Victims’ families to meet Prime Minister after final Public Office (Accountability) Bill reading is postponed
Families of victims from the Manchester Arena bombing and the Hillsborough disaster will meet the Prime Minister tomorrow (Wednesday 14 January) after the bill’s third and final reading in the House of Commons was postponed.
They will warn the Government against breaking its promises by introducing loopholes for the security services, insisting that no public authority, particularly the security services, should be exempt from the legislation, and to use this pause to properly reflect on why the legislation was tabled in the first place.
In summary, the campaign’s position has been clear throughout: the duty of candour must apply properly to the Intelligence Services, without undermining national security. These two principles are not in conflict — both are essential.
Recent history shows why this matters. In the past three years alone, the Director-General of MI5 has issued public apologies in multiple cases, including the Manchester Arena Inquiry, where serious failures of candour meant the truth emerged late and only through individual evidence.
While the campaign has worked constructively with the Government and agreed safeguards to protect national security, it cannot accept late changes that would weaken the duty on individual officers once an inquiry or investigation is underway. Such changes risk allowing candour to be controlled from the top, where institutional failure is most likely to arise.
Families meeting the PM tomorrow are:
Caroline Curry, mum of Liam Curry, 19, and Lisa Rutherford, mum of Chloe Rutherford, 17, teenage sweethearts who both lost their lives in the Manchester Arena bombing.
Joanne and Mike Hurley, parents of Megan Hurley, 15, who died in the Manchester Arena bombing.
Ruth and Elinor Leaney, mother and daughter who survived the bombing.
Margaret Aspinall, Hillsborough Law Now campaigner who lost her 18-year-old son James at Hillsborough.
Charlotte Hennessey, Hillsborough Law Now campaigner who was just six years old when her father Jimmy was killed at Hillsborough.
Caroline Curry, says: “Hillsborough Law must happen in its entirety, it must include every service, no exceptions. MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are as high up the chain as you can get so why would any other service feel they needed to tell the truth when those at the top are exempt? Lead by example is what we’ve always believed.
“We feel our children were just collateral damage and they had been disrespected from start to end, our lives have been forever shattered into a million tiny pieces, pieces too small to even attempt to pick up and put back together, we don’t live a life any longer, we exist, hearts broken beyond repair, minds forever tormented and tortured, always thinking what if and forever hoping it was all a dream and our beautiful children are safely tucked up in bed. But that’s not our reality and never will be. To know that this could and should been prevented but for the failures of MI5 is shameful enough, but to then hear Sir John Saunders reveal that MI5 hadn’t told the truth in open court was like a kick in the guts, they fudged the truth, blurred the lines to cover up their own incompetence.”
Spokesperson for Hillsborough Law Now, says: “Families have waited long enough for the truth. Time and again, they are promised honesty, only to watch it diluted behind closed doors. This Bill is supposed to change that — not create new ways for powerful institutions to avoid accountability.
“This latest delay is welcome, but only if it is used to fix what is now wrong. Families cannot accept a law that allows the heads of the security services to hide serious failures behind a vague claim of national security. It's time for the Prime Minister to deliver on the promise he made when he looked the bereaved of Hillsborough in the eye and use this pause to lay down the law to Whitehall and the security services.”
Nicola Brook, solicitor for many Manchester Arena and Hillsborough bereaved at law firm Broudie Jackson Canter, says: “This delay must be used constructively. Families from Hillsborough and Manchester, separated by decades but united by the same fight for truth and accountability, are standing together to demand change. Their presence exposes a simple and devastating reality: without this law, the same injustices will continue to happen again and again.
“The Prime Minister made clear promises to these families. Those promises must now be honoured in full. A Hillsborough Law must be enacted without dilution, without loopholes and without exemptions. No public authority should ever be allowed to place itself above the duty of candour, transparency and justice. The findings in the Manchester Arena inquiry showed exactly why the security services must not be above the law.”