Hillsborough’s 25-year legacy

IT is not the fault of David Crompton, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, or Shaun Wright, the area’s crime commissioner, that they’re having to deal with the fallout from the Hillsborough disaster 25 years ago.

Both men are having to come to terms with the ramifications of the investigations now gathering pace, with a new coroner’s inquest into the football tragedy set to begin next month. It follows the High Court’s quashing of the original accidental death verdicts due to the persistence of the families of the 96 Liverpool fans who lost their lives in such tragic circumstances.

Yet, while the Government is already meeting the bulk of the legal costs that South Yorkshire Police will inevitably incur at both the inquest and Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry into claims that police failings were the subject of a major cover-up, there is every possibility that this process will see the force become liable for compensation payments running into the millions of pounds.

In light of the truly shocking conclusions of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, no one is going to begrudge compensation being paid to the victims – it is their determination that led to Anne Williams, the mother of one of Hillsborough’s youngest victims, receiving a posthumous award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year celebration.

However it is equally important that any payouts do not compromise frontline policing today – the South Yorkshire force is due to make a further £10m of cuts in the next financial year and it would be wrong to penalise local residents and taxpayers if the actions of individual officers are now found to be culpable.

As such, it is prudent that Mr Wright should raise the issue with the Home Office so some clarity can be found. Yet it should not just be left to taxpayers to foot the bill. If it is found that Hillsborough amounts to a miscarriage of justice, those officers found to have let down their force, and the reputation of South Yorkshire Police, should be held financially accountable for their actions. The same applies to the outcome of the inquiry now under way into the Battle of Orgreave during the 1984 Miners’ Strike.

Anything less will only make it more difficult for today’s police officers to draw a line under a tragedy that remains without parallel.

Culture vultures

How art can enrich the lives of all

THE potential of Yorkshire arts was confirmed when Hull was named the 2017 City of Culture thanks to an inspiring and vibrant bid.

The East Yorkshire city won against the odds because it was able to demonstrate a clear link between culture and economic development.

Hull’s success was also a ringing endorsement of the regional arts. In the past, there has been an unhelpful tendency for public funding to begin – and end – in the capital. And this trait was self-evident last year when the possibility emerged that either Bradford’s National Media Museum or York’s National Railway Museum was in danger of being sacrificed in order to safeguard the Science Museum in London.

As evidenced by the contribution of Yorkshire MPs in a Parliamentary debate on the future of the arts, including the enduring importance of the region’s brass bands and their heritage, there is now a greater recognition of the arts and cultural facilities in cities like Sheffield.

Despite funding being squeezed by the Olympics and then the recession, Sheffield Theatres has won a top national accolade for two successive years and three of the four Turner Prize nominees in 2013 had previously exhibited in the city.

However such successes are in spite of Yorkshire receiving a disproportionately low amount of funding from the Arts Council in comparison to London, and this makes it harder for venues to secure “match” funding from other sources. As Hull’s bid showed, there needs to be a recognition that art can enrich the lives of all – and not just the privileged few.

Keep it simple...

Plastic bags weigh down Ministers

WHY do governments, Tory and Labour, have such a penchant for over-complicating the most simple of policies? Take plastic carrier bags and plans to introduce a five pence levy so shoppers think twice about their social obligations towards the environment and the need to reduce the volume of discarded litter, which remains a national embarrassment.

If the Government wants to curtail their use, the charge should apply to all plastic bags full stop. Yet, because the coalition wants to make exemptions for biodegradable bags, this well-intended scheme threatens to descend into chaos and a bureaucratic nightmare for shop cashiers and so on.

After all, shoppers can manage to supply their own bags in France so why should Britain be any different?

Of course, it should be pointed out, gently, that this bag blunder would not have happened if there was a Department of Common Sense in Whitehall which checked out the small-print of new policies to avoid such ambiguities. But, on recent evidence, it is doubtful that the country’s political leaders could instigate such a body without compounding two familiar failings – cost and confusion.