Lead

Keir Starmer is expected to use his final week in office to push the Hillsborough law through its remaining stages in the Commons, after months of delays, according to The Guardian. The bill aims to strengthen support for families seeking justice after major disasters and create new offences for officials who deliberately mislead the public or seek to block accountability.

The prime minister made the legislation one of Labour’s defining manifesto commitments before entering government. Speaking at the party’s conference in Liverpool in 2024, he promised to introduce legislation before the next anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster on 15 April, saying families should never again have to fight the state to uncover the truth.

Coverage Comparison

The Guardian’s reporting frames the bill’s passage from different but complementary angles. One report focuses on Starmer’s push to complete the bill in his final days, emphasising it as a key manifesto commitment. Another highlights the decades of campaigning by Hillsborough families and describes the law’s near-completion as a victory for them and their allies. A third takes an analytical view, portraying the bill as a symbolic handover of power from Starmer to Andy Burnham, who returned to Parliament after winning the Makerfield byelection and is set to become Britain’s next prime minister.

Across the coverage, the same core facts appear: the bill was delayed due to concerns from MI5, MI6, and GCHQ over its impact on national security operations, and the government proposed changes that would have allowed intelligence chiefs to decide whether information could be disclosed during investigations. The proposed changes prompted a backlash, though the exact nature of the resolution is not fully detailed in the material provided.

The Guardian’s reports also note that the law is officially known as the public office (accountability) bill, and that it takes its name from the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, in which 97 Liverpool supporters died after a crush at their team’s FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest in Sheffield. In 2016, nearly 30 years after the disaster, a landmark inquest found that those who died were unlawfully killed, and that the behaviour of Liverpool fans played no part in the tragedy, contrary to the false claims of officers.

Key Claims

  • Keir Starmer is pushing the Hillsborough law through its remaining stages in the Commons, as reported by The Guardian.
  • The bill aims to strengthen support for families seeking justice after major disasters and create new offences for officials who deliberately mislead the public or seek to block accountability.
  • The law creates new offences for officials who deliberately mislead the public or seek to block accountability.
  • The bill was delayed due to concerns from MI5, MI6, and GCHQ over its impact on national security operations.
  • The government proposed changes that would have allowed intelligence chiefs to decide whether information could be disclosed during investigations.
  • Andy Burnham introduced a private member’s bill on the Hillsborough law in 2017; it fell away when Theresa May called an election.
  • The Manchester Arena inquiry found that MI5 had submitted an inaccurate account of intelligence, a fact cited in The Guardian’s coverage of the law’s history.
Beyond these specific claims, The Guardian reports that the decades-long fight for justice by families exposed repeated failings by public bodies, including South Yorkshire police. The bill’s progress has been marked by ministerial clashes with campaigners over its application to the intelligence services, and by a proposal that would have allowed intelligence chiefs to decide on information disclosure during investigations, which sparked a backlash.

In a notable moment, Andy Burnham, who introduced the original private member’s bill in 2017, gave his first speech since returning to Parliament during the debate, telling the prime minister that this “truly is your legacy.” The Guardian’s analytical report describes the moment as both a symbolic handover of power from Starmer to Burnham and the opening salvo of a new era, as Burnham is set to become Britain’s next prime minister.