Hillsborough Memorial Mosaic inside Anfield, home of Liverpool Football Club (Credit: Maurice Savage / Alamy Stock Photo)
3 min read
The government faces a growing backlash among Labour MPs over the continued delay to the Hillsborough Law.
PoliticsHome understands that following a meeting this week to discuss the current state of the bill, Merseyside Labour MPs are considering a coordinated response to what they see as a process that is being frustrated by officials.
At the meeting were Labour MPs campaigning for victims of the Hillsborough tragedy, Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, and lawyers Pete Weatherby and Elkan Abrahamson. The latter have spent years working with campaigners and in recent weeks have had discussions with Attorney General Lord Hermer, the Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet Office about work to finalise the legislation.
Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, who himself is a Hillsborough disaster survivor, told PoliticsHome that the legislation is still “not fit for purpose”.
“We’ve told the government that, and we’ve asked them to go away and come back with something which we can actually back. Because in its current form, it won’t be backed by MPs, it won’t be backed by the families or the campaign groups.
“Over the next few weeks, we will be making that completely clear to the Prime Minister.”
In April, The Times reported that Prime Minister Keir Starmer was set to miss his stated deadline of introducing a new law to introduce a legal duty of candour for public authorities in time for the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster that month.
Since then, discussions between the government, Labour MPs and campaigners over what exactly the bill should include have continued, but at the time of writing, remain unresolved, PoliticsHome understands.
“I’m bitterly disappointed that the Hillsborough Law still hasn’t come to the floor of the House,” said Paula Barker, the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree. “It was promised by the Prime Minister during Labour Party Conference last year. The bill that was written in 2017 is fit for purpose and must be delivered in full.”
In its 2024 manifesto, Labour pledged to bring forward a Hillsborough Law before the anniversary of the disaster on 15 April, which would see public officials or organisations that obstruct or mislead investigations potentially facing criminal charges.
The proposed new law gets its name from the 1997 disaster at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, when 97 Liverpool fans were crushed to death. South Yorkshire Police (SYP) falsely accused Liverpool supporters of being responsible. However, it was later found that SYP had failed to properly police crowds.
One source familiar with negotiations sought to stress that Starmer has tried to drive the process forward, with the issue being of personal importance to the Prime Minister.
The impasse, PoliticsHome understands, is due to a disagreement over how exactly the duty of candour should be set out in the legislation, with government officials expressing concern that it could have unintended consequences in practice.
There is also a hold-up over the issue of parity of funding, which would grant bereaved families access to the same level of funding as public authorities for legal representation.
“It’s been redrafted to make it toothless,” said Byrne. “There are vested interests in this country within state institutions who don’t want that cultural change, and that’s what we’re coming up against.”
