HC Deb 30 October 1989 vol 159 cc106-16

Amendments made: No. 24, in line 3, after 'spectators;', insert 'to provide for the safety of spectators at such matches by means of such licences and the conferment of functions on the licensing authority in relation to safety certificates for grounds at which such matches are played;'.

No. 36, in line 4, leave out 'by designated agencies'.—[Mr. Moynihan.]

Order for Third Reading read.

9.18 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Chris Patten)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

As many hon. Members will know better than I, this Bill has been debated at length in their Lordships' House and in this House, totalling 100 hours for a Bill of fewer than 30 clauses and it must still return to their Lordships, for them to consider amendments made in this place. The Bill has received a thorough examination in both Houses. I have not been involved with it until now—I have come on to the pitch rather late in the game. I have a strong sense of personal deprivation at not having been involved in the Bill's proceedings until now. I am told that I missed a particularly entertaining Committee stage, full of whippets and nostalgia. Although the debates have shown evidence of the strong feelings that the subject arouses, they have been conducted in a courteous and often good-humoured way, and I wish to thank the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) for that. As the House will recognise, debates with them are often vigorous but seldom, if ever, bitter.

It is a sad fact that hooliganism has been an ugly scar on the face of football for several years. The measures taken by the Government, the police and the football authorities have reduced the number of very serious incidents over the past year or two, but the effect has been to contain the problem rather than to eradicate it. The price of containment has been the rigid segregation of supporters of rival teams and a massive police presence at and around football grounds every weekend of the season.

In the face of the continuing problem of football hooliganism in this country and when the England team travels abroad, the Government decided to introduce this Bill, and I regret that there have been repeated reminders of the continuing menace of violence at football matches during its passage. The Hillsborough disaster, of course, was not attributable to hooliganism, and we paused in proceedings on the Bill for a two-month interval following that tragedy. Unfortunately, however, the hooligans were unable to pause even for two months before resuming their activities. Less than a month after Hillsborough, on the last full Saturday league programme of the season—13 May—a series of violent incidents occurred inside football grounds and among travelling supporters throughout the country, and 300 people were arrested that weekend.

The opening months of this season have seen yet more incidents in, among other places, Stockholm on 6 September, in Manchester and other cities on 23 September, and in Blackpool on 30 September. I attended a game at Tottenham on that date.

The trouble at the Sweden v. England game in Stockholm, despite the efforts of the Football Association to deter the so-called England supporters from travelling, demonstrated the importance of part II of the Bill. The Manchester City v. Manchester United game showed how close violence can be to the surface of matches in this country if the strict segregation of rival spectators slips. The problems will be solved only if there is a fundamental change in the atmosphere among football crowds. We believe that the national membership scheme can bring about that change.

Mr. Orme

With regard to the England v. Sweden game, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the problem will not be resolved unless the hooligans are charged in the country where they have committed the offence? The Bill will not affect them if they are simply put on a train and sent home. What does the Secretary of State think about that?

Mr. Patten

I very much sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman's point. We made that clear at the time to the Swedish authorities and we must work through the Council of Europe and in other ways to ensure that if hooligans are responsible for violence they are taken to court and dealt with appropriately. It is extremely important that all countries where football is played and which love football should take tough action against hooligans wherever they come from. With regard to the particular events in Stockholm, hon. Members on both sides of the House were very much in agreement about ways in which we could deal with the people who bring not only the game of football in this country but England itself into such bad repute around Europe and beyond.

Mr. John Greenway

There is common agreement on both sides of the argument about this Bill that we must tackle the problem of football hooliganism abroad. What plans does my right hon. Friend have to discuss with other member states, whose international football clubs could be taking part in the World Cup in Italy next year, to ensure that any fans who besmirch the name of this country by behaving violently abroad will be prosecuted in Italy and not let free as happened in Stockholm? That is no help in the fight to defeat football hooliganism.

Mr. Patten

I know how much my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) knows about the issue and how concerned he is that we should find appropriate answers and solutions. I assure him that we are already discussing with the Italian authorities how best to cope with any hooliganism which might occur during the World Cup. My hon. Friend is entirely right to say that those discussions should be carried forward as soon and as vigorously as possible. As I said earlier, we must discuss these issues not only with the Italian authorities, with next year's World Cup in mind, but more broadly with the Council of Europe as well as through Interior Ministers of the European Community.

I shall deal with one recent statement before moving on to the precise terms of the Bill. I totally repudiate the allegation 10 days ago by the chairman of Crystal Palace football club that the Government need more hooligan problems in the next few weeks to help the Bill through Parliament. He also made the extraordinary request to supporters of his club to be on their best behaviour for the next few weeks so as to impede the passage of the Bill. The implication seems to be that once those few weeks are up the fighting can start. My information is that Crystal Palace supporters do not have a bad reputation, in which case they deserve considerably better of their chairman.

I have referred to the pause in proceedings on the Bill as a result of the Hillsborough disaster, but the continuing violence has demonstrated a continuing need for its provisions. The Bill has, however, been amended in a number of important ways following the Hillsborough disaster and will, I hope, become law very shortly—before we have seen the final report of Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry into the needs of crowd control and safety at sports events. Parliament will, however, have two opportunities to debate the scheme following receipt of the final report —first, before the Football Membership Authority is appointed and, secondly, when the scheme has been submitted and approved by me. We have provided also for the Football Licensing Authority to have powers in respect of safety at football grounds if Parliament should so decide in the light of Lord Justice Taylor's final report.

This is a relatively short Bill, but it contains a number of major elements. First, there is the national membership scheme, to which almost all those attending designated matches in future will have to belong. Secondly, there is power for the Secretary of State to require an increase in the proportion of seating as against standing accommodation at specified grounds. As the House knows, exercise of that power will be subject to detailed parliamentary approval. It is also a subject on which we look forward to Lord Justice Taylor's comments. Thirdly, there is power for the Football Licensing Authority to review local authorities' performance in relation to football grounds under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975. Finally, there is power for the courts to impose restriction orders on convicted hooligans to prevent them from travelling to designated matches abroad. I repeat that I take on board the point made by the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme).

These measures can have a major impact for good on the future of football in this country. I recognise that the membership scheme has aroused a great deal of controversy in football and elsewhere. It is, of course, the right of those who oppose the scheme to advance their arguments, although I deplore some of the disinformation that has been promoted. Nevertheless, the Bill will shortly be law and it is time for football to start to adopt a positive approach to the scheme.

I commend the way in which my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport has taken the Bill through the House. I commend also the helpful support of my hon. Friend the new Minister for Industry, the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd). My hon. Friend the Minister for Sport has repeatedly stressed the positive benefits that the scheme can bring to clubs and to their supporters if they approach it in a positive light. Not only does it offer the prospect of an end to the ever-present threat of hooliganism but, as those clubs which have recently begun to develop their own membership schemes have seen, it can bring a club and its supporters very much closer together.

It is, above all, in the interests of football that those concerned should begin to take a positive rather than a negative approach to the scheme. That is the message that I shall give to the president of the Football League and the chairman of the Football Association when I see them shortly, and it is the message that I give to the House now. I am pleased to be able to commend the Bill to the House.

9.29 pm
Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland)

I welcome the Secretary of State to the deliberations on the Bill. He has been brought off the substitutes' bench to strengthen the team. In football, they would refer to a fresh pair of legs, but what the legislation really needs is a fresh brain. My impression was that his obligatory speech on Third Reading was part of the price that he paid for getting the job in the first place. He would have been better advised to give this one a miss. I do not know whether he can confirm the story in the Lobby that there have been so many recent Cabinet changes that Cabinet Ministers, too, will be required to carry identity cards so that the security men in Whitehall can recognise them when they go to No. 10.

For all the Secretary of State's presentational skills, which he has again deployed at the Dispatch Box this evening, he is not going to convince the overwhelming majority of people that the legislation is right or likely to be effective. We said at the outset that this was the wrong Bill at the wrong time and that it was also the wrong Bill at any time. That remains our view. It remains the view of people involved in our national game—spectators and players alike, management, administrators, some important sections of the police and certainly the overwhelming majority of the British public, who remain unconvinced of the merits of compulsory identity cards for football spectators.

Petitions including the signatures of 2,000 professional footballers and over 430,000 football supporters have urged the Government to think again. We share those views. The long weeks of debate and discussion of the proposals in Committee have increased opposition, not just on this side of the House but in the country at large. We have opposed the proposals for compulsory identity cards for football spectators in part I of the Bill because they are irrelevant and will have serious implications in some circumstances for crowd safety.

The Under-Secretary of State has said several times that there may be a test of the technology involved in setting up the system. We would welcome such an experiment, provided that it was a proper test that was undertaken, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) has said, over a sufficient length of time—a season—and provided also that it covered all the various circumstances that arise throughout a season's fixtures. That would be a realistic and a reasonable test, but we remain deeply sceptical about the technical capability and efficiency of the proposed system.

With the growing number of Cabinet reshuffles, perhaps the best experiment for these ideas would be to test the technology at Cabinet meetings, to see how long it takes the ever-changing round of Ministers to get in arid out of No. 10 Downing street. We read that the Prime Minister is erecting palace gates at the end of Downing street. Perhaps she should include a turnstile in them while she is at it and let Ministers experience what they are going to impose on thousands of law-abiding citizens every weekend as they go about their business of enjoying, or trying to enjoy, a lawful sport.

We know, however, that an experimental period would not be acceptable to the Prime Minister, who is the real force behind the legislation.

When I listened to the Under-Secretary of State talking about pensioners and violence, I came to the conclusion that he had probably been the victim of too many handbaggings by a woman pensioner with whom he spends a bit of time. Certainly there is no other evidence to support the Government's contention that women arid pensioners should be subject to the provisions of the Bill. It beggars belief to hear the Minister for Sport say that Chelsea Pensioners decked out in brightest scarlet arid visible like beacons for miles around could somehow commit some misdemeanour at a football match and slink away quietly into the crowd without being recognised—it does not bear examination.

It is not only nonsense to include women, pensioners and unaccompanied children over the age of 10: it is insulting to them. It is grotesquely insulting to say that somehow these people represent a threat to public order and good behaviour. The Secretary of State and Conservative Members are apparently cowed by the manic obsession of the Prime Minister, but whatever else the legislation will achieve it will not increase the gate for the Conservative party at the next general election: quite the contrary.

Football identity cards appear to be one of the Prime Minister's pet projects; that is why the idea is being forced through the House and why all the evidence, all rational argument and sensible debate—I accept, like the Secretary of State, that it has been passionate at times, but always good-humoured and courteous—have been largely ignored by the Minister. He has not been allowed the latitude to accept even one reasonable amendment since the legislation first came before the House.

The signs are that, this season, league attendances are up by about 11 per cent. on the same period last year. If that continues, they could return to about 20 million for the first time since the early years of this decade—all without the imposition of the compulsory identity card scheme and the extra financial burdens that it will entail, particularly for small clubs, which are often hopelessly unable to bear such extra burdens.

A card scheme would work the other way, pushing attendances down by deterring many decent cut casual football supporters who attend several matches a season and who are estimated to account for about 20 per cent. of total attendances. We all know from personal experience that that is particularly so at bank holidays, Christmas and local derby games. I shall be at St. James's Park at Newcastle on Saturday when there is a derby game against Middlesbrough. There will be an extra large attendance——

Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)

In the shape of my hon. Friend?

Dr. Cunningham

I shall indeed form part of the extra numbers. One of the regrettable aspects of being in Parliament is that I attend fewer football games than I would like to. Attendance will be swollen at that game because it is a popular local derby, and many thousands of casual supporters will come who were not there last Saturday and will not be at the subsequent home game.

I noticed that the Minister and supporters of the legislation shy away from the fact that the problem—and there is one—is no longer inside the grounds. Having an identity card will not stop people causing trouble in town and city centres and on trains and boats. The Secretary of State is aiming at the wrong target; so much has been apparent from the outset, but we have been unable to get Conservative Members to face up to the facts.

It is also worth reiterating that the 6,147 arrests related to football matches during the 1987–88 season represent a tiny proportion—0.03 per cent.—of the 18 million attendances at games in that season. Many of those offences also occurred away from grounds and were not related to violence or serious disorder. In that sense, too, the problem which has attached itself to football and which has been stuck to football by the Government's attitude has been exaggerated.

There is simply no guarantee that an ID card scheme will reduce the numbers of police required inside and around football grounds. In order to prevent potentially dangerous problems of fans arriving at computerised turnstiles just before kick-off, it is quite conceivable that in some cases we shall have to maintain, if not increase, existing levels of police at important games. We reject the underlying reason for these measures.

Mr. Burt

In relation to evidence about decreasing police charges, the hon. Gentleman could look at Luton Town and the way that it has managed. In the year prior to its scheme being introduced, there was a charge of £66,200 for the police. After three years of the scheme, the charge for the police had come down to £25,000. Does that not show the savings that can be made through the scheme?

Dr. Cunningham

Thanks to the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans), I have looked at Luton Town a great deal. The hon. Gentleman is talking about a scheme which does not allow, at least in theory, away supporters. Are we suggesting that the future of the game will depend on a legal ban on away supporters and people travelling to the games? Are we to say that, on Saturday, people will not be allowed to travel from Tyneside to Teesside to watch a football match at St. James's park? That is the sort of scheme that operates at Luton Town.

Mr. Burt

The hon. Gentleman did not let me finish.

Dr. Cunningham

I did let the hon. Gentleman finish, but he is not letting me finish. It is like asking me to answer a question when I am already trying to do so. The hon. Gentleman should contain himself.

I do not think that outside Luton there is a scintilla of support in football for the kind of scheme that the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt) is proposing. If he can mention any other club that is proposing to emulate that scheme, I should like to know about it.

Mr. John Carlisle

The hon. Gentleman said that in theory Luton Town bans away supporters, and he gave en example of supporters from Tyneside and Teeside. He will understand that, if Sunderland operated that scheme, there would be nothing to stop others joining it. The hon. Gentleman also said that he did not think that any other club supported the Luton Town scheme. If he looks at the records he will see that the Police Federation favours a no-away-supporters scheme such as that put forward by Luton Town.

Dr. Cunningham

Yes, but the Police Federation is not a football club. It may have a team, but the federation is not a club. I live between Tyneside and Wearside, where it is impossible to tell who are the home supporters and who are the away supporters. One week they go to Sunderland and the next week they go to St. James's park in Newcastle. We cannot look to the future of football on the basis of home supporters only. That is preposterous.

We reject the Government's arguments for these measures and their use. They are a smokescreen for the Government's failure properly to address the growing level of violence in all aspects of life in Britain. That is regrettable but true. The overwhelming majority of football fans in England and Wales, decent law-abiding citizens, are having their civil liberties infringed in an attempt to divert the public's attention from the growing levels of disorder under the Government.

We are extremely doubtful whether the last-minute substitution of the new Secretary of State for the Cabinet's own-goal specialist can prevent the Bill from turning into yet another Government own goal. As I have said, I hope that no Conservative Member who votes for this measure will think that that will resolve the problem or will increase support for them or their Government when the inevitable test of public opinion comes.

Since we support the principles of part II, as my right hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) and for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) have said, I say, more in regret than sorrow, that it will not work. Let us take the case of the match in Sweden, to which the Secretary of State referred. Six people were charged with offences on a cross-Channel ferry. No one was charged with any offence in or at the ground. What is the outcome of that to be? The people who were there—we may agree that they should not have been there—were not charged with an offence and subsequently could not have any action taken against them under this proposal.

In the recent game in Poland, no charges were levelled against British fans, because they did nothing wrong. Unless people can be charged with something in this country, part II simply will not work. I would like to see it work, because I agree with the Secretary of State that we simply cannot tolerate our name and reputation being damaged. My hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes)—I have to get his constituency right in view of the shadow Cabinet elections this week—pointed out that the Bill does not apply to Scottish fans, and quite rightly. We cannot tolerate people from England and Wales besmirching the reputation and name of our country. We want action taken. However, I say with no pleasure that part II will not work, because it does not contain the right provisions.

The Under-Secretary said that safety is at the heart of the Bill. I do not know how he can say that, when the Government have insisted on proceeding with this legislation in advance of the conclusions of the Taylor report. I sincerely hope and believe that the Taylor report will be a watershed in these matters, and it will be disappointing if it is not. To legislate in advance of the report is extraordinary, to say the least. As I understand it, Taylor is due to report towards the end of the year, perhaps in December. We may have the chance to debate the report and its conclusions in the early part of next year, but on that time scale, we shall not be able to do anything about this legislation until the autumn of 1990 at the earliest, and that is ridiculous. It is rather like the Secretary of State responding to our request to produce a White Paper on environmental policies but introducing a Bill first. "Let's have the legislation before we see the evidence" seems to be the name of the game in the Department of the Environment. I thought that we were getting away from that with the arrival of the right hon. Gentleman, but apparently we are not.

In view of all the evidence, of all the public opposition, of the gaping holes in the legislation, and of the imminence of the Taylor report, one would have thought that some of these arguments would have got through to Ministers. Not a bit of it. They are driving ahead with manic obsession behind them. The momentum is not theirs but that of the Prime Minister. That is why we have this Bill. That is why the Secretary of State is making a speech in support of legislation that I believe, in his heart of hearts, he would prefer not to touch with a bargepole. We shall implacably oppose this legislation in the Lobby, because it merits our total opposition.

9.49 pm
Sir Rhodes Boyson (Brent, North)

I spoke against the Bill on Second Reading and I remain unconvinced that I was wrong to do so. I shall speak briefly tonight to support the arguments that I adduced at that stage.

I oppose the Bill as a soccer supporter and as a believer in law and order. We are faced with a national law-and-order issue which is not party political in its nature. There has been a breakdown of law and order among adolescents in our society, and if we keep them out of football grounds they will go somewhere else. They will not go home and read Aristotle, Socrates, Marx or Burke. Nor will they join the Workers Educational Association. They are likely to go steaming on trains, to use a modern term, to engage in muggings or to take part in robbery and the rest. Unless we tackle the problem of adolescents in revolt who are uncontrollable, our society is threatened by breakdown.

In a speech at a Conservative gathering on Saturday, I referred to three comprehensive schools in a reasonably well-run London borough. When attendances at those schools were checked over the spring term in 1987—the check covered 15 and 16-year-old boys—it was found that they were 47 per cent., 48 per cent. and 52 per cent. Half of the boys were not attending throughout the year, or they ran a rota system that determined the days when they did attend. If boys in that age group are not attending schools but are running loose for the last two years of their schooling, they will be uncontrollable for the rest of their lives. At some stage discipline has to be inflicted—I mean inflicted, if necessary—on all people.

In London, in 1977, a check was made when it was not known that there would be a test or examination in every school. The check was made in secondary schools in London and it was found that 28 per cent. of the pupils were missing. The check revealed that some 40 per cent. of 15 and 16-year-olds in London were not in attendance.

I do not think that many hon. Members are aware that there is a decline in competitive sport in our schools where there is proper refereeing and generally proper control. Rugby and soccer are collapsing. There are schools in our main cities where those sports are not played. The fighting in our playground spreads to fighting on the terraces and everywhere else. Responsibility lies with the Department of Education and Science. Unless soccer and rugby are played in our schools, with proper referees and the knowledge that the referee's whistle is final, we face a further breakdown in our society. If that takes place, football will become a riotous act, and the future will be even worse.

There will be difficulties for the police in patrolling outside football grounds. Unless there is a massive police presence, cards will be stolen. Photographs of all spectators will have to be checked, and that will lead to more fighting outside the ground. The idea that these people will behave properly to get into the ground is not realistic. They will find a way to get in. Many of them will have spent two years escaping from their schools, so they will seek to escape the law once they leave school. They will have been bred for that for some time.

When there is rioting outside a ground, the gate will be opened and the rioters will gain entry. The Bill will do nothing to improve behaviour outside football grounds.

Mr. Shersby

Does my right hon. Friend understand and accept that the police, in trying to implement the scheme if it comes about as a result of the Bill, will have to exercise the most ruthless scrutiny of supporters? They will have to ensure that if they are carrying membership cards the cards match the identity of the carriers. The police recognise that that will be a difficult task. Does my hon. Friend accept that that could have some benefit in controlling the difficult problems that occur outside grounds?

Sir Rhodes Boyson

My deduction is entirely different from that of my hon. Friend. If everyone is to be checked to that extent, we had better start getting the crowds outside the grounds on Friday night. If not, there will not be a kick-off at 3 pm. If the police have to check everyone before he or she enters the ground, there will be only four matches on a Saturday afternoon. There will not be enough constables to go round. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) intended to present me with the greatest argument against the Bill that I have ever heard. I am grateful to him for advancing it for me on my behalf. He adopted a clever and subtle approach.

I still do not understand why everyone should not have an identity card. One public house near where I live will not admit anyone unless they have a card issued by the licensed victuallers showing that they are over 18 years of age. We all need to carry cards for one purpose or another. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo), who is a notable football supporter, shows me his own identity card.

Mr. John Greenway

Does my right hon. Friend agree that his proposal is for a card that proves the identity of the holder, whereas the scheme provides that a piece of plastic will become an electronic key allowing the holder to gain admission to a football ground? I suggest that we are not talking about identity cards or meaningful membership in the terms of Lord Justice Popplewell's report.

Sir Rhodes Boyson

I agree with my hon. Friend. He reminds me that those of us who travel on the Underground will also be interested to see how long it is before the turnstile machinery breaks down. The automatic ticket barriers on the Underground serve to prepare ordinary people for all-in wrestling, or soldiers for assault courses.

It will then take one constable or two constables per man to ensure that everyone behaves, which will make the situation even more like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan than I previously imagined. However, I must not make too many rash statements—[HON. MEMBERS: "More."] I claim your protection, Mr. Speaker, from the pressure being put on me to attack the Bill even more. I want to be as impartial as I can.

What is needed in our society is compulsory school attendance between the ages of 15 and 16 and courses in secondary schools that are meaningful for those who attend them and which offer a job at the end. Young people will then know that it is worth attending school because there will be a job at the end of it. We must also pull together the extended family, which is breaking up in our society, and rebuild local loyalties. Today, loyalties are being built up against us. The little platoons of Edmund Burke are being broken up and in their place are being formed little warrior platoons against society.

Unless all those things are achieved, there will need to be Bill after Bill in an attempt to control our young people, which should be both unnecessary and unsatisfactory. I shall vote against the Bill, not because I do not want law and order—I do—or soccer to be run properly—I do—but because it deals with symptoms and not causes.

9.57 pm
Mr. Menzies Campbell

There has never been any dispute about the desirability of eliminating football hooliganism in England and Wales. Nor has there been any dispute, since the Bill began its progress in this House, about part II. However, there has been a substantial dispute about the principle which lies behind part I, and in Committee and on Report there was substantial dispute about the practicality of the proposals enshrined in the Bill.

One issue that has to a large extend been brushed aside is civil liberty. The Bill requires that an activity which until now has been entirely lawful will be unlawful unless a person wishing to indulge in it takes the step and overcomes the obstacle of obtaining an identity card. It is that, among many features of the Bill, which makes it so unacceptable to many right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House.

The principle of universality is more offensive than almost anything else that the Bill requires. The absurdity of including pensioners in the football supporters scheme has already been eloquently demonstrated. Earlier this evening, we witnessed the absurdity of hon. Members arguing that women should be included in the scheme lest supporters anxious to evade their responsibilities visit charity shops and clothe themselves in dresses before returning to present themselves at the turnstiles. When such an example has to be prayed in aid, the absurdity of the principle that the Government are seeking to apply is surely proved beyond question.

For me, and I suspect that I am not alone, this evening marks a sad and sorry end to the progress of an unhappy and ill-conceived piece of legislation. The Bill could have been a memorial to those who died at Hillsborough rather than a monument to Government intransigence and insensitivity.

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.