Public Inquiry Reform

The Hillsborough Law

We have joined the Hillsborough Families in the fight for a Hillsborough Law.

A Hillsborough Law Would:

• Create a new legal duty of candour on public authorities and officials to tell the truth and proactively cooperate with official investigations and inquiries - bringing to an end the depressingly familiar pattern of cover ups and concealment.

• Ensure victims of disasters or state-related deaths are entitled to parity of legal representation during inquests and inquiries. This will mean that bereaved families can get public funding, just as public money is used to support Government and public authority lawyers.

Find out more here.

nATIONAL oversight Mechanism

Too often the lessons from public inquiries are ignored. From Covid to Grenfell and Hillsborough, governments have promised that lessons will be learned, yet vital recommendations have been left to gather dust. Families are forced to fight for years just to see the most basic changes made.

That is why we are campaigning for a National Oversight Mechanism. This would be an independent body to ensure recommendations from inquiries and inquests are tracked, published and acted upon. It would stop governments quietly forgetting promises made to bereaved families and the public.

We are working alongside Grenfell United, Hillsborough families, Infected Blood campaigners and others to demand this reform. Together we are saying that never again should lives be lost because lessons were ignored.

Reform of the Inquiry Act

We have campaigned from the beginning for inquiries that are fast, fair and truly independent. After losing our loved ones, we demanded a statutory Covid-19 inquiry with full powers under the Inquiries Act, and called for it to use interim reports so that urgent lessons could be learned while lives could still be saved.

Our journey to justice hasn’t been straight forward, though. We have had to fight at every turn to have our member’s voices heard in the Inquiry, and even then we have been excluded from some areas of investigation. 

This matters because we know that life saving lessons will be learned from our experiences. We are fighting to make sure that bereaved families don’t have to fight the inquiry’s they bring about to have a voice.

Our campaign is about ensuring inquiries deliver answers and accountability, instead of delay, denial and broken promises.

Act Now

The Government has still not introduced the promised Hillsborough Law, even though Keir Starmer pledged to bring it forward by the 36th anniversary of the disaster in April 2025.

That deadline passed with no bill published, and families are being asked to wait yet again. There is now a real risk the Government will water down the law and stall over funding, leaving bereaved families without the protections they were promised.

Add your name to the petition now and call on the Government to finally deliver a Hillsborough Law that is fit for purpose.