Ian Byrne

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Speaking at the Labour party conference in Liverpool in 2022, the Prime Minister said: “one of my first acts as Prime Minister will be to put the Hillsborough law on the statute book”. The Prime Minister said “the Hillsborough law”, not “a Hillsborough law”. This was an actual Bill that had its First Reading in March 2017, tabled by Andy Burnham and written by expert lawyers. As the parliamentary lead for the “Hillsborough Law Now” campaign and a Hillsborough survivor, I want to put on record the campaign’s grave concern about the status of the Hillsborough law. The Prime Minister missed his 15 April deadline after a replacement Bill was shown to lawyers involved in the campaign, who made it clear that it contained none of the key provisions of the Hillsborough law and did not deserve the name, and it was rejected out of hand. It is rumoured that the Government could be about to table another replacement Bill, still without any of the key provisions of the Hillsborough law and without allowing Hillsborough lawyers, families or survivors to see it. Government officials have even suggested that parliamentary procedure means that they are not permitted to first share it, despite the fact that that is what they did with the previous draft in March. Mr Deputy Speaker, I ask for your guidance on whether the draft can be first shared, as it was before, to give us a chance to raise any concerns before there is another betrayal of Hillsborough families and survivors, and all victims of state cover-ups.