April 11, 2025
Is the Government on the verge of a betrayal over its long-promised Hillsborough Law? asks Matt Fowler.
As Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, we are adding our voices to a simple but urgent demand: the Hillsborough Law must be passed in full. No compromises. No half-measures. No more promises broken.
We know what it’s like to be lied to, to be left in the dark, and to be forced to fight for the truth while grieving for our loved ones. During the pandemic, we watched decisions being taken behind closed doors while we were told everything was under control. We watched responsibility passed from one department to another. We heard reassurances that turned out to be false. We were lied to over and over again. And when we asked questions, we met silence, deflection or spin.
The culture we encountered wasn’t new. It’s the same culture that’s shaped the long struggles faced by the Hillsborough families, the survivors of Grenfell, the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal, and those who lost loved ones to the infected blood scandal, to name just a few cases. In every one of those cases, there was a moment when the state or an institution could have chosen to be honest. And in every one of those cases, it decided not to be.
That’s why we’re part of the fight for a real, undiluted Hillsborough Law. The law, originally introduced to Parliament in 2017, would establish a legal duty of candour on public authorities and officials, forcing them to tell the truth and to assist investigations and inquiries. It would guarantee equal legal representation for bereaved families, who are so often left trying to crowdfund legal costs while state bodies have teams of publicly funded lawyers. It would introduce sanctions for those who lie or obstruct the process.
Every part of this matters. We’ve seen how delay, deflection and denial damage families, destroy trust and prevent change. We’ve watched ministers make statements about rebuilding public confidence while refusing to tell the public the truth. We’ve heard countless apologies and promises that ‘lessons will be learned’, without concrete action actually being taken. The Hillsborough Law would change that.
The Government promised to introduce the legislation before the next Hillsborough anniversary. Not only will that promise be broken, but we are being kept in the dark about what the Government intends to do with the legislation, full stop. There has been no clarity, no transparency, and no meaningful engagement with the families who have most at stake.
We are deeply concerned that when the Bill comes, it will be a watered-down version that drops the legal duty of candour, quietly removes the commitment to equal funding, or makes oversight optional. That would not be the Hillsborough Law. That would be a betrayal, dressed up as progress.
We will not accept a law that keeps things as they are. We will not accept a gesture in place of justice. If this law is passed without the core commitments that make it meaningful, it will not protect future families. It will not change the system that failed us. It will just allow the same failures to happen again.
The fact is that the system isn’t broken; it’s working exactly as designed, to protect institutions and wear families down. The Hillsborough Law is not a symbolic fix. It’s a practical one. That’s the law we need. One that forces honesty. One that gives the victims of state injustice a fair chance. One that ensures change actually happens. Anything less is a failure and yet another betrayal of the Hillsborough families at the hands of Government.
Many Members of Parliament now on the Government benches stood shoulders to shoulder with the Hillsborough Families in Opposition and promised that passing this Bill would be one of the first things they would do in Government. Those Members of Parliament must now ask themselves whether they can look their constituents in the eye if they vote for a gutted version of this law.
If they do, then it will not just be a betrayal of the Hillsborough families. It will be a betrayal of all the victims, survivors and families of those injustices with which we are so familiar. A decision to abandon those victims of state injustice would be an unforgivable betrayal.
Matt Fowler, who lost his father to Covid in 2020, is Co-Founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK.
Image: Hillsborough Memorial, Crosby Library https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillsborough_Memorial,_Crosby_Library.jpg. Source: Walk to Thornton, Merseyside (45. Author: Rept0n1x., licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
