The Hillsborough Law is a transformative moment for our country
4 min read
This is landmark legislation not just for victims, but for our politics.
The victims of the Grenfell Tower fire are still waiting for justice more than eight years after the tragedy, just the latest example in recent British history of injustices involving the very state that is supposed to protect people. Survivors and families have endured unimaginable grief and a long, often difficult journey to understand what happened and why. Their courage in seeking answers has been extraordinary.
Unfortunately, the struggle for truth is not unique to Grenfell. Decades earlier, at Hillsborough in 1989, ninety-six people went to a football match and never returned. Their families spent more than thirty years confronting denial and cover-ups. From contaminated blood to the Post Office scandal, the pattern is clear: victims repeatedly forced to fight institutions rather than being supported by them. The Hillsborough Law enshrines a promise that families should never again have to wait decades for the truth and face the might of the state unsupported.
And now, that promise is due to become law. I am proud that it is a Labour government that has brought this landmark legislation to parliament.
I have been advocating for this Bill since I entered Parliament. In my first months as an MP, I spoke in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry debate to back a statutory duty of candour, the principle at the heart of the Hillsborough Law. I pressed ministers in the Commons to guarantee that inquiry recommendations would not be lost in bureaucracy, as too often happens, but tracked and acted upon. In debates, at PMQs, and in public, I have returned to this theme again and again: that truth without accountability is not justice, and that victims deserve both.
So what does this law mean in practice? At its heart is the duty of candour. That may sound technical, but for victims it is transformative. Public bodies and officials will be legally obliged to act with honesty, openness, and proactive cooperation from the very start of any inquiry or investigation. Families will not have to wait years for vital documents. They will not be drip-fed evidence or forced to reconstruct events from leaks and half-truths. Candour becomes the baseline, not a favour, and honesty is a legal duty, not an option.
The law also levels the playing field. Too often, bereaved families have found themselves up against taxpayer-funded lawyers defending public bodies, while they navigated inquiries alone. The Hillsborough Law guarantees legal aid for families, ensuring they can participate fully and fairly. And for officials who deliberately mislead or conceal information, criminal sanctions will apply. That is a profound shift. It means families can finally enter proceedings with confidence that the system is not stacked against them.
This is not just a landmark for victims, it is a landmark for our politics. A state that hides its failures corrodes trust. A government that admits mistakes and acts openly begins to restore itself. By embedding candour into law, we are hard-wiring a culture of accountability into our system of government. Transparency is no longer optional. It is an obligation.
The Hillsborough Law is the product of decades of determination: the Hillsborough families, Grenfell survivors, and countless campaigners who refused to be silenced. Their persistence will not only change the law, but it has changed the expectations we all rightly have of those in power - and for all those whose lives have been upended by disaster, this law is a guarantee that the truth will not be delayed or denied.
And for politics more broadly, it is a lesson: candour, accountability, and integrity are not luxuries. They are the foundation of public trust.
For too long, victims had to fight for what should have always been theirs. Today, under Labour, truth is no longer a privilege. It is a right and a responsibility.
Joe Powell is Labour MP for Kensington and Bayswater.
