{"id":376458,"date":"2026-01-18T06:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T06:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/376458\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T06:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T06:02:09","slug":"withdraw-hillsborough-law-amendment-urge-liverpool-and-manchester-mayors-hillsborough-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/376458\/","title":{"rendered":"Withdraw Hillsborough law amendment, urge Liverpool and Manchester mayors | Hillsborough disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mayors of Liverpool and Manchester have said an amendment to the Hillsborough law<\/a> should be withdrawn, saying it does not do enough to prevent future cover-ups.<\/p>\n

The Liverpool city region mayor, Steve Rotheram<\/a>, and the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, said the amendment \u201ccreates too broad an opt-out\u201d by allowing intelligence officials to decide what information is released to investigators after a major incident.<\/p>\n

Warnings had already been issued from Hillsborough campaigners that a draft version of the legislation \u2013 formally known as the public office (accountability) bill due to be debated on Monday, might allow security officials to \u201chide serious failures behind a vague claim of national security\u201d.<\/p>\n

The mayors said the amendment \u201crisks undermining the spirit of the legislation\u201d and urged the government to withdraw it. Rotheram and Burnham said they had both seen \u201cdevastating incidents\u201d in their regions and would never support anything that compromised national security.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement posted on X, the mayors said: \u201cAn important part of strengthening the country\u2019s defences is establishing the truth at the earliest opportunity when things go wrong and that is why, if drafted correctly, the Hillsborough Law could create a culture in all public services where that is the norm.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it stands, we believe the government\u2019s amendment in relation to the security services creates too broad an opt-out and risks undermining the spirit of the legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate that the government has made huge strides in working to deliver the Hillsborough Law and are grateful for their willingness to work with campaigners thus far to make it the strongest law possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in that spirit that we call on them to withdraw their amendment ahead of Monday\u2019s debate and work with the families and the Hillsborough Law Now campaign to find a solution acceptable to all sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calls for a Hillsborough<\/a> law began in 2016 after a second inquest into the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans \u2013 later becoming 97 \u2013 at the Hillsborough football ground in South Yorkshire during a 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s supporters were crushed and trampled due to negligent crowd control by South Yorkshire police, in what remains the worst sporting disaster in British history.<\/p>\n

The deaths, and 766 injuries, were compounded when the Liverpool<\/a> fans were improperly blamed for the disaster after false reports of hooliganism were fed to the press by the force.<\/p>\n

Elkan Abrahamson, a lawyer for the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, said the amendments allowed the heads of the security services to make \u201cwhatever decision they want\u201d on whether to disclose information and left them \u201cunchallengeable\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said it should be up to the head of an inquiry to decide whether information was relevant, adding there were already national security exemptions that allowed evidence to be heard in private.<\/p>\n

Liverpool West Derby MP, Ian Byrne, has also tabled several amendments of his own that would mean duty of candour applies not only to intelligence organisations but also to people who work for them.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, he said he could not back the bill in its current form. \u201cI am absolutely gutted writing this,\u201d Byrne said, \u201cbut we need to be clear about what is happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a commitment to deliver the Hillsborough law without exemptions, without loopholes, and without carve-outs \u2026 if the government\u2019s amendments are passed then this legislation, in its current form, is not that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mayors of Liverpool and Manchester have said an amendment to the Hillsborough law should be withdrawn, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-376458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}