“We can’t take that hurt away tonight. But we can put decency back at the heart of the British state, and that is what this bill does.” Andy Burnham said it in the Commons, in his first intervention there since returning as an MP, as members finally passed the Hillsborough law after months of delay.
The Guardian described it as a rare moment of Labour unity. Burnham called the bill “truly a rewiring of the state” and said its lessons reach beyond Hillsborough, to other scandals in which institutions protected themselves instead of the people. He told MPs that victims are traumatised once by the loss itself and again “by the behaviour of the state”.
What the bill does
The public office (accountability) bill puts a duty of candour on public officials. Anyone who lies or evades during an inquiry into a tragedy would face prosecution. It also expands legal aid for bereaved families by £185m, the largest increase in a decade, to help them through the inquest process. Justice minister Sarah Sackman, who steered that part, said: “Access to justice is the right that makes all others real.”
The bill has been stuck since January. That month relations with the families backing it broke down over a possible carve-out for serving intelligence officers. The government had proposed that security chiefs could veto evidence if they judged its disclosure a risk to national security. The families offered a compromise: a secure way for a judge to view the material. They pointed to the Manchester Arena inquiry, where the chair said MI5 had given an inaccurate account of intelligence that might have prevented the bombing.
The Home Office and the security services also had concerns about how the duty would apply to them.
The compromise
A deal was brokered over the weekend, built on the families’ proposals. Under it, the chair of an inquiry would hear an application from MI5 bosses who believe some information should be withheld on national security grounds. Officers still cannot fail to provide the evidence, which was the point the families cared about most. Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has signed off. The bill must still go through the Lords.
Government sources told the Guardian that Keir Starmer had spoken personally with security chiefs in recent weeks, and that attorney general Richard Hermer helped draft the compromise. “Even during some of his weakest moments, Keir has spent political capital to make progress,” one government source said. The Guardian also understands that senior members of Burnham’s team, including Knowsley MP Anneliese Midgley, helped get it over the line, along with Kevan Jones and the Tory MP Jeremy Wright of the joint intelligence committee.
Starmer vowed to see the law through on stage at Labour conference in Liverpool last year, alongside the campaigner Margaret Aspinall. Burnham thanked him in the Commons: “He has honoured his commitment to the Hillsborough families.”
Burnham first brought the same law forward as a private member’s bill in 2017. It failed.
Families, including some from other disasters such as the Manchester Arena bombing, met Starmer at a Downing Street reception before the third reading. In a joint statement, Charlotte Hennessy, Sue Roberts, Steve Kelly and Aspinall said: “We did not stay silent, we were not ground down, we were not afraid to speak truth to power.”
