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Saturday 15 April 1989: one of the darkest days in British history. Thousands of Liverpool fans set out for Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, full of excitement for the FA Cup semi-final. Ninety-five of them never came home. Two more died of their injuries years later. The terrible images from the ground still haunt us today.
What happened on the day of the disaster was appalling enough. But what came afterwards was a national disgrace. The authorities closed ranks to cover up their own failings – concerned more with protecting their own reputations than the public they were supposed to serve. And families, who had already lost everything, were forced to watch on as their loved ones were smeared and blamed for their own deaths.
At the first inquest, senior police officers were flanked by an army of taxpayer-funded lawyers, while the families scraped together what they could for a single barrister – all the might of the state against ordinary people, raw with grief. And it was only after decades of struggle that further inquests finally confirmed what the families had always known: that the 97 were unlawfully killed and bore no responsibility for the disaster. We can never allow this to happen again.
On Monday, in Liverpool, it was an honour and a privilege to meet the Hillsborough families. I was deeply moved by their dignity, resolve and, above all, selflessness in ensuring that no others suffer as they have.
For 36 years they have fought for justice, and so often in the face of hostility and indifference. And it is because of their strength that this government will now deliver something that should have been done long ago: a Hillsborough law.
This law will bring about the cultural change that so many have campaigned for. It includes a new professional and legal duty of candour. When something has gone badly wrong, public servants – from the bobby on the beat to the highest office in the land – will be under a duty to act with honesty and integrity at all times. Anyone who fails to do so will face criminal prosecution.
And it will be supported with a new offence for flagrantly misleading the public, with those found in breach of the law facing up to two years behind bars, along with replacing the current offence of misconduct in public office with two new offences. These are serious punishments for serious wrongdoing, and are no less than victims and their families should expect.
And, learning the lessons of Hillsborough, and other tragedies since, we will transform the experience of families at inquests. For the first time, legal aid will automatically be available to bereaved families at inquests whenever the state is represented – so those grieving will never again have to pass the hat around to have their voices heard.
While this government is bringing forward the Hillsborough law, the credit is not ours. It belongs to the families of the 97, whose courage and determination, in the face of so much adversity, has never faltered. And it belongs to the families and communities scarred by other disasters and scandals, who have fought with the same persistence for accountability: Grenfell, the Manchester Arena bombing, Windrush, the Horizon scandal, and for everyone betrayed by the institutions meant to protect them.
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I lost a dear friend, Khadija Saye, in Grenfell. I know what it is to sit with families whose lives have been torn apart, and to feel the weight of a system that too often meets grief with defensiveness and delay.
The Hillsborough families came together in 1989 so that no other family would walk this path alone. This law is their legacy. We cannot rewrite history. But with the Hillsborough law, we can make sure it never repeats itself.
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David Lammy is deputy prime minister and secretary of state for justice
