Keir Starmer's 'promise' to Liverpool with Hillsborough Law at Labour Party conference
Sir Keir Starmer addressed the Labour Party conference in Liverpool this afternoon, pledging that a Hillsborough Law will be delivered before the next anniversary of the disaster. Sir Keir outlined the first steps the government is taking to deliver the law, with recruitment beginning for an independent public advocate who will be deployed to the scene of future public disasters.
In his speech, the PM set out how the Hillsborough Law, named in honour of the 97 Liverpool fans who lost their lives in the Sheffield stadium disaster of 1989, will become a reality. The change in law is one Hillsborough families have spent years campaigning for.
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The PM told the hall: "For many people in this city, the speech they may remember was the one here, two years ago. Because that was when I promised, on this stage, that if I ever had the privilege to serve our country as Prime Minister, one of my first acts would be to bring in a Hillsborough law – a duty of candour."
The Prime Minister told the Labour conference that it was “also a law for the sub-postmasters of the Horizon scandal, the victims of infected blood, Windrush, Grenfell Tower and all the countless injustices over the years suffered by working people at the hands of those who were supposed to serve them”.
He added: “Truth and justice concealed behind closed ranks of the state, and conference, this is the meaning of clause one, because today I can confirm that the duty of candour will apply to public authorities and public servants, the Bill will include criminal sanctions and that the Hillsborough law will be introduced to Parliament before the next anniversary in April."