HC Deb 18 April 1989 vol 151 cc183-4
Q5. Mr. Favell

To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 18 April.

Mr. Wakeham

I have been asked to reply.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Favell

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, ahead of the Taylor inquiry, it is wrong to condemn the police for the Hillsborough disaster last Saturday? When I started going to Hillsborough football ground 40 years ago with my parents and my young brother and young sister, the crowd capacity was far greater than now, there were few policemen, fans were not segregated and people felt safe inside and outside the ground. In other words, if people only treated each other now as they did then, one policeman would not have been faced with the dreadful life and death decision that had to be made last Saturday and we may well have avoided the appalling loss of life.

Mr. Wakeham

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Why people died is a matter for the judicial inquiry to determine and it would be premature for me to comment now.

Mrs. Mahon

Will the Leader of the House advise home workers in my constituency, who have just had their wages halved by F. K. I. Babcock, how they can survive when they have to pay soaring interest rates and manage with inflation running at nearly 8 per cent.?

Mr. Wakeham

That is not a matter for me to answer at the Dispatch Box. If the hon. Lady wishes to write to me about it, I shall look into it.

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