deeply concerned by what they fear is an attempt to shut the inquiry down. It has yet to consider some of the most important evidence relating to abuses that took place under the existing regulatory framework, they add. “Police actions to disrupt and stall proceedings… prevented the inquiry from even starting to hear evidence for the first six years and continue to cause delays”.

How much difference would a duty of candour and assistance have made? That’s what a government bill agreed by the House of Commons last week will establish once it becomes law. Andy Burnham said that “in passing this momentous piece of legislation, which will change the way this country thinks about and works towards justice, we are truly rewiring the state and passing power from the authorities to the hands of ordinary people”.

Is he right? An an interview for A Lawyer Talks, I put that question to Andrew Williams (pictured), professor of law at the University of Warwick and author of a new report for the Nuffield Foundation called Public inquiries: are they fit for purpose?

My podcast interview, as always, is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.