PM falls short of committing to pub blasts inquiry

Sir Keir Starmer said families of the Birmingham pub bombing victims would never be forgotten

The prime minister has said the families of people killed in the Birmingham pub bombings will "never be forgotten" - but did not commit to a full public inquiry into the deaths.

Speaking to the BBC, Sir Keir Starmer said the atrocity would be looked at alongside other Troubles-era deaths, under a new legacy scheme agreed with the Irish government.

When asked whether that made an inquiry more likely, Sir Keir said reforms to the framework were designed to get to the bottom of all issues, including the pub bombings.

The attacks saw bombs detonated at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town pubs on 21 November 1974, killing 21 people and injuring 220.

The killings remain unsolved. The convictions of six men, the so-called Birmingham Six, who were wrongly imprisoned for the crimes in 1975, were overturned in 1991 when The Court of Appeal ruled them unsafe.

Inquest hearings which concluded in 2019 found that a botched IRA warning call led to the 21 deaths.

Last year, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the bombings, families and MPs called for an inquiry "as a matter of urgency".

Sir Keir told the BBC on Thursday there had been "engagement" with those parties ahead of the agreement with the Irish government and the case would be part of the new arrangement.

Pressed on whether an inquiry was in scope, he said: "In my view, it needs to go into the new legacy arrangements because they're designed to get to the bottom of all the legacy issues, including the Birmingham pub bombing.

"So that's the route that this case should now take and I'm pleased that we've got the legacy arrangements in place."

'Truth and accountability'

Asked whether he understood why families felt forgotten, he said they were "not forgotten and they will never be forgotten".

"I don't think any of us would ever forget what happened... and for the families, that is acute and they carry it every single day," he added.

"What's important is that we therefore provide the mechanism, through now the legacy arrangements, for them to get the truth and accountability that they quite understandably want to see."