Pledge
“Labour will introduce a ‘Hillsborough Law’ which will place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, and provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths”
Our verdict
While campaigners have raised concerns about the government’s proposed Hillsborough Law potentially being “watered down”, ministers say they are committed to introducing the legislation in this parliament, and that it will include a legal duty of candour and criminal sanctions.
The proposed law takes its name after the Hillsborough football stadium disaster on 15 April 1989, in which 97 people were killed. Since then, campaigners have called for a law to prevent public authorities from avoiding accountability in the wake of tragedies.
A Hillsborough Law was first introduced to Parliament by then-Labour MP Andy Burnham in March 2017, as the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, but it did not progress before the general election later that year.
An independent review into the tragedy published in November 2017 also backed the aims of the Hillsborough Law, but the Conservative government did not commit to introducing this legislation in its formal response to the review in 2023.
As Labour’s proposed legislation has not been published, we do not yet know how closely it will match the contents of the previous bill. However, Labour has pledged its new legislation will place a legal “duty of candour” on public servants and authorities, meaning they would be required to act proactively and truthfully to assist official investigations, inquests and inquiries. Separate regulations already place a duty of candour on health and social care settings.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has indicated the new legislation would include criminal sanctions.
Alongside the Hillsborough Law, the government has also committed to providing legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths, which helps pay for the cost of legal advice and representation.
While no date was set in Labour’s manifesto, Mr Starmer said before the election the bill would be a “priority” for a Labour government. And in September 2024 at the Labour party conference he committed to introducing the law to Parliament before the 36th anniversary of the tragedy on 15 April 2025.
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The Prime Minister’s commitment to introduce legislation by the 36th anniversary was not met, as some campaigning for the law have highlighted.
The government has said the legislation will be introduced in the current parliament, which is due to end in 2029/30. Based on the wording of the manifesto, which did not commit to a specific timeframe, for now we’re rating the pledge as “in progress”.
There have in fact been repeated promises from ministers to introduce the bill in the current parliamentary session. When we contacted the Ministry of Justice in April 2025 to ask when the bill would be published, we were told ministers are working to deliver it “at pace”.
On 2 July 2025, Mr Starmer said he had “been talking to the families myself in recent weeks to make sure that we get this right”. In response to concerns the government’s legislation would not include a legal duty of candour, Mr Starmer told the Commons in July 2025 that it would do so.
Pressed on whether he would “back the law in full”, he vowed the bill would contain a duty of candour for public servants and criminal sanctions, but that ministers “want to take the time to get it right”.
However, campaigners and a cross-party group of MPs have raised concerns that the government’s proposed bill could be “watered down”. In June 2025, Labour MP Ian Byrne (backed by over 130 other MPs and 29 Peers) wrote to the Prime Minister. The letter said a “replacement draft bill” shown to a lawyer involved in the campaign, as well as to the Mayors of Greater Manchester (Mr Burnham) and the Liverpool City Region (Steve Rotherham), in March 2025 “did not contain a duty of candour, merely an aspirational objective”.
In July 2025, Mr Byrne reintroduced the original Hillsborough Law bill from 2017 to the Commons under a ten-minute rule motion, allowing him to argue for the proposed bill for 10 minutes. This motion succeeded on 2 July, meaning the bill is taken to have had its first reading, with a second reading scheduled on 11 July. We have asked Mr Byrne for more information on what the progress of this would be if the government introduces its own bill, and will update this article if we receive a response.
As we develop this Government Tracker we’re keen to hear your feedback. We’ll be keeping the Tracker up to date and adding more pledges in the coming months.
Progress displayed publicly—so every single person in this country can judge our performance on actions, not words.
Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister – 24 September 2024