Maria Eagle vows to continue fight to get her Public Advocate Bill through parliament

MP Maria Eagle spoke to ITV Granada Reports after her appearance in the House of Commons.

A North West MP is campaigning to ensure families who have lost loved ones in public disasters do not face years to get justice.

Merseyside MP Maria Eagle is well-known for speaking out against the cover up which followed the Hillsborough disaster.

But this campaign will affect others, such as the Grenfell Fire survivors and those affected by the Infected Blood Scandal.

On Thursday, she tried to persuade the Government to support her Public Advocate Bill in Parliament aimed at giving bereaved people a stronger voice in the legal process.

During that debate, she managed to get an assurance that the Government will respond to the consultation, that happened in 2018, by the end of this year.

Maria continued:

"It will give power to families at an early stage of the incident to get transparency, to get their interests met and so they don't get caught up being ignored by the judicial systems and all the appeals that happen, but they are able to get transparency, the production of documents like the Hillsborough independent panel did for the Hillsborough families, but it took 23 years in that case.

"If we can get that done at an earlier stage it stops cover ups, so you shine the light of transparency on some of the darker recesses of what public authorities want to do in disasters, and you stop things going wrong.

The issue will be raised in the Commons again next month. Ms Eagle says she will continue to press ministers to go ahead with the bill.