Public servants who deliberately cover up state-related disasters will face up to two years in jail under a new Hillsborough law, David Lammy has promised, following concerns from campaigners that it could be watered down.
Writing in the Guardian, the deputy prime minister and lord chancellor said legislation would ensure that state actors from “the bobby on the beat to the highest office in the land” will face “serious punishments for serious wrongdoing”.
The long-awaited public office (accountability) bill will be introduced to parliament on Tuesday after months of behind-the-scenes wrangling between lawyers for the Hillsborough families and officials.
It means that ministers, senior civil servants and chief constables who mislead the public could be dragged before the courts and imprisoned, Whitehall sources said.
Keir Starmer had previously pledged to introduce the legislation by the 36th anniversary of the tragedy, which was on 15 April, but Downing Street then said more time was needed to redraft it.
Some campaigners had raised fears the bill’s contents had been diluted and would not include a legal duty of candour.
Lammy wrote: “This law … includes a new professional and legal duty of candour. When something has gone badly wrong, public servants – from the bobby on the beat to the highest office in the land – will be under a duty to act with honesty and integrity at all times. Anyone who fails to do so faces criminal prosecution.
“And it will be supported with a new offence for flagrantly misleading the public, with those found in breach of the law facing up to two years behind bars, along with replacing the current offence of misconduct in public office with two new offences. These are serious punishments for serious wrongdoing.”
Under the bill, legal aid will automatically be available to bereaved families at inquests whenever the state is represented by an “army of taxpayer-funded lawyers”, Lammy said.
“Those grieving will never again have to pass the hat around to have their voices heard,” he said.
Pointing to his own experience of losing a friend in the Grenfell Tower disaster, Lammy said the bill was a tribute to the work of campaigners involved not just in Hillsborough, but also Windrush, the Manchester arena bombing and the Post Office scandal.
“I lost a dear friend, Khadija Saye, in Grenfell,” he said. “I know what it is to sit with families whose lives have been torn apart, and to feel the weight of a system that too often meets grief with defensiveness and delay.”
The Hillsborough disaster in 1989 during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the football ground in Sheffield led to the deaths of 97 football fans.
Sue Roberts, whose brother Graham was unlawfully killed at Hillsborough, described the bill’s introduction as a “huge step in the right direction” but said the families would be “watching closely to ensure this bill is passed in its entirety and enacted in full.
“The government must resist any pressure from those who don’t believe the public deserves to know the truth about when the state fails,” she said.
Some families and campaigners are expected to attend Downing Street on Tuesday to mark the bill’s introduction.
Lawyers for the Hillsborough families remain concerned that the “duty of candour” offence has been drafted too narrowly, and could let off some public officials who should face the law.
The bill only applies to some inquiries. Lawyers for the families have been reassured that the government plans to amend it to cover combined authorities and local authorities.
The “duty to assist” definition could also be widened, lawyers said. Officials have promised that other bodies will be covered by the law including the Care Quality Commission, the Health and Safety Executive and official “ombudsman” investigations.
Pete Weatherby KC, an architect of the original bill who represents many of the Hillsborough families, told the Guardian that survivors and bereaved families will be closely involved as the bill proceeds through parliament.
“This bill is a major step forward,” he said. “It is sufficiently strong to affect culture change so public bodies tell the truth as matter of course rather than be dragged kicking and screaming.
“The government has agreed that we will be involved in the process to pass the bill and will be involved in what happens next.”
The expansion of legal aid for bereaved families, with non-means tested help and support for inquests, has been welcomed. Julia Waters, the sister of headteacher Ruth Perry who took her own life after an Ofsted report downgraded her school, said her family had been “forced to crowdfund to cover our legal costs at an already emotional and stressful time”.
“Hillsborough law will help ensure families like mine are no longer left to fight for truth and accountability on our own – in the hope that those in power can finally be held responsible when things go catastrophically wrong,” she said.
Natasha Elcock, from Grenfell United, said: “It has been so easy for public and private agencies to escape accountability and scrutiny. By establishing a duty of candour, Hillsborough Law will prevent this, help us learn from failures and ensure bereaved and survivors are properly supported.”
Lobby Akinnola, who lost his father, Femi, early on in the Covid pandemic, said he and others had seen “first-hand how easily the truth is delayed, diluted or denied”, adding that this new bill is “a huge step towards” justice.