Cooper: Home secretary must cough up 30 Orgreave files after inquiry snub

Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee, yesterday published her letter to home secretary Amber Rudd demanding answers over the content of 30 mysterious government files related to the Battle of Ogreave. Last month Rudd ruled out a new inquiry into the attack on striking miners.

Dear Home Secretary

Orgreave

Thank you for your letter of 11 November setting out some further information about papers relating to Orgreave held and examined by the Government. There remain a number of outstanding points on which the Committee would be grateful for your further replies, as set out below.

• Whether you or your officials examined the 30 files relating to the miners’ strike to which you refer before you took the decision that there would not be an independent or statutory inquiry.
• What the subject heading is of each of the 30 files.
• Whether you or your officials requested and/or reviewed any files or evidence from the IPCC or South Yorkshire Police before you took the decision.
• Whether the files that have been transferred to the National Archives are already available to the public.
• How many of the 30 files relating to the miners’ strike you intend to transfer to the National Archives and when you anticipate this happening.
• What the reasons are for withholding each of the files which you do not intend to transfer to the National Archives
• Whether all the further files that you intend to transfer to the National Archives will be made available to the public; and if not, what the reasons are for withholding each one.
• What files relevant to Orgreave the Cabinet Office still holds.
• Whether you or your officials reviewed any of the files held by the Cabinet Office before making your decision about the independent inquiry.

I would be grateful to receive your response by Monday 21 November.

Yours sincerely

Yvette Cooper.