\n<\/p>\n
Labour will not bring the Hillsborough law back to the Commons for debate until it can reach agreement with the families, the Guardian understands.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer was forced to delay the bill again on Monday after talks broke down last week with families from Hillsborough and the Manchester Arena attack. Central to the disagreement is how the duty of candour in the public authority (accountability) bill would apply to serving intelligence officers.<\/p>\n
The law \u2013 designed to stop official cover-ups \u2013 would mean those in public office who lie or evade would face prosecution. The government has agreed the law should cover the security services, but want to give agency chiefs the final say over when individual officers can give evidence, a power the families say is unacceptable and could lead to future cover-ups.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the government laid down its own amendments to the bill, which put further obligations on the security services \u2013 but still did not go far enough to gain agreement.<\/p>\n
A Labour source said there was now no option but to delay the bill until a compromise could be reached that was acceptable to the families and did not compromise national security. Families, along with the barrister Peter Wetherby, the architect of the law, met the ministers Alex Davies-Jones and Nick Thomas-Symonds in the Ministry of Justice on Monday, but left without agreement.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a press conference earlier on Monday, Starmer said he was determined to find a solution. \u201cI care hugely that we get this right, that we right the wrongs for very many families who have been let down and ensure a better future for families,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn relation to the duty of candour, we\u2019ve been clear that that matters. What we\u2019re now trying to do is make sure we get the balance right when it comes to the application of any principle to the security and intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I have to focus on the national interest \u2013 my primary duty as prime minister, which is to keep this country safe and secure. That is the duty I hold above all other duties, and I take it really seriously, which is why we\u2019re taking time to make sure that we get that balance absolutely right.\u201d<\/p>\n
MPs said they were relieved the government had pulled the bill from Commons business \u2013 but it may now not return for many weeks. About 20 Labour MPs had signed an amendment from the Liverpool West Derby MP, Ian Byrne, which was in line with the families\u2019 demands.<\/p>\n
The bill will need to return to the Commons for the report stage and third reading, as well as go through the Lords.<\/p>\n
A government source said they were \u201cnot putting a deadline\u201d on the talks and that agreement would be needed with the families, the intelligence agencies, the Home Office and Foreign Office and the intelligence and security committee. Starmer is likely to be involved personally at the later stages of the talks.<\/p>\n
Byrne had said he would not be able to support the legislation with the government\u2019s amendments included. The Liverpool city region mayor, Steve Rotheram and the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, said on Saturday that the government amendment \u201crisks undermining the spirit of the legislation\u201d and \u201ccreates too broad an opt-out\u201d for the security services.<\/p>\n
The campaign group Hillsborough Law Now said it welcomed the government \u201clistening to the campaign, families, MPs and supporters by withdrawing their security services amendment\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Labour will not bring the Hillsborough law back to the Commons for debate until it can reach agreement with the families, the Guardian understands. Keir Starmer was forced to delay the bill again on Monday after talks broke down last week with families from Hillsborough and the Manchester Arena attack. Central to the disagreement is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[5520,596,2932,13219,1562,175,10341],"class_list":{"0":"post-42089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-agreement","9":"tag-disaster","10":"tag-families","11":"tag-hillsborough","12":"tag-hold","13":"tag-law","14":"tag-reached"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}