UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Alan Travis Home affairs editor
Monday 21 November 2016
The Commons home affairs committee is to hold talks on the future direction of the independent inquiry into child sex abuse after receiving letters detailing the concerns of four senior lawyers who have quit the inquest.
A Home Office minister tried to reassure MPs on Monday that Prof Alexis Jay remains the right person to chair the troubled inquiry after the latest round of resignations and defections of survivors’ groups.
The Commons home affairs committee, chaired by Labour’s Yvette Cooper, is to meet in private on Tuesday to discuss the future of an inquiry that is now on its fourth chair, after the resignation of 17 lawyers and the withdrawal of several survivors’ groups.
The MPs are expected to order the publication later this week of letters from four barristers – including Hugh Davies QC, ex-deputy lead counsel to the inquiry – detailing their concerns over the conduct and management of the inquiry during the recent crises.
One of the letters is reported to repeat the allegations made by a Labour MP, Lisa Nandy, who used parliamentary privilege to name the senior counsel to the inquiry, Ben Emmerson, QC, as the person accused of an alleged sexual assault at the inquiry’s London headquarters. It is believed to criticise the inquiry’s handling of the sexual assault allegation.
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