The mayors of Liverpool and Manchester have said an amendment to the Hillsborough law should be withdrawn, saying it does not do enough to prevent future cover-ups.
The Liverpool city region mayor, Steve Rotheram, and the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, said the amendment “creates too broad an opt-out” by allowing intelligence officials to decide what information is released to investigators after a major incident.
Warnings had already been issued from Hillsborough campaigners that a draft version of the legislation – formally known as the public office (accountability) bill due to be debated on Monday, might allow security officials to “hide serious failures behind a vague claim of national security”.
The mayors said the amendment “risks undermining the spirit of the legislation” and urged the government to withdraw it. Rotheram and Burnham said they had both seen “devastating incidents” in their regions and would never support anything that compromised national security.
In a joint statement posted on X, the mayors said: “An important part of strengthening the country’s defences is establishing the truth at the earliest opportunity when things go wrong and that is why, if drafted correctly, the Hillsborough Law could create a culture in all public services where that is the norm.
“As it stands, we believe the government’s amendment in relation to the security services creates too broad an opt-out and risks undermining the spirit of the legislation.
“We appreciate that the government has made huge strides in working to deliver the Hillsborough Law and are grateful for their willingness to work with campaigners thus far to make it the strongest law possible.
“It is in that spirit that we call on them to withdraw their amendment ahead of Monday’s debate and work with the families and the Hillsborough Law Now campaign to find a solution acceptable to all sides.”
Calls for a Hillsborough law began in 2016 after a second inquest into the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans – later becoming 97 – at the Hillsborough football ground in South Yorkshire during a 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
The club’s supporters were crushed and trampled due to negligent crowd control by South Yorkshire police, in what remains the worst sporting disaster in British history.
The deaths, and 766 injuries, were compounded when the Liverpool fans were improperly blamed for the disaster after false reports of hooliganism were fed to the press by the force.
Elkan Abrahamson, a lawyer for the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, said the amendments allowed the heads of the security services to make “whatever decision they want” on whether to disclose information and left them “unchallengeable”.
He said it should be up to the head of an inquiry to decide whether information was relevant, adding there were already national security exemptions that allowed evidence to be heard in private.
Liverpool West Derby MP, Ian Byrne, has also tabled several amendments of his own that would mean duty of candour applies not only to intelligence organisations but also to people who work for them.
On Thursday night, he said he could not back the bill in its current form. “I am absolutely gutted writing this,” Byrne said, “but we need to be clear about what is happening.
“I made a commitment to deliver the Hillsborough law without exemptions, without loopholes, and without carve-outs … if the government’s amendments are passed then this legislation, in its current form, is not that.”
