The government will introduce the long‑awaited Public Office (Accountability) Bill — commonly referred to as the "Hillsborough Law" — to Parliament on Tuesday, a move designed to compel public bodies to cooperate with investigations into major disasters and to impose a statutory duty of candour on public officials.
The bill, which the government says will end a culture of cover‑ups, also proposes measures to ensure parity of legal funding for families and victims affected by state‑related disasters. Officials confirmed the duty of candour would require public servants to act with honesty and integrity and that breaches could attract criminal sanctions.
The announcement was welcomed by Hillsborough campaigners who had feared the legislation could be watered down after years of delay. Margaret Aspinall, whose 18‑year‑old son James died at Hillsborough, said she was hopeful the law "will mean no‑one will ever have to suffer like we did." Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer praised the "courage" of the Hillsborough families and said the law would change "the balance of power in Britain" so the state could "never hide from the people it is supposed to serve."
The measures respond directly to the failures exposed by the 15 April 1989 disaster at Sheffield's Hillsborough stadium, when a crush at an FA Cup semi‑final led to the deaths of 97 people and hundreds of injuries. Campaigners and bereaved families say the trauma of that day was compounded by decades of contested inquiries, withheld information and a perceived lack of accountability.
A major turning point came with the 2012 Hillsborough Independent Panel and the second set of coroner's inquests, which concluded in 2016 that the victims had been unlawfully killed and that Liverpool supporters bore no responsibility for the tragedy. Those inquests took two years to complete and were followed by criminal proceedings and other investigations that produced limited convictions and left many questions unanswered. A senior police officer, David Duckenfield, was acquitted of gross negligence manslaughter after two trials. A separate police misconduct investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, opened in 2012, has not yet published its final report.
The proposed law has its roots in arguments made by lawyers who represented Hillsborough families. After the 2016 inquest verdicts, barrister Pete Weatherby KC and other lawyers drafted the first version of a bill to enshrine two principles: a legal duty on public authorities to be candid and a statutory requirement that the state provide equivalent legal funding to those challenging it. The original Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, introduced with cross‑party support in March 2017, fell when a general election was called later that year.
Campaigners watched as other high‑profile state‑related failures — including the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, the Manchester Arena attack, the Post Office Horizon scandal and the infected blood inquiry — unfolded without the protections they had sought. Groups representing victims of those events have since joined the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, arguing a single statutory framework would help prevent similar miscarriages of justice.
When Labour returned to government, the bill was included in the King's Speech and ministers pledged to bring forward legislation by the 36th anniversary of the disaster on 15 April 2025. That deadline was missed, prompting renewed concern among families. In July 2025, Liverpool MP Ian Byrne attempted to reintroduce the 2017 bill but was blocked. Officials said the government preferred to draft its own version rather than adopt the earlier text wholesale, and protracted negotiations followed between ministers, civil servants and campaigners.
Downing Street said those talks have now produced an agreement on key provisions, notably the duty of candour and measures on legal funding. Elkan Abrahamson, one of the bill's architects, said lawyers and campaigners will scrutinise the legislation closely as it proceeds through Parliament. "We will now scrutinise the bill as it makes its passage through parliament, so we're not quite there yet," he said. "But today is still a momentous step, owed entirely to the persistence of campaigners and their refusal to give up. The Hillsborough Law will transform the face of British justice."
Not all bereaved families agree on the legislation; campaigners acknowledge there remains division among those affected by Hillsborough. Those who back the bill say they will remain "hyper‑vigilant" to ensure its provisions are practical and effective, and are not weakened during parliamentary debate. They have warned that the law must be more than symbolic if it is to prevent future cover‑ups and shorten the long, costly fight for answers that followed Hillsborough.
Legal experts and campaigners say the bill will face detailed scrutiny in Parliament, where its drafting and practical impact will be tested. Questions remain about how the duty of candour will be defined and enforced, how criminal sanctions would be applied, and how funding parity will be administered in future inquiries and trials.
If enacted, the Public Office (Accountability) Bill would apply beyond Hillsborough to other incidents involving public action or inaction. Ministers say the legislation will draw lessons from Grenfell, the Post Office and the infected blood scandal among others. Campaigners say those wider applications are central to ensuring the law offers a lasting legacy.
Parliamentary timetable will determine how quickly the bill progresses. Campaign groups and some relatives of victims have called for swift passage, while signalling their intention to hold the government to account over the detail and enforcement of the new measures. The bill's introduction marks a significant step in a decades‑long campaign for legal reform prompted by Hillsborough, but its eventual impact will depend on how it survives scrutiny and amendment during the legislative process.