Ivan: 0:03

Hello and welcome again to the Bench Report, where we discuss recent debates and briefings from the benches of the UK Parliament. You're listening to Amy and Ivan. Today, an important, extended episode from a recent House of Lords debate on the Hillsborough Law.

Amy: 0:18

This legislation, which is officially the Public Office Accountability Bill, it's really getting at something foundational. It's about the complete breakdown of trust between a person and the state when a public disaster happens.

Ivan: 0:31

The mission is about accountability.

Amy: 0:32

It is. It's accountability, getting to justice quicker, and I think most critically, getting to the truth. So victims don't have to endure decades of this institutional struggle just to find out what happened.

Ivan: 0:45

And that institutional failure is exactly it. It's the deep root of the problem this law is trying to solve.

Amy: 0:51

It is.

Ivan: 0:51

When the Prime Minister spoke about Hillsboro, he said the failure of the British state reached an quote almost inhuman level. I mean, it's hard to think of a stronger condemnation of how public authorities have acted.

Amy: 1:03

It is a devastating assessment. And to understand the law, we have to start with that failure, which began on April 15th, 1989. This wasn't just a catastrophic mistake on the day, the betrayal that came after, the closing of ranks, the institutional deceit. That's what this is all about.

Ivan: 1:20

What's so shocking and what the debate really brought out is that there were explicit warnings long before it happened.

Amy: 1:27

Lord Alton shared testimony that 36 years ago he sent letters questioning if the stadium was even suitable for that semifinal.

Ivan: 1:36

36 years.

Amy: 1:37

And he included concerns from the Liverpool FC Chief Executive. So these weren't just quiet worries, they were formal warnings that were just ignored.

Ivan: 1:44

And then when the tragedy struck, the cover-up machine just mobilized instantly.

Amy: 1:48

Immediately. The first instinct of South Yorkshire police was to blame the spectators. And even though Lord Justice Taylor's report correctly identified the police's role, that didn't stop the institutional pushback.

Ivan: 2:01

And the deceit was systemic. The details are just shocking.

Amy: 2:04

Lord Alton talked about a complaint he lodged about police conduct. It went to the chairman of the police complaints authority, a Sir Cecil Clavier. Well, it was later revealed that Sir Cecil had signed a letter saying he'd done his best to, I'm quoting him here, deflect the complaint. And at the end of the letter, he signed off with one word.

Ivan: 2:24

Which was spike. Spike. Like a journalist bearing a story, the truth was actively deliberately neutralized.

Amy: 2:31

Exactly. And the scale of it was just massive. The 2012 Hillsborough Independent Panel found that 164 police statements had been significantly altered.

Ivan: 2:41

Significantly. So not just corrected for grammar.

Amy: 2:44

No. And 116 of those were specifically changed to remove anything that was unfavorable to the police.

Ivan: 2:49

And it took 27 years until 2016 and the use of the Human Rights Act to finally get to unlawful killing verdicts.

Amy: 2:56

And for the people responsible, the ones who oversaw decades of misery and lies.

Ivan: 3:04

And that is exactly why this bill is so necessary.

Amy: 3:06

Which brings us to the core mechanism designed to break that cycle the duty of candor.

Ivan: 3:11

Let's unpack that. What does putting a legal duty of candor on public authorities, what does that actually demand from them?

Amy: 3:20

It creates a statutory requirement. It means public authorities and their officers have to be fully truthful and transparent when things go wrong. It's a direct answer to what one report called the patronizing disposition of unaccountable power.

Ivan: 3:34

The idea being to make that familiar pattern of cover-ups and concealment legally actionable.

Amy: 3:40

That's the goal.

Ivan: 3:41

But the intent is one thing. When you get to the legal mandate, the penalties are what really count. And a huge paradox came up in the debate around this.

Amy: 3:50

This is a profound structural challenge for the legislation. The maximum penalty for an official who breaches this duty of candor is two years in prison.

Ivan: 3:59

Two years. But what's the penalty for the actual offense they might be covering up?

Amy: 4:02

Well, something like gross negligence manslaughter. The charge against Chief Superintendent Duckenfield carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Ivan: 4:10

That seems completely counterproductive. If the penalty for the crime is life, but the penalty for the cover-up is only two years, doesn't that just create a huge perverse incentive to lie?

Amy: 4:22

It absolutely does. It becomes a legal risk assessment. You're encouraging an official to risk a two-year sentence to potentially avoid a life sentence. In that moment of crisis, an official might rationally decide that concealment is the safer bet.

Ivan: 4:36

So if that duty of candor fails or takes years to even enforce it, families are still left in this awful legal battle. Which brings us to the second key part of the bill, tackling the imbalance families face in court.

Amy: 4:53

The parity of arms.

Ivan: 4:54

The Prime Minister called it armies of state-funded lawyers against bereaved individuals.

Amy: 4:59

And to fix that, the bill commits to extending legal aid for bereaved families whenever the state is an interested party in an inquest.

Ivan: 5:06

But the real teeth here, the thing that acts as a deterrent, is how that legal aid is funded, isn't it?

Amy: 5:11

Absolutely. The bill proposes a clawback mechanism. This means the public authorities that failed, the police force, the local council, they're the ones forced to pay for the legal aid that holds them to account.

Ivan: 5:24

State failure has a direct price tag.

Amy: 5:27

It sends a very powerful message.

Ivan: 5:29

But the practicalities of this, they seem immense. If you have a disaster with scores of victims, how do you even define the family for legal aid purposes?

Amy: 5:40

That was a huge concern in the debate. The definition of relevant members of a family is complex. Take an example. If the parents are divorced, do they each get their own separate legal representation?

Ivan: 5:52

And if you broaden the scope too much, you could end up with, what, a hundred lawyers in one inquest?

Amy: 5:57

Right.

Ivan: 5:57

You risk prolonging the trauma for the families you're trying to help.

Amy: 6:00

That's the tension. The government's view is that providing aid for one member per family is a, quote, reasonable and proportionate use of public funds.

Ivan: 6:09

But that still feels like a massive imbalance. The state can bring a dozen coordinated lawyers, but a complex family has to funnel everything through one person.

Amy: 6:18

That's the balancing act. They did confirm that families can still apply to the exceptional case funding scheme for more complex situations, but it is a difficult problem to solve. Balancing robust representation against timely closure.

Ivan: 6:33

We've talked about what happens after a cover-up starts. But what about the person inside an institution who could stop it before it even begins? That brings us two whistleblowers.

Amy: 6:45

I mean, if just one protected whistleblower inside South Yorkshire police had felt safe enough to come forward, the Hillsborough families could have been spared decades of suffering.

Ivan: 6:54

And there's a strong feeling that current protections are just not good enough.

Amy: 6:57

They're seen as woefully inadequate, and this bill feels like a critical, maybe a unique moment to finally address that.

Ivan: 7:05

But the government seems to be hesitating on this point.

Amy: 7:07

They are. They're arguing that major whistleblowing reform needs a broader assessment outside of this specific bill. They're worried about unintended consequences for employment law.

Ivan: 7:16

But how can you introduce a mandatory code of conduct for truthfulness if the people on the ground have no safe way to report breaches without risking their entire careers?

Amy: 7:27

You can't. That's the counterargument. You can't mandate truth from the top while leaving the truth tellers of the bottom completely exposed. It's the ultimate paradox. Aaron Powell, Jr.

Ivan: 7:35

So if those internal checks aren't there, you have to rely on an external one, which is the independent public advocate, the IPA.

Amy: 7:42

Correct. The IPA, a role currently held by Cindy Butts, was created to stand with victims against that intimidating wall of bureaucracy.

Ivan: 7:52

But the consensus is that the IPA needs to be much stronger. It needs more teeth.

Amy: 7:56

It does. The main demand is for compulsory powers. Many feel the role was watered down from what was first imagined, especially its ability to compel evidence.

Ivan: 8:05

And there's a powerful comparison here, isn't there?

Amy: 8:07

A very powerful one. Lord Wills, who designed the Hillsborough Independent Panel, pointed out that his panel got to the truth in two years for less than five million pounds.

Ivan: 8:17

And you compare that to the Grenfell inquiry. 170 million pounds, seven years, and it's still not over.

Amy: 8:23

Exactly. Cost and time are just other words for prolonged trauma. A stronger IPA, one that can compel evidence, could get answers quickly, maybe even avoiding the need for these huge statutory inquiries altogether.

Ivan: 8:36

Now this bill is obviously rooted in Hillsboro, but its scope is much, much broader.

Amy: 8:42

It's vital to see this as a systemic fix. The duty of candor will apply to future inquiries. Grenfell, Windrush, the infected blood scandal, the post office horizon inquiry, and crucially, it also extends to private companies delivering public functions.

Ivan: 8:57

And that creates its own problem. With so many inquiries, we now have this huge backlog of recommendations that just aren't being implemented.

Amy: 9:05

We've become very good at investigating, but not so good at implementing. The hard-won lessons just gather dust, and the whole process loses credibility.

Ivan: 9:13

So what's the proposed fix for that?

Amy: 9:15

The creation of a national oversight mechanism, a body whose entire job is to monitor and ensure that the recommendations from inquests and inquiries are actually put into practice.

Ivan: 9:24

And this scope for accountability even reaches into the most sensitive areas, like the intelligence agencies.

Amy: 9:30

Yes, they're included, which is an extremely difficult balance to strike. The government says it's found a workable model to ensure accountability without compromising national security. It suggests a lot of nuance is going to be needed there.

Ivan: 9:45

So as the minister wrapped up the debate, what was the final message from the government?

Amy: 9:49

The minister framed it as a bill that defines what kind of society we are and want to be, one that prioritizes the rights of the individual citizen over these entrenched vested interests. They said they're in listening mode on improvements, but they're standing firm on the core principles.

Ivan: 10:05

Ultimately, the credit for this legislation belongs not to Westminster, but to the campaigners who have pursued truth and justice for decades. The question for you, the listener, is whether a legal duty of candor, however strong, can truly dismantle a deeply entrenched culture of institutional defensiveness without further strengthening protections for those inside the system, like whistleblowers who might otherwise pay the ultimate professional price for telling the truth. As always, find us on social media at Bench Report UK. Get in touch with any topic important to you. Remember, politics is everyone's business. Take care.