Writing exclusively in the Liverpool ECHO, the Prime Minister explains why bringing a new Hillsborough Law to Parliament is a landmark moment for the families of the 97 – and all others who have faced injustice at the hands of the state
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has written exclusively for the Liverpool Echo as his government prepares to bring a Hillsborough Law to Parliament (Image: GETTY)
The Hillsborough Law is not just for Liverpool. That’s the thing that so inspires you when you meet the families and survivors. For all that they have suffered, their fight is for everyone.
Justice for the 97. But also justice for all. Today is a landmark moment in their fight. A new law that will end, once and for all, public institutions hiding injustice in their darkest corners.
There will be a new professional and legal Duty of Candour.
A new criminal offence for seriously misleading the public.
And we will finally give bereaved families a fair fight in our courts, with an expansion of legal aid and restrictions on the state’s ability to outspend them.
This goes back directly to the experience of the Hillsborough families themselves.
I’ll never forget Margaret Aspinall telling me how she had to use an insurance pay out from her son James’s death to pay for a barrister at the original inquest.
Yet time and again the Hillsborough families found themselves financially outgunned by the deep pockets of the state.
Taxpayer-money, used to hire armies of lawyers, for the explicit purpose of denying them justice.
Today we make sure that can never happen again.
That’s what the Hillsborough families and survivors told me they want. And I am so proud that they have consented to call this The Hillsborough Law.
Because while nothing can undo the pain they have suffered, their courage to change Britain deserves to be honoured.
A law not just for Hillsborough, but the victims of infected blood, grooming gangs, the Horizon scandal, the residents of Grenfell Tower and more.
Because for decades the British state ignored people’s voices because of who they were.
But the Britain this Government is building will be accountable to working people. Justice will belong to all.