Britain has passed landmark legislation aimed at preventing state cover-ups and improving accountability after public disasters. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who promised to bring in the law during his 2024 election campaign, opened the debate on the bill in the Commons in one of his final acts as leader. The bill was inspired and named after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 when 96 Liverpool fans were killed in a crowd crush.
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TRANSCRIPT
For the past 37 years, Margaret Aspinall has been fighting for justice.
“No one, no one should have to go what these families have gone through for 28 years to try and get to the truth, to get accountability especially.”
Her son James was one of 96 Liverpool football fans who were killed in a crowd crush at Hillsborough in the South Yorkshire city of Sheffield, where Liverpool and Nottingham Forest were playing a FA Cup semifinal match.
Tragedy struck after more than 2,000 Liverpool fans poured into a standing-only section behind a goal.
Many victims were crushed against metal fences or trampled underfoot, and suffocated.
At first, police blamed what happened on the fans, telling the press there had been unruly behaviour in the crowd.
The families of those who died began a long campaign to push back against that official story.
FAMILIES: "Justice for the 96. Justice for the 96. Justice for the 96. Justice for the 96.”
A series of reports began to back what the families had always maintained, starting with a report by Lord Justice Peter Murray Taylor in 1990 that found the police were mainly responsible for the disaster.
An independent inquiry in 2012 found the police had covered up their own mistakes.
Then in 2016, after 2 years of hearings, an inquest into the Hillsborough deaths found the football supporters had been unlawfully killed, with police failures to blame.
Chief Constable David Crompton issued this statement after the inquest concluded.
“On the 15th of April 1989, South Yorkshire police got the policing at the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough catastrophically wrong. The force failed the victims and failed their families. I want to apologise unreservedly to the families and those affected.”
But the families' fight continued.
In 2025, the UK's police regulator - Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) - published a wide-ranging report after a decade-long investigation, finding failures in both the planning for the match, the policing of it, and its response to the disaster.
The investigation found that 12 former police officers would have faced proceedings for "gross misconduct" and "fundamental failures" had they still been serving, but some had since retired or even died.
Six people had already been charged in 2018, Sue Hemming from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) naming the most high profile of the accused.
“There is sufficient evidence to charge former Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield with the manslaughter by gross negligence of 95 men, women and children. Mr Duckenfield was the Match Commander on the day of the disaster.”
The Chief Superintendent was ultimately found not guilty.
And in the end, the only person ever convicted was the former secretary of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, Graham Mackrell, who was fined 6500 pounds for a health and safety breach.
Now, 37 years later, a law intended to prevent police and other officials from covering up errors and wrongdoing has been unanimously approved by British MPs, something Margaret Aspinall says is a groundbreaking moment.
“And I think today what people have got to realise, how monumental this Hillsborough law will be. It's huge really, because I'm hoping now it helps more than anything. People who need funding, especially in state related deaths, that they will get a legal aid.”
The Hillsborough bill completed its passage through the House of Commons after a delay caused by wrangling over whether it would apply to Britain’s spies.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who promised to bring in the law during his 2024 election campaign, opened the debate on the bill in one of his final acts as leader.
“Hillsborough families fought so that no family like them should ever have to endure and suffer what they went through. What they have done will protect individuals and families that they'll never know, they'll never meet, but we'll never have to go through what they went through.”
The legislation imposes a legal duty of candour on public officials to tell the truth about public tragedies whatever the impact on their reputation.
After pressure from bereaved families, the government has agreed that the intelligence services will also be covered by the duty of candour, but with a "secure process" for disclosing information if it could affect national security.
“And so this is not just a bill for the 97, although it is that, it is a bill for every single working person in this country. Because let's face it, there is a class element to this. Time and again the cry for justice was ignored by the British state because of who the victims are, because they're working class, because they're Black, because they're women and girls.”
Andy Burnham, who is due to take over as prime minister on Monday [[20 July]], has long campaigned on behalf of the bereaved families.
He's now told Parliament the passage of the bill was the right thing to do.
“It does feel tonight like life is coming at full circle, and as we pass this momentous piece of legislation – a piece of legislation that will change the way this country thinks and works about justice. It truly is a rewiring of the state and a passing of power from the authorities to the hands of ordinary people (MPs say 'hear hear').”
Mr Burnham has also offered a gracious nod to the outgoing PM.
“It is happening because of the prime minister’s commitment to a country based on justice and fairness, and we thank him for that. He has honoured his commitment to the Hillsborough families, and what this house will do in passing this bill tonight is rebalancing the scales of justice, so that we have justice for ordinary people going forward, and that madam deputy speaker, is some legacy indeed.”
The Hillsborough bill will become law after being approved by the House of Lords, Parliament's upper chamber, in the coming weeks.
But for Margaret Aspinall, the House of Commons approval is what she has been waiting for - along with others still fighting their own battles.
“It's not about Hillsborough families. It's not about any of us. It's the likes of Steve and people like that, and people who are still fighting to get truth, to get justice. There's so many. We've got so many within the Hillsborough Law Group in the campaign who's fought for so long and still fighting to try and get the truth of what happened to their loved ones.”
