The long awaited and frequently delayed legislation is a direct response to the systemic failures and institutional cover-up that followed the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, which resulted in the deaths of 97 football fans.

 It is designed to rectify decades of injustice and rebalance the relationship between the state and its citizens by mandating a new standard of transparency and accountability.

The core of the Bill is a statutory duty of candour, which requires public officials to act with honesty, openness, and integrity during investigations and inquiries. 

It introduces criminal sanctions, including up to two years in jail, for serious breaches of this duty and for deliberately misleading the public. The legislation addresses the power imbalance that has disadvantaged bereaved families by providing non-means-tested legal aid for inquests and restricting the disproportionate legal spending of public bodies.

While the law represents a victory for campaigners and is framed as a remedy for a wide range of national scandals—including Grenfell, the Infected Blood scandal, and the Post Office scandal—its ultimate success is contingent on the effectiveness of its implementation. The law alone is not a panacea for institutional culture; its effectiveness will be determined by leadership that focuses on candour, robust enforcement mechanisms, and a commitment to overcome ever-present institutional resistance.

The Hillsborough Disaster:

The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, now known as the Hillsborough Law, has its roots in the most significant and painful tragedy in modern British history: the Hillsborough disaster of April 15, 1989. The proximate causes of the disaster were systemic failures in crowd control, inadequate stadium design, and a lack of effective safety measures.

This was compounded by the institutional response that followed. Immediately, a false narrative was created by the South Yorkshire Police and other authorities, which inaccurately blamed the tragedy on the behaviour of Liverpool fans, making unfounded allegations that drunken and ticketless supporters had forced their way into the ground. This concerted effort to misrepresent the facts, which included amending witness statements and misleading the media, was a deliberate cover-up designed to shift blame and protect public authorities. The initial, flawed inquests in 1991 returned verdicts of “accidental death,” and criminal charges filed in 2017 against officials, including the match commander, resulted in acquittals or dismissals.

This long-running institutional defensiveness, rather than the initial tragedy, is the ultimate catalyst for the Hillsborough Law. 

The decades-long struggle of bereaved families to uncover the truth demonstrated that the existing legal and institutional systems were not merely broken; they were “working exactly as designed to protect institutions and wear families down”. The law is therefore a direct legislative response to this culture of secrecy and evasion that was exposed and prolonged the suffering of those affected for decades.

The families’ pursuit of justice spanned over three decades. The initial Inquests were deeply flawed, concluding with verdicts of “accidental death” that failed to acknowledge the role of authorities. This outcome left many bereaved families and survivors feeling that the true circumstances had not been made public. 

The publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report in 2012 exposed evidence of the cover-up and concluded that “no Liverpool fans were responsible in any way for the disaster,” finding that a “lack of police control” was the main cause.

The findings of the Panel were so significant that they led to the quashing of the original verdicts and the establishment of new inquests in 2014, which ran for more than two years and became the longest-running inquest in British legal history. 

In 2016, a jury finally concluded that the victims were “unlawfully killed” and that fans played no role in causing the disaster. This verdict, followed by a separate inquest for the 97th victim, Andrew Devine, in 2021 , represented a major, though disgracefully delayed, vindication for the families. Despite these legal victories, the absence of a comprehensive law to prevent such institutional failures remained a critical gap in the justice system.

The Architects of the Campaign

The introduction of the Hillsborough Law is a testament to the courage and persistence of the bereaved families and survivors who fought tirelessly for justice. Key figures like Margaret Aspinall, whose son James died at Hillsborough, and Sue Roberts, whose brother Graham was killed, have been at the forefront of this campaign. The campaign was also driven by dedicated organisations such as the Hillsborough Justice Campaign and INQUEST, which played a crucial role in providing legal support and advocating for a new legislative framework. The families and their legal teams were instrumental in devising the Bill, which was initially introduced to Parliament in 2017 by Andy Burnham.

The campaign for the Hillsborough Law was not an isolated movement. Over time, it grew to encompass a powerful coalition of families and campaigners from other national tragedies, including the Grenfell Tower fire, the Infected Blood scandal, the Post Office Horizon scandal, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, who had worked with the families as Director of Public Prosecutions, made a personal promise to Margaret Aspinall that he would act to prevent others from enduring similar injustices. This transformed the Hillsborough Law from a specific response to a single disaster into a framework for addressing the issue of institutional failure and state accountability across the nation. This broad-based support gave the Bill unprecedented political momentum and symbolic weight.

Provisions of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill

The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, also known as the Hillsborough Law, is a landmark piece of legislation designed to transform how public bodies respond to major tragedies and failures. The Bill’s central provisions target the specific injustices witnessed in the Hillsborough case, with the goal of creating a more transparent, accountable, and equitable justice system.

The Statutory Duty of Candour

The cornerstone of the Bill is the establishment of a new professional and legal duty of candour on all public officials and authorities. 

This is a significant legislative shift, as no such general legal duty currently exists outside of the health and social care sectors. The duty requires public officials to act with honesty, openness, and integrity at all times, and to proactively cooperate with investigations and inquiries. This is a direct response to the denial and cover-ups that prevailed after Hillsborough, where authorities concealed information and distorted facts to protect their reputations.

To ensure compliance, the Bill introduces criminal sanctions for “egregious breaches” of this duty. Public servants who deliberately withhold or distort information could face prosecution, with David Lammy stating that those who “flagrantly mislead the public” could face up to two years in jail. This legal backstop is intended to have a powerful dual effect: not only to punish wrongdoing but to drive a lasting cultural change across the public sector. The rationale is that the threat of imprisonment will incentivise institutions and individuals to prioritise truth and honesty over self-preservation and institutional defensiveness, thereby preventing future injustices from occurring. The law is intended to change the balance of power in Britain and ensure that the state can never again hide from the people it is meant to serve.

Legal Aid and Proportionality

A second key pillar of the Hillsborough Law is the restructuring of legal aid provisions to create “equality of arms” in inquests. 

This is widely regarded by campaigners as the most important change in how the justice system treats ordinary citizens since the Human Rights Act. The Bill guarantees non-means-tested legal aid for all bereaved families at inquests where the state is involved. This provision directly addresses the David and Goliath battles of the past, where families were forced to crowdfund to cover their legal costs while facing a limitless number of taxpayer-funded lawyers representing state agencies at public expense.

Furthermore, the Bill includes measures to restrict the amount of public money that can be spent on legal representation for state bodies at inquests. The goal is to ensure that both sides are on a “fair and equal footing”. The combined effect of these legal aid reforms is expected to have a significant  effect beyond procedural fairness. By removing the state’s financial and legal advantage, the law should incentivise early disclosure of information and proactive cooperation. When the state can no longer hide behind procedural and financial advantages, it will be compelled to be candid and disclose information early, thereby shortening the search for truth, reducing delays, and cutting costs associated with prolonged legal battles.

The following provides a clear, high-level summary of the Bill’s core components and their direct link to the problems they are designed to solve.

Statutory Duty of Candour :Police cover-up and creation of a false narrative to shift blame 

Non-Means-Tested Legal Aid: Families forced to crowdfund while facing state-funded legal teams

Proportionality in State Legal Spending: Unfair power imbalance and “David and Goliath”-style inquests

Criminal Sanctions for Misleading Public: Systemic institutional defensiveness and culture of secrecy

A New Era of Justice?

The Public Office (Accountability) Bill is poised to enact changes that extend far beyond the specific circumstances of the Hillsborough disaster. The legislation is intended to serve as a universal framework for addressing a wide range of state-related tragedies, and its introduction is deliberately timed to coincide with a period of reckoning over other high-profile injustices. The law is intended to serve as a remedy for the institutional failures that emerged during the Infected Blood scandal, the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Post Office/Horizon scandal. This broader framing gives the law a profound and lasting significance, positioning it as a foundational change to the UK’s justice system.

The greatest anticipated change is a redefinition of institutional culture across the public sector. The duty of candour, backed by the threat of criminal sanctions, is designed to replace the existing deep-seated defensive culture with an ethos of transparency and accountability. The hope is that this new legal and ethical requirement will encourage public servants to be proactive in disclosing information and admitting mistakes, rather than concealing them. Proponents argue that the law will encourage better internal investigations and create clearer routes for whistleblowers to raise concerns without fear of reprisal. 

By setting a “minimum threshold of honesty,” the Bill is also intended to help restore public confidence in institutions that are correctly seen as secretive and self-protective. The law’s provisions for legal aid will enable a fairer and more balanced search for the truth, allowing bereaved families to have their voices heard on an equal footing with the state. This move will empower ordinary citizens and change the power dynamics in the legal system. In essence, the law aims to ensure that future inquiries and Inquests can fulfil their intended purpose: to deal with systemic failures and restore public confidence, rather than perpetuating the very injustices they were created to address.

While the Hillsborough Law is hailed as a landmark piece of legislation, its future impact is not without potential challenges. 

Campaigners and legal experts have raised concerns that the Bill’s provisions could be diluted or watered down during its passage through Parliament. The initial delay in the Bill’s introduction, with officials stating that more time was needed for drafting, fuelled fears that vested interests might attempt to weaken the legislation. Campaigners have urged the Government to “be brave and ignore the vested interests” that may seek to undermine the Bill’s full implementation.

A key point of contention for lawyers representing the Hillsborough families is the drafting of the duty of candour offence, which they fear may be too narrowly defined and could allow some public officials to evade accountability. This continued tension between campaigners and the government highlights that the Bill is the embodiment of a continuing power struggle between the state and the people it is meant to serve. The successful passing of the Bill is a crucial first step, but the fight for full, uncompromising implementation continues.

The central challenge to the law’s long-term effectiveness lies in the distinction between passing legislation and achieving genuine cultural change. 

The existing NHS duty of candour serves as a cautionary tale; while it exists on the statute books, many believe it to be no more than a tick-box exercise that reinforces fear and defensiveness rather than a genuine commitment to transparency. The legislation’s success depends on strong leadership that models candour and a supportive system that protects officials who speak out. 

Therefore, for the law to be truly transformative, it must be felt in the everyday work of public servants and not simply be seen as a bureaucratic exercise to be navigated only when an inquiry is launched.

A potentially transformative legacy

The Hillsborough Law is a landmark achievement, a powerful and fitting tribute to the tenacity and dignity of the Hillsborough families who fought for more than three decades. This legislation represents an enormous shift in the UK’s legal and political landscape, addressing not just the injustices of a single tragedy but a broader, systemic failure of public accountability. 

The Bill’s core provisions—a statutory duty of candour, non-means-tested legal aid for families, and criminal sanctions for cover-ups—are designed to rebalance the scales of justice and prevent future victims from enduring the same ordeal.

The law’s significance is magnified by its positioning as a remedy for a wide range of national tragedies, from Grenfell to the Infected Blood scandal. By doing so, it transcends its origins and becomes a universal framework for holding the state accountable. 

However, the ultimate success of the Hillsborough Law is not guaranteed by its passage alone. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition for change. Its legacy will be contingent on the full commitment of governments and public bodies to brave and consistent enforcement, overcoming deeply ingrained institutional resistance. 

Importantly, it is a powerful symbol of the power of ordinary people to force extraordinary change, and it will serve as a lasting legacy for the 97 who died, for the families, some journalists and politicians who never faltered, and for the generations to come.