The inclusion of both the Hillsborough Law and Martyn’s Law in the King’s Speech is a big moment for people power. Assuming they are implemented, these measures will do very different things – the first places a duty on public officials to comply fully with inquiries and requires bereaved families to be given fair legal funding. The second will ensure that public venues cater for the threat of terrorism in their risk planning.
Those public venues being any holding 100 or more. So your local church hall hosting women’s whist drives and bake sales, plus your neighbourhood pub, must now have a terrorism risk assessment and plan. Who thinks that’s sensible, or necessary?
The Hillsborough families have been fighting for justice on various fronts since 1989 but calls for this piece of specific legislation grew out of the second coroner’s inquests into the football disaster, which ended in 2016 and established that those who died were unlawfully killed. The inquests became an adversarial battle between the families and agencies including the police, and the law was proposed to stop other bereaved families from going through the same thing. It means there will be “a duty on public authorities and servants to tell the truth and proactively assist inquiries”, says Pete Weatherby KC, one of its chief architects.
But what the Hillsborough families have been fighting for could be said to be ‘absolution’, not justice and they’ve already had it. So why the need for more kow-towing to them?
Martyn’s Law, meanwhile, was the brainchild of Figen Murray, whose son Martyn Hett was murdered in the 2017 Manchester Arena attack. The venue had been under no legal duty to provide a plan in case of a terror attack. Figen noticed this gap in the legislation relating to safety at public venues and made it her personal mission to close it.
I don’t disagree that Martyn was failed, but can it be said that he was exclusively failed by the venue, and only by the venue? Do the police and ambulance services not bear some of that criticism?
Martyn’s Law went through two public consultation exercises, the second of which was prompted by criticism of the proposed legislation from the Home Affairs Select Committee last spring. The committee had warned that it had “serious concerns” about the financial burden that could be placed on smaller venues. It also said the aims of the bill as it stood were “unclear”.
And despite that, it was rammed home regardless. To win votes, I guess.
