2 The candidate
19. The criteria used for selecting the new Chair
and Justice Goddard's CV are at Appendices 1 and 2. During the
evidence session we questioned Justice Goddard about, in particular:
a) real or perceived conflicts of interest in
relation to her past experience and her other current commitments,
and how she would deal with any conflicts in the future;
b) the relationship between the Inquiry and the
Home Office, and between the Inquiry and this Committee;
c) how she would demonstrate her authority and
independence and how she would restore public confidence in the
inquiry; and
d) her relevant expertise.
20. Justice Goddard has a high degree of professional
competence. Based on the information available to us, we are
pleased to endorse the appointment of Justice Lowell Goddard to
the post of Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual
Abuse.
21. We note that Justice Goddard had not previously
been asked to write an open letter detailing her interests in
time for it to be presented to this Committee; we believe that
this should happen as soon as possible. We reserve the right to
recall Justice Goddard, once we have received the relevant correspondence,
should it disclose any new information which might give cause
for concern.
22. We also make the following recommendations
concerning the future management of the Inquiry:
a) Members of the Inquiry Panel should be
chosen primarily for their specialist expertise and experience
in areas that are likely to be covered by the investigation, as
well as in providing support for survivors, and in providing redress
for victims.
b) We can see the logic of Justice Goddard's
comment that survivors did not need to be represented on the Panel,
but only provided that a parallel Survivors' Forum is established
on a formal basis, with strong links to the Inquiry Panel. Its
remit, status and relationship with the Panel should be clear
from the outset and it should be properly funded to provide the
necessary support to its members.
c) We were encouraged by Justice Goddard's
undertaking that no survivor who did not want to do so would be
required to give evidence in public. The Panel should do everything
within its power to ensure that survivors are able to give their
best evidence, including the use of the "special measures"
that are used in court to help vulnerable and intimidated witnesses
and, where necessary, taking evidence in private.
d) The Home Office should re-examine the arrangements
for providing funding to support survivors' participation to ensure
that smaller organisations are able to access those resources.
e) The Panel should give consideration to
employing its own specialist staff to provide support to survivors
giving evidence.
f) The Panel should have access to all relevant
Government material, including all the material discovered by
the Wanless and Whittam review, and the Permanent Secretary of
the Home Office should conduct a new search to establish that
no relevant documents have been overlooked.
g) Careful thought needs to be given to the
composition of the secretariat, in which Home Office secondees
currently appear to be very well represented. Members of the secretariat
should be chosen for their skills and the Panel should look well
beyond the Home Office and the civil service if that is necessary
to produce the right skill mix.
h) The Chair of the Inquiry should fully consult
the Chairs of the Northern Ireland Inquiry into Historical Institutional
Abuse and the Scottish national public inquiry into historical
abuse of children in institutional care, with particular regard
to seeking to avoid gaps between the areas covered by the various
inquiries.
i) The Chair should consult the Director of
Public Prosecutions to ensure that all avenues for bringing successful
prosecutions against abusers are kept open.
j) The Panel should produce periodic interim
reports as frequently as it sees fit but should aim to produce
its first interim report as soon as possible.
k) The Panel should look to the examples of
Hillsborough and Leveson as well-run, focused, and victim-centred
inquiries.
Future of the inquiry
23. Although the original Panel got off to something
of a false start, it is important that the material from the Panel's
work, especially its listening meetings with survivors, is considered
by the new statutory inquiry, providing it with a base to build
on. Some continuity in the Panel membership, as well as the secretariat,
would help to ensure that the work of the last seven months has
an impact on the outcome of the inquiry. It will nonetheless be
important for Justice Goddard to meet survivors herself, to discuss
how the inquiry should proceed, within the framework of the 2005
Act.
APPOINTMENT OF THE NEW PANEL AND
STAFF
24. It is crucial that the Chair will play a full
role in the selection of Panel members, that it should be clear
with whom the final decision lies, and that the selection process
should be fully transparent from the outset.
25. We note with approval the 2014 recommendation
from the House of Lords Select Committee on the Inquiries Act
2005, that the Act should be amended to include a provision specifying
that the chairman, and only the chairman, may appoint the counsel
to the inquiry.[14] We
are pleased that Justice Goddard will have a free hand over the
appointment of the Inquiry Counsel and Secretariat, as she acknowledged
when she gave evidence to us. She must be permitted to shape the
Inquiry team as she thinks appropriate.
SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY
26. The terms of reference for the original Panel
confined the scope of its inquiry to England and Wales, with an
undertaking that any relevant material would be passed to the
devolved administrations. Several people have suggested to us
that the scope of the inquiry should be extended to include the
whole of the United Kingdom, and in particular the abuse which
took place at the Kincora Boys' Home in Belfast in the 1970s.
Child protection is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, and
the Northern Ireland Executive has established its own Historic
Institutional Abuse Inquiry, which began work at the beginning
of 2014. However, that Inquiry's powers of compulsion do not extend
to the UK Government, which calls into doubt whether it will be
able to deal effectively with allegations of the possible involvement
of UK Government agencies in the abuse. Justice Goddard told us,
quite understandably, that she was not familiar with the details
of the Kincora case and had not yet given any thought to its inclusion
in her Inquiry.
27. In September 2014, the Northern Ireland Assembly
resolved, without a vote,
That this Assembly notes with deep concern the
allegations of sexual abuse that took place in Kincora Boys' Home
during the 1970s and 1980s; further notes allegations that senior
politicians, military personnel, paramilitary figures and businessmen
from Northern Ireland and Great Britain were involved in the commissioning
and subsequent cover-up of the abuse, as well as allegations that
members of the intelligence service were complicit in a cover-up
of this scandal; believes that the nature and seriousness of the
allegations, especially that MI5 was involved in a cover-up, means
that this cannot be adequately considered in any way other than
a Westminster Government-led inquiry; and urges the Home Secretary
to include Kincora Boys' Home in the inquiry by Fiona Woolf as
the most appropriate means of achieving truth and justice.[15]
We recommend that the scope of the inquiry be
extended to include cases of abuse in Scotland and Northern Ireland,
where there is reason to believe that material relevant to the
case might be held by the UK Government. This would include cases
such as the Kincora Boys' Home.
28. A further concern has been the cut-off date of
1970 in the original terms of reference. Survivors have pointed
out that many of them suffered childhood abuse before this date,
and the arbitrary cut-off will prevent the inquiry from considering
their experiences. We welcome the Home Secretary's announcement
that she is open to giving the Panel a much earlier cut-off date
than 1970, which will give a reasonable prospect of the experience
of most living survivors falling within the scope of the inquiry.
29. It is clear from the scale and scope of the task
concerned that the inquiry will take several years. However, the
opportunity to take any further action which the inquiry might
find to be necessary to address any failings it might identify
should not be delayed unnecessary. We recommend that the Panel
draw up terms of reference which will allow it to complete its
work within a reasonable time frame, producing interim reports
where necessary to ensure that key recommendations can be implemented
without unnecessary delay.
14 HL Paper 143 (2013-14), p. 69 Back
15
Official Report of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Volume 97, No 8 (Tuesday 30 September 2014),
p. 41 Back
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