The Hillsborough Law Is Stuck in Limbo, and Campaigners Know Exactly Who to Blame

A Promise Made, a Promise Broken

When Keir Starmer pledged to pass the Hillsborough Law by 15 April 2025, the 36th anniversary of the disaster that killed 97 people, it felt like a genuine turning point. After decades of institutional cover-ups, obfuscation, and bare-faced dishonesty from public bodies, bereaved families and survivors were finally being told: we hear you, and we will act.

That deadline came and went. Now, the legislation will not pass before the current parliamentary session ends in May 2026, with autumn at the earliest looking like the new target. Campaigners are furious, and they are pointing the finger squarely at Shabana Mahmood.

From Lord Chancellor to Home Secretary, and a Trail of Delays

Mahmood oversaw the early development of the Hillsborough Law during her tenure as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, a role she held from July 2024 to September 2025. When the April 2025 deadline was missed, she defended the delay by insisting the government did not want to hold itself to an "arbitrary timeline."

Calling a promise made to grieving families "arbitrary" is quite the choice of words. The Bill was eventually introduced to Parliament on 16 September 2025, cleared its Second Reading on 3 November, and an amended version emerged from the Public Bill Committee on 4 December. Progress, of a sort.

Then January 2026 happened, and everything fell apart.

The Intelligence Services Sticking Point

The central row concerns a government amendment that would have handed the heads of MI5 and MI6 the power to decide whether their individual officers must comply with the duty of candour. In plain English: the very agencies that are supposed to be held accountable would get to choose how accountable they actually are.

Campaigners saw this for what it was: a de facto exemption dressed up in careful legislative language. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, issued a joint statement calling it "too broad an opt-out." They were not alone. Some 40 MPs backed an alternative amendment tabled by Ian Byrne, the MP for Liverpool West Derby and himself a Hillsborough survivor. Thirty of those MPs were Labour, making this an embarrassing rebellion for the government.

The context here matters enormously. MI5 was accused of misleading the Manchester Arena bombing inquiry. The Hillsborough Law, formally known as the Public Office Accountability Bill, was never just about one disaster. It was built on lessons from Orgreave, the Windrush scandal, the infected blood scandal, Grenfell Tower, and the Post Office Horizon debacle. Carving out exceptions for intelligence agencies rather undermines the entire point.

Campaigners Walk Away

In January 2026, after a meeting with the Prime Minister, campaigners withdrew their support for the draft bill. That is a remarkable thing to happen. Families who have spent decades fighting for accountability, who finally had a government promising to deliver, felt so let down that they stepped back from the process entirely.

Bereaved family members including Charlotte Hennessy, Margaret Aspinall, Sue Roberts, and Steve Kelly have been at the heart of this campaign. Their patience has been tested beyond what most of us can imagine, and being asked to accept watered-down protections for the security services was evidently a step too far.

Where Does This Leave Things?

Report Stage and Third Reading were originally pencilled in for 14 January 2026, then postponed. The government delayed bringing the Bill back on 19 January. Now it will not pass this session at all.

Mahmood, who moved to the Home Office in September 2025, now finds herself in the peculiar position of overseeing the very intelligence services whose exemption caused the legislative collapse she helped set in motion as Lord Chancellor. It is, to put it mildly, not a great look.

The families deserve better than this. They have always deserved better. Thirty-seven years after Hillsborough, the pattern of delay, dilution, and institutional self-protection continues. The only question now is whether the government has the political will to strip out the contentious amendment and pass a law that actually does what it was supposed to do all along.

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