Hillsborough Law clears House of Lords hurdle despite concerns over emergency services

Legislation designed to impose a legally enforceable duty of candour on public officials has cleared its latest hurdle in the House of Lords. The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, widely known as the Hillsborough Law, completed its committee stage in the Upper Chamber as peers raised concerns over how it applies to emergency services.

• The Hillsborough Law passes its committee stage in the House of Lords.
• The bill compels public authorities and officials to act transparently in official inquiries.
• Baroness Levitt warned that paramedics fall outside the new serious misconduct offence.
• The justice minister defended the exclusion of frontline healthcare staff except when treating people in state detention.
• The bill now moves to report stage before returning to the House of Commons.

What the Hillsborough Law is and where its name comes from

The bill takes its name from the 1989 disaster at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, where 97 Liverpool fans died in a crush during an FA Cup semi-final. That tragedy became a symbol of institutional secrecy and the lack of clear answers for the victims' families.

Formally known as the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, the legislation would establish a legally enforceable duty compelling public authorities and officials to act transparently during inquiries and investigations. The aim is to prevent the kind of silence and obstruction that marked the long legal processes after Hillsborough.

Exclusion of paramedics dominates debate in the Lords

Baroness Levitt, a former justice minister, expressed concern that a new offence of seriously improper conduct did not apply to paramedics and called on Parliament to fix the oversight. The Labour peer, a former circuit judge and barrister, cited a case in which she appeared for the prosecution against an emergency worker accused of serious sexual misconduct against a vulnerable patient.

The court concluded that a paramedic did not come within the definition of a public officer for the purposes of the common law offence of misconduct in public office, and as a consequence, the conviction could not be upheld.

Levitt argued that when emergency responders attend, members of the public are often at their most vulnerable and must be able to trust them. "Yet, paramedics are not included," she said. She added that the consequence is not merely theoretical: if such behaviour occurred again, a prosecution for seriously improper conduct would still not be possible.

The paramedic case and the duty to prevent death or serious injury

The baroness also argued that the bill failed in relation to a new offence concerning breaches of duty to prevent death or serious injury. If there is one category of professional whose daily work involves preventing death or serious injury, she said, it is a paramedic responding to an emergency call. She suggested that a paramedic who deliberately withheld appropriate treatment because of racial prejudice toward a patient could not currently be prosecuted.

Government defence: why healthcare staff remain outside the bill

Justice minister Lord Lemos responded that a Law Commission review concluded frontline healthcare staff should remain outside the scope of the bill unless treating individuals in state detention. He said that reflects existing case law, with paramedics' responsibilities "primarily owed to the individual they are treating, rather than to the public in general".

Lemos explained that frontline healthcare roles were excluded because healthcare services are delivered across both public and private sectors, and therefore cannot be regarded solely as a core function of government. Including public sector healthcare workers would create an arbitrary distinction between individuals performing the same role in the private and public sectors, adding complexity and undermining the policy objective of clarifying who the new offences apply to.

Next steps for the Hillsborough Law in Parliament

The bill will now be further considered by the House of Lords at report stage, where amendments will be voted on. If it passes that stage, it will return to the House of Commons for approval.