Withdraw Hillsborough law amendment, urge Liverpool and Manchester mayors | Hillsborough disaster
The mayors of Liverpool and Manchester said the change to the Hillsborough law should be withdrawn, saying it was not enough to prevent future cover-ups.
Liverpool city region mayor Steve Rotheram and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said the change “creates a very broad opt-out” by allowing intelligence officials to decide what information to disclose to investigators after a major incident.
Warnings have already been issued from Hillsborough campaigners that the draft legislation, formally known as the public office (accountability) bill and due to be debated on Monday, could allow security officials to “hide serious failings behind a vague national security claim”.
The mayors said the change “risks undermining the spirit of the law” and called on the government to withdraw it. Rotheram and Burnham said they had seen “devastating events” in their areas and would never support anything that would endanger national security.
In a joint statement published on
“We believe that, on its face, the government’s amendment to security services creates too broad a scope for exclusion and risks undermining the spirit of the legislation.
“We appreciate that the government has made great progress to implement the Hillsborough Bill and are grateful for their willingness to work with campaigners to date to make this the strongest legislation possible.
“In that spirit, we call on the amendments to be withdrawn ahead of Monday’s debate and to work with the families and the Hillsborough Law Now campaign to find a solution acceptable to all parties.”
Calls for a Hillsborough law began in 2016, following a second inquest into the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans (later rising to 97) at Hillsborough football ground in South Yorkshire during the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
The club’s fans were trampled and trampled by South Yorkshire police’s neglect of crowd control; This remains the worst sporting disaster in British history.
The deaths and 766 injuries were compounded by Liverpool fans being improperly blamed for the disaster after false reports of hooliganism were given to the press by the force.
Elkan Abrahamson, a lawyer for the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, said the changes allowed the heads of security agencies to “make whatever decision they want” about whether to disclose information and left them “non-negotiable”.
It should be up to the head of the investigation to decide whether the information is relevant, he said, adding that national security exemptions already exist that allow private hearings of evidence.
Liverpool West Derby MP Ian Byrne has also tabled several amendments of his own that would mean that the duty of candour applies not only to intelligence agencies but also to people working for them.
He said Thursday night that he could not support the bill in its current form. “I am absolutely gutted writing this,” Byrne said, “but we need to be clear about what is happening.
“I have made an undertaking that I will deliver the Hillsborough law without exemptions, without loopholes and without carve-outs… if the government’s amendments are passed, then this law, in its current form, is not what it is.”
