Garden Court North welcomes third reading for Hillsborough Law

14 July 2026

Wreaths and tributes to the 97 at the Hillsborough Memorial outside Anfield Stadium in Liverpool. Credit: Alex Blair / Garden Court North Chambers.

Garden Court North welcomes the third reading of Hillsborough Law – the Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2026 – which took place on 14 July 2026 in the House of Commons. This completes the Bill’s passage in the Commons and now moves to the House of Lords.

The Bill was originally scheduled for its third reading in January, but was subject to delays amid negotiations over a carve-out by the Government to largely exempt the intelligence services from the Duty of Candour.

Garden Court North’s Pete Weatherby KC, who co-wrote Hillsborough Law and is a Director of Hillsborough Law Now, led meetings with multiple ministers and the Government’s team over the course of the last 18 months. Throughout this process, Pete and the campaigning families from Hillsborough, the Manchester Arena, Grenfell, Covid Bereaved, Post Office, Contaminated Blood, Truth About Zane, Nuclear test Veterans, Chinook, Primados, Orgreave, and other state-related disasters and scandals insisted on no exemptions for any state bodies including the security services. The Government has finally agreed and that has paved the way to the Bill completing this major hurdle.

Pete and many Garden Court North members have represented families bereaved by the Hillsborough and Grenfell disasters, the Arena bombing and Southport outrages, the failed response to the Covid pandemic, and many other cases involving failures by state agencies and authorities.

The initial inquests after the Hillsborough disaster recorded accidental death verdicts, following an industrial scale cover-up by South Yorkshire Police which lasted for 25 years and blamed the supporters.

Following a massive campaign by the families the verdicts were overturned and new inquests held which found that 97 Liverpool Football Club fans were unlawfully killed. Cover-ups and obfuscation have followed in many of the other cases. Relevant to the imperative for Hillsborough Law to apply to the intelligence services it is of note that MI5 ran a false narrative for 6 years in the Arena case, and they have misled courts and police investigations in other recent high profile cases. Read Pete’s article here.

A “major step forward” for Hillsborough families

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning, Pete reiterated that Hillsborough Law was, “the legacy project of the Hillsborough families: a campaign to ensure nothing similar happened to other families in future”.

“There is no ‘deal’ to remove the Government carveout exempting security services]. The Government has seen the point and has backed off,” Pete said. “We have always said from the beginning that there have to be robust national security safeguards. Those exist currently. We have said right from the outset that those existing provisions and safeguards should apply to the new provisions, and that is now what will happen.”

In sum, the Government is at last, after nearly a decade, putting before Parliament a Bill fit to be called ‘Hillsborough Law’.

The Bill reached its report stage today (14 July 2026). Alongside numerous other MPs voicing strong support for the full, undiluted Bill, Ian Byrne MP delivered a compassionate speech on how it reminds him that he was “one of the lucky ones who came home from Hillsborough”, and that “today, standing in Parliament to speak as the Hillsborough Law passed, was one of the proudest and most emotional moments of my life”. Byrne’s speech was met with applause by fellow MPs in a rare break from parliamentary protocol.

The Hillsborough families attended a reception at 10 Downing Street, before the Bill’s third reading took place in front of a packed House of Commons at approximately 5:30pm. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham MP were among those who addressed the chamber, praising the Hillsborough Law Now campaigners for their ceaselessly brave work, and welcoming the Bill as a rewiring of state accountability in the UK for years to come.

When asked by the BBC’s Nick Robinson whether today is a day of victory for the campaigning families, Pete responded “Yes, absolutely. It’s a major step forward, of course there’s further work to be done, it has to go out of the House of Lords, then it has to be implemented, but essentially there’s been an outbreak of common sense here, and we’re going to get robust provisions which will ultimately change the culture, making cover-ups extremely difficult to perpetrate with robust sanctions if they are”.

Alongside Pete Weatherby KC, numerous members of Garden Court North’s inquests and public inquiries team have worked tirelessly to represent bereaved families whose loved ones have been the victims of state-related disasters.

The other directors of Hillsborough Law Now are Elkan Abrahamson of Broudie Jackson Canter Solicitors, Deborah Coles of INQUEST, Debbie Caine and Nathan Oswin.

Alongside Pete Weatherby KC, numerous members of Garden Court North’s inquests and public inquiries team have worked tirelessly to represent bereaved families whose loved ones have been the victims of state-related disasters.

Additional media

BBC Radio 4 – Today Programme (14/07/2026)

Sky News – Starmer and Burnham speak on Hillsborough Law in Commons

BBC News – Hillsborough Law will ‘protect others forever’

Garden Court North Chambers – A Duty of Candour, Duty to Assist, and Legal Funding for Bereaved Families: Hillsborough Law to be presented in Parliament

For further information, please contact Alex Blair, Communications Manager at Garden Court North Chambers: ablair@gcnchambers.co.uk