MPs' bid for Commons inquiry over Orgreave

A letter sent to Home Secretary Amber Rudd and signed by six MPs from across the political spectrum bids for a Parliamentary hearing over the 1984 confrontation.

Dismay, disgust and defiance greeted Ms Rudd’s announcement on Monday that it was not in the public interest to formally investigate or review the events of June 18, 1984, when picketing miners and police were injured in clashes at the Orgreave Coking plant near Catcliffe.

Members of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) said they would consider seeking a judicial review and barristers were this week scrutinising the Government’s formal decision notice to explore how it can be challenged.

And on Tuesday, six MPs — Andy Burnham, Joanne Cherry, Mark Durkan, Tim Farron, Edward Leigh and Caroline Lucas — wrote to Ms Rudd calling for the Home Secretary to formally support a select committee inquiry on the battle.

They said this form of inquiry would “minimise costs and administration”.

Ms Rudd told the House of Commons on Monday that select committees “may take up the opportunity” of making their own investgations.

The MPs’ letter asked her to “formalise” her support for this process and commit to releasing all documents requested by select committee members.

This “would significantly enhance confidence that such an arrangement could work”, they said.

OTJC secretary Barbara Jackson insisted this week that Ms Rudd’s decision would not permanently set the campaign back.

“We may be back at square one politically but our level of support nationally is tremendous and in terms of Press interest we are much further on,” she said.

The OTJC — formed in 2012 — had hoped a new probe would examine claims of police corruption and establish any links in police tactics at Orgreave and the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

But Ms Rudd told the House of Commons that there was “not a sufficient basis” for an inquiry.

She said as policing had changed since the 1980s there were “very few lessons” to be learned from an inquiry, adding: “I do not believe that establishing any kind of inquiry is required to allay public concerns.”

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion said she was “spitting feathers” and “disgusted” by the verdict, adding: “It’s simply incomprehensible that the Home Secretary truly believes that there is no case to answer”.

She joined the campaigners in their defiant stance, saying: “This is not the end of the story.”

The Home Secretary said on Monday: “Despite the forceful accounts and arguments provided by the campaigners and former miners who were present that day about the effect that these events have had on them, ultimately there were no deaths or wrongful convictions.

“The campaigners say that had the consequences of the events at Orgreave been addressed properly at the time, the tragic events at Hillsborough would never have happened five years later.

“That is not a conclusion which I believe can be reached with any certainty.”