MP to reintroduce original Hillsborough Law
ReutersA Liverpool MP is planning to make a fresh bid to drive through the original Hillsborough Law in Parliament on Wednesday.
Labour's Ian Byrne said campaigners are concerned the government's current plans for the legislation do not include key provisions such as forcing public officials to tell the truth at major inquiries and preventing cover-ups.
He said the Hillsborough families and survivors and "other victims of state cover-ups" would not support the government's "wholly deficient and ineffective" replacement bill.
The government said the Hillsborough disaster was "one of the greatest stains on British history" and it remained fully committed to bringing in the legislation.
A letter sent to Sir Keir Starmer by West Derby MP Byrne and signed by 138 cross-party MPs and 29 members of the House of Lords has called on the government to deliver the original Hillsborough Law, as the Prime Minister promised at Labour party conferences in Liverpool.
Byrne said the Hillsborough Law was "a hugely important piece of legislation".
He has secured a 10-minute rule which will give him a chance to make his case for the bill in a speech in the House of Commons.
The original Hillsborough Law, first presented to the house by Andy Burnham in 2017, included clauses that would force public officials to tell the truth at major inquiries and prevent cover-ups.
It would also force public bodies to provide legal funding for those affected by state-related disasters.
Byrne told BBC Radio Merseyside that the Hillsborough Law is "something which the country desperately needs", adding that it "would save so many families from so much pain".
Speaking about his plans to reintroduce the law on Wednesday, Byrne said: "I'll be laying down the Hillsborough Law in its entirety, unchanged from 2017, which will meet everything that we want it to meet."
He said the 10-minute rule would give the Bill its first reading and if it was not opposed then it would go to a second reading.
Byrne said the Hillsborough Law had reached a "little bit of an impasse" which was really disappointing so he thought he would give the government an opportunity to support this, as the Prime Minister promised twice in Liverpool in 2022 and 2024.
"Any watering down of it makes it ineffective and it won't change the culture," he said.
Solicitor Elkan Abrahamson, who has represented many of the Hillsborough families and who is also a director of the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, said: "I hope it will bring home to the Prime Minister's office and number 10 the strength of feeling politically.
"They already know about the strength of feeling among the Hillsborough families and the many other pressure groups that have now joined Hillsborough Law Now.
"I think that just about every pressure group from a recent tragedy is now a member."
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