Burnham Backs New Law Targeting Cover-Up Culture After Hillsborough
Article excerpt
Andy Burnham, days away from becoming Britain's prime minister, stood up in parliament this week and made Hillsborough personal. The 1989 disaster at Sheffield's Hillsborough stadium, where 97 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death, didn't just shape British football culture; it shaped Burnham. The cover-up that followed, in which police systematically misrepresented survivors and the dead for decades, became a cause he has carried through his entire political life. Now, speaking as the newly elected MP for Makerfield, he is putting legislative weight behind it. The incoming government's bill, as Burnham described it, is designed to dismantle what he called a 'cover-up culture' in British public life, shifting power toward ordinary people and away from institutions that have historically closed ranks after catastrophe. Burnham has been one of the most prominent political figures pushing for Hillsborough accountability, and the timing of this speech, his first in the Commons since returning to Westminster, was clearly deliberate. He wanted the statement made before he walked into Downing Street. Whether the legislation delivers on that promise is the question that Hillsborough families, who have waited 35 years for something real, will be watching most closely.
LONDON, Andy Burnham pledged Tuesday to end the U.K.’s “cover-up culture” and put “decency back at the heart of the British state.”
In his first House of Commons speech since returning to parliament last month, the Makerfield MP, who is expected to become the next British prime minister on Monday, praised legislation from the departing Keir Starmer government that imposes a duty of candor on public officials.
Burnham said the law will “change the way this country thinks and works about justice,” as it “truly is a rewiring of the state and a passing of power from the authorities to the hands of ordinary people.” MPs approved the legislation Tuesday evening, and it will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.
With parliament rising for the summer recess on Thursday, it will likely be Burnham’s only intervention from the backbenches of the House of Commons.
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, widely called the Hillsborough law, is named after the 1989 tragedy in the Sheffield stadium where 97 Liverpool fans died following a crush.
The draft law imposes a duty on public bodies to tell the truth and cooperate with inquiries after survivors and the families of those who died campaigned for decades to find out what had happened. Subsequent investigations found police cover-ups and false narratives had been spread about the circumstances of the Hillsborough deaths.
‘Campaign for truth’
Burnham, who is originally from Liverpool, expressed his pride at seeing “this bill plant the values of the city of my birth at the heart of this country.”
He has repeatedly spoken about how being heckled by fans during a speech at Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield ground when he was culture secretary in 2009 changed his political outlook.
In what will be seen as a statement of intent, Burnham said the legislation will help other victims of injustice, citing the families of people killed in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London, nuclear test veterans and sub-postmasters who were falsely accused of stealing money.
“This bill advances all of these just causes and the campaign for truth and justice does not stop here. Indeed, it accelerates from here,” he said.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey picked up on Burnham’s name-check of other efforts, challenging him to “put right those scandals” when he takes office.
Burnham adopted a conciliatory tone towards the current prime minister, praising his “commitment to a country based on justice and fairness.” He described the Hillsborough legislation as Starmer’s “legacy.”
Starmer resigned as leader of the ruling Labour Party last month, acknowledging he had lost the support of his MPs, who feared an election wipeout after a terrible set of local election results in May.
Speaking about the Hillsborough tragedy in the same House of Commons session, Starmer said of the coverup, that the state had deployed “all its power to obstruct justice and truth” as a “stain on our history.”