The Hillsborough Law Now campaign has hailed today’s announcement in the King’s Speech that the Labour government will bring in a ‘Hillsborough Law’ as ‘life changing’.
Debbie Caine, campaign director of Hillsborough Law Now said:
“Only those who have endured a long and arduous battle with the state for truth and accountability will realise the significance of this announcement. But make no mistake, this announcement has the potential to save and change lives for the many, not the few.”
Bringing in a duty of candour is a key part of the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill which was introduced by Andy Burnham in 2017. The Bill had a first reading but fell after the 2017 General Election was announced.
Lawyers Pete Weatherby KC of Garden Court North Chambers and Elkan Abrahamson of Broudie Jackson Canter drafted the Bill, which has become known as ‘Hillsborough Law’. Both are also directors of the Hillsborough Law Now campaign.
Solicitor, Elkan Abrahamson of Broudie Jackson Canter, said:
“Public inquiries, inquests and investigations often fail to get to the truth because public authorities and officials cover-up what happened to protect themselves. This law should stop all those who in public office serve themselves rather than the public.
“On behalf of all our campaigners, we thank the Prime Minister for keeping to the commitment he made to us and we stand ready to assist him and his government in enacting this law.”
Pete Weatherby KC adds:
“I hope today offers some comfort to the thousands of people who over decades have been denied justice, truth and accountability by the state that things might soon change. It is because of the struggles of so many that we stand on the brink of changing the law and I pay tribute to all the thousands of campaigners who have stood up to be counted.”
Deborah Coles, director of INQUEST and a director of Hillsborough Law Now, says:
“We welcome today’s commitment from the new Government to implement a Hillsborough Law. This would not have happened without the longstanding campaigning from bereaved families and survivors.
“INQUEST sees daily the impact on bereaved families as the search for the truth invariably begins to feel like a battle as the shutters come down. Public scrutiny is a vital opportunity to learn from past mistakes and protect lives in the future.
“For too long organisations have been more concerned with reputation management, concealing the truth and defending their policies and practices even where there is clear evidence of systemic and individual failure.
“The new Government must now ensure a statutory duty of candour and parity of funding as a lasting legacy to those who died in the Hillsborough Disaster and to stop future injustice and trauma.”
The Bill creates a legal duty of candour on public authorities and officials to tell the truth and proactively cooperate with official investigations and inquiries. It also provides a ’toolkit’ to enforce compliance with the duty, which would both prevent obfuscation and cover-ups, and lead to much more focused and shorter inquiries, thereby saving millions of pounds of public money, and delivering swifter justice with much less stress to families and witnesses alike. Failure to comply would become a criminal offence, and the culture of denial that we have seen in other inquiries, such as Infected Blood, Post Office and Grenfell, would be minimised.
It will also ensure a level playing field for bereaved people at inquests and for those whose lives have been affected by wrongdoing and preventable failures. Bereaved people will receive public funding for legal representation to be equally represented as the police and public authorities are.