How will the Hillsborough Law help victims and survivors secure truth, justice and accountability following state-related deaths?

The government introduced the Public Office (Accountability) Bill – also known as the Hillsborough Law – to Parliament on 16 September 2025. The Bill follows many years of campaigning by the families of the 97 people who were unlawfully killed in the Hillsborough stadium disaster of April 1989.

Why is the Hillsborough Law being introduced?

In its 2024 general election manifesto, the Labour Party promised to introduce a Hillsborough Law to place a legal duty of candour on public authorities and provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths.

In the Explanatory Notes to the Bill, the government describes the Hillsborough disaster as “a great stain on British history” and says that the aim of the Bill is to “ensure that what happened following the disaster can never take place again.”

Part 1 of the Bill states the purpose of the proposed legislation: to ensure that public authorities and officials at all times perform their functions “with candour, transparency and frankness, and in the public interest”.

The introduction of the Bill also follows the creation of the Independent Public Advocate, a role that is intended to  ensures victims are heard, informed, and supported throughout the aftermath of a disaster, as my colleague Courtney Smith recently explained.

What will the Hillsborough Law change?

The Bill includes three significant reforms:

• A legal duty of candour on public authorities and officials
• Replacing the criminal offence of misconduct in public office with two new offences
• Expanding non-means tested legal aid for bereaved families in inquests involving a public authority

This article will focus on the duty of candour and the expansion of legal aid.

Duty of candour

The proposed duty of candour and assistance, set out in Part 2 of the Bill, provides that public authorities and officials must “act with candour, transparency and frankness in their dealings with inquiries and investigations”. This will apply when providing evidence to inquests and public inquiries, and ministers will have the power to extend the duty to other types of investigation.

The duty is underpinned by a new criminal offence of misleading the public, which will apply where a public authority or official acts with the intention of misleading the public or is reckless about doing so, and they know their act is seriously improper. The offence will be punishable with imprisonment for up to two years.

This is intended to address the defensive and evasive culture of cover-up, dishonesty and denial which many bereaved families have experienced following state-related deaths, including South Yorkshire Police having lied about the cause of the Hillsborough disaster. 

Expanding non-means tested legal aid

At present, bereaved families are only eligible for legal aid for representation at inquests in very limited circumstances under the Exceptional Case Funding scheme, primarily involving deaths in police custody, prison or of patients detained under the Mental Health Act. The Bill proposes ‘parity of arms’ to address the imbalance of power when public authorities have legal representation but families are unrepresented.

Part 4 of the Bill will ensure legal aid funding is available, without a means test, for bereaved families to receive legal advice and representation in all inquests where a public authority is involved as an Interested Person. This will include inquests involving government departments, local authorities, the armed forces, schools and, perhaps most significantly in terms of the number of affected inquests, NHS bodies.

The government describes this as the “largest expansion in legal aid for a decade”. However, given that legal aid rates have not been increased since the mid-1990s, despite significant inflation since that time, it is unclear whether there will be capacity amongst inquest lawyers to represent those families who will now be eligible for legal aid.

The Bill will also create a new duty on public authorities to only engage lawyers at inquests and inquiries in a “necessary and proportionate” way. Guidance by the Lord Chancellor will set out clear principles to guide the conduct and behaviour of public authorities and their legal representatives. If implemented effectively, this could significantly change the culture and tone of inquests, where for bereaved families the approach taken by public authorities can exacerbate their trauma and grief.

Comment

If the Bill is passed as drafted, it has the potential to vastly improve how we as a society learn from state-related deaths and aim to avoid repeating them. It will be vital to see how the duty of candour works in practice, and whether it lives up to its laudable aim of ensuring transparency as bereaved families seek to uncover the truth after tragedy.

The expansion of non-means tested legal aid for inquests involving public authorities should enable many thousands more families to participate effectively in the legal processes after the death of a loved one. The government must also ensure that there are enough specialist lawyers to act for those bereaved families.

The charity INQUEST campaigns for a National Oversight Mechanism to ensure that recommendations made following inquests and inquiries to prevent future deaths are effectively implemented and monitored. If we are to truly transform how we learn from preventable deaths and seek to reduce them in future, the government should legislate for an independent body to make sure that lessons really are learnt.

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