A Liverpool Labour MP has introduced a rival bid for a “Hillsborough Law” amid fears that ministers are preparing to pursue a version that fails to contain a strong enough duty of candour for civil servants and other public officials.
Labour’s election manifesto said it would introduce a law named in honour of 1989’s Hillsborough disaster, which would place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities and provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths.
Crowd-control failures at Sheffield’s Hillsborough Stadium led to the deaths of 97 Liverpool fans present for the club’s FA Cup semi-final match against Nottingham Forest on the fateful day. South Yorkshire Police wrongly blamed supporters for the disaster.
Prime minister Keir Starmer pledged at last year’s Labour Party conference that the Hillsborough Law legislation would be introduced by 15 April this year – which was the 36th anniversary of the fatal crowd crush. He also insisted that the law would include criminal sanctions.
However, the deadline was missed and campaigners now believe the government is gearing up to introduce a “watered down” version of the proposed legislation.
Ian Byrne, who represents Liverpool’s West Derby constituency and was at Hillsborough on the day of the disaster, yesterday used the 10-minute-rule to introduce what he described as a the “real” Hillsborough Law.
His bill is based on one introduced to parliament in 2017 by former Labour MP and cabinet minister Andy Burnham – now mayor of Greater Manchester.
Byrne told MPs yesterday that what had unfolded on 15 April 1989 was not a tragic accident.
“It was a disaster caused by police failures and compounded by one of the most shameful state cover-ups this country has ever seen,” he said. “Like so many others, I was just a working-class lad who happened to be there, but like so many others, I was dragged into a decades-long web of establishment denial, distortion and deceit.”
He added: “Police officers knew who was responsible and where accountability lay, yet lie after lie was told. At inquests and inquiries and in media briefings, supporters were blamed for the death of their fellow fans. Time and again, false narratives were repeated and legitimised by those in power.”
Byrne said that the current government’s draft bill had been a “hollow offering that delivered nothing of what was promised” and that it had been “thankfully and rightly shelved”.
But he warned: “We understand that a new replacement bill, still without the key provisions of the Hillsborough Law, could be imminent.”
Byrne said his bill, the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, was the true Hillsborough Law.
“It includes a statutory duty of candour on public authorities, enforceable with criminal sanctions,” he said. “It levels the playing field so that families are no longer the underdog in the courtroom. It creates genuine accountability mechanisms, so that state cover-ups are much harder to conceal and the truth is much harder to bury.”
“Senior officials fear scrutiny”
Byrne told fellow MPs that resistance to the original provisions was “rooted not in legal complexity, but self-preservation”.
“It is being led by those with the most to lose: senior officials and institutions who fear scrutiny more than they value accountability,” he said. “Let me be absolutely crystal clear: this law will not weaken public institutions, but strengthen them. It will protect the vast majority of decent, hard-working public servants who, if pressured to conceal the truth, will finally have the law on their side.
“It will deliver justice more swiftly and affordably, reducing the need for drawn-out and expensive inquiries and inquests that cost the public purse hundreds of millions of pounds.”
The bill is due to receive its second reading on 11 July.
Earlier in the day, Lib-Dem leader Sir Ed Davey quizzed Starmer about fears that the government is planning to bring forward “toothless” duty-of-candour proposals for the Hillsborough Law.
“Can the prime minister reassure campaigners that his Hillsborough Law will include a real legal duty of candour, as he promised?” Davey asked at Prime Minister’s Questions.
“Yes, it will,” Starmer replied. “I have known some of the Hillsborough families for many years – I met them over a decade ago – and know exactly what they have been through. Various other groups have suffered similar injustices with similar follow-up, which is an additional injustice on top of the original injustice. That is why we will bring forward a Hillsborough Law – it is a commitment I have made. I have been talking to the families myself in recent weeks to make sure that we get this right. It is important that we get it right, but it will have a legal duty of candour.”