The UK government has broken its promise to introduce a Hillsborough law by April 15, but prime minister Keir Starmer has again vowed he “will deliver.”
Starmer spoke on multiple occasions of his desire to introduce a Hillsborough law, promising last year that it would be in place by the 36th anniversary of the disaster.
We have now reached that date, though, and not only has the law not been passed in Parliament, but the Labour government have attempted to water down the bill.
In a new statement posted on X on the morning of the anniversary, Starmer vowed that he “will deliver on that promise.”
Thirty-six years ago, we saw one of the greatest disasters in our history. A disaster that led to 97 people tragically losing their lives. Today, I pay tribute to them.
In the years since, their families and loved ones have campaigned tirelessly to get justice. Despite all the…
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) April 15, 2025
Margaret Aspinall, a prominent campaigner whose son, James, died at Hillsborough aged 18, responded that “if it’s not in all its entirety, I want nothing to do with it.”
“What I will say is I’m disappointed it’s not come out for the anniversary but at the same time I wouldn’t have accepted it being watered down,” Aspinall told ITV’s Good Morning Britain on the anniversary.
“Because to me if it’s watered down it’s like giving me a jigsaw puzzle and there’s a couple of pieces missing.”
Drafted by the Hillsborough families’ barrister Pete Weatherby KC, the law originally set out terms for a duty of candour to be placed on public authorities and to publicly fund legal representation equal to that of authorities at inquests and inquiries.
However, the Guardian reported that the government’s new draft is “based more on public authorities signing up to a charter, without strong legal enforcement, and does not include the funding for legal representation.”
Two weeks before that news widely broke, the Mirror shared that families had been set to meet with Starmer over the changes made, but 48 hours after arranging the summit, Downing Street cancelled.
• READ: Hillsborough: The Truth – Facts about the disaster
To make matters worse, those due to attend were unaware the meeting was off until told by the Mirror, because the letter informing them had gone in the post.
The government then briefed that the families’ law would lead to ‘white lies’ about being late for work being criminally prosecuted – obviously, this is not the intention, nor is it realistic.
Deborah Coles, the director of Inquest, a charity providing expertise on state-related deaths and their investigation, said the delay should be used as “an urgent opportunity” to ensure the law is introduced in full.
“The evidence in our report is too compelling and stark to ignore. Anything less will be a betrayal,” Coles added.
You can read the report from when the government eventually did meet with Hillsborough families here
What is the families’ Hillsborough law?
The proposed law is intended to safeguard against the extended suffering felt by victims’ families in the aftermath of incidents such as Hillsborough or the Grenfell Tower fire.
Respected Guardian journalist David Conn told This Is Anfield: “There are two quite basic elements to the Hillsborough Law.
“One is called a duty of candour. Being candid, being honest and that the police and all public authorities should have a legal required duty of candour.
“They have to not only be honest and not mount a cover-up but also positively help, positively give information to enquiries and investigations, obviously particularly after a public disaster, but to have a duty of candour as part of their holding of public office.
“The second part of the Hillsborough law is that bereaved families and victims after a public disaster should have funding so they can pay for equal legal representation at the subsequent enquiries and inquests.
“That was an awful part of the Hillsborough story that after the disaster, there was no legal aid, there was no funding for the families at the inquests.
“I was completely shocked by this when I first started reporting on it nearly 30 years ago and it’s not changed that much since.
“What happened was, the families themselves, the police and other bodies who were at the inquests, so Sheffield City Council, the ambulance service, the fire service, they are public bodies so they have public money to pay the barrister and the best lawyers you could have.
“But the victims don’t get any money to fund legal representation, so the families who’d lost their loved ones in the disaster and suffered such catastrophe had to find the money themselves.
“I was always told that 42 families managed to contribute £3,000 each, that was the arrangement.
“They managed to afford, I think, one barrister and some solicitors to support the barrister, against all these teams of lawyers that were basically marshalling this narrative against the victims that the families felt was besmirching their loved ones and trying to portray the people who’d suffered as having misbehaved and somehow caused it themselves.”
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