“The greatest legacy of the 97 will not simply be that they are remembered; it will be that, because of them, this country has finally, finally learned the lessons of Hillsborough.”
MPs voted to enact the Hillsborough Law unanimously in a recent vote in Parliament. Ian Byrne MP, himself a survivor of the Hillsborough disaster, spoke passionately and emotionally during the debate. You can read his speech in full below.
Back in 2015, I had the number 96 tattooed on my wrist. It was not simply a tattoo; it was a promise. It was a promise that whenever life became difficult, I would never forget one simple truth: I was one of the lucky ones. I walked away from Hillsborough, but 96 did not. Today we remember the 97. That number on my wrist and the people it represents has become my compass. Every time I look at it, I think of those who never came home. I think of their families and of survivors like my dad, who was seriously injured. I think of every campaigner who has spent decades refusing to accept the lies, refusing to surrender to injustice and refusing to allow the truth to be buried. They have shaped my life far more than they will ever know. I owe them more than I could ever repay.
In the years after Hillsborough, one question followed me everywhere. It is a question every survivor knows—every survivor of Grenfell knows it; every survivor of a public disaster knows it. It arrives uninvited in the silence of the early hours of the morning: “Why did I get to walk away when others didn’t?” For years, that question haunted me. What responsibility do you carry when your survival comes at such a terrible cost to others? What do you owe those who never got the chance to live the life you have lived?
I began to find my answers long before I entered this place. In 2009, after finishing an early shift at my printing factory, I went with my dad and my mates—people who had stood beside me at Hillsborough—to the 20th anniversary memorial service at Anfield. We stood shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people. We remembered. Then came the chant that echoed around the stadium: “Justice. Justice. Justice.” Not because it was a slogan, but because it was all we had left. For two
decades we had been lied to, families had been ignored, survivors had been smeared. Those who should have protected ordinary people protected themselves instead, and this House—with honourable exceptions—too often looked the other way. That is a stain on our democracy that I will never forget.
But that cry for justice could no longer be ignored. It forced this place and the country to confront the truth and, ultimately, it led to the Hillsborough Independent Panel. At last, the truth broke through. It confirmed what the people of Liverpool had always known: the supporters were innocent. The lies were exposed, the cover-up was exposed, and the culture of unaccountable power was exposed.
The families, the survivors and the people of Liverpool will never forgive those who deliberately vilified innocent people and orchestrated that cover-up. They will never forget what Rupert Murdoch, Kelvin MacKenzie, The Sun, Norman Bettison and South Yorkshire police did not only to the victims and survivors, but to an entire city. The wounds they inflicted went far beyond any newspaper headline; they damaged lives, reputations and trust in our institutions. That is why I will continue to campaign for Leveson Part 2 and for Bettison to be stripped of his knighthood.
The new inquests in 2016 finally recognised what should have been stated from the very beginning: the victims of Hillsborough were unlawfully killed. Those words mattered because the truth matters. But truth without accountability is never enough. Truth without justice leaves a wound only partially healed. The families deserved justice. The survivors deserved justice. We never got it for Hillsborough.
Then, Bishop James Jones gave us not just a report, but a warning that should echo through every public institution in Britain:
“The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”.
Those six words alone should be studied by every public authority in this country, every Minister, every chief constable, every permanent secretary and every senior public official, because if we do not learn those lessons, we will carry on repeating them. Few reports have ever described the British establishment with such devastating accuracy. When power is unaccountable, truth becomes negotiable, justice becomes optional, and ordinary people are sacrificed.
The Hillsborough law was born from that understanding. Its purpose is simple: never again should a grieving family have to fight the state simply to discover the truth. In 2021 I was asked by my friend, now my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), to carry the baton for a Hillsborough law in Parliament and to bring the voices of the families and survivors into Parliament, to make sure no family ever again goes through what the Hillsborough families and survivors went through. There are moments in politics that define why we are here—why we have been given this privilege. This was mine. I never saw this as my campaign. It always belonged to the families; I was simply trusted to carry their voices into this House.
I cannot lie: there were moments when this journey tested me in ways I could never have imagined. There were moments when compromise was presented as victory; moments when those more powerful than me said, “Take this or leave it”; and moments when I wondered whether we would ever get here. But every time that happened, I thought about the Hillsborough memorial at Anfield. Every time I walk past it, those 97 names remind me who this fight has always been for.
I thought about the families. I thought about the survivors. I looked down at that number on my wrist. It reminded me that I was one of the lucky ones. It reminded me why compromise could never, ever be an option—not just for Hillsborough, but for Grenfell, for the infected blood campaign, for the Post Office Horizon families, for Primodos, for Truth About Zane, for the nuclear test veterans, for the Chinook families, for the Manchester arena families and for every family forced to spend years fighting the very institutions that should have stood beside them: different tragedies and different families, but the same fight for truth and justice. This law has never belonged to politicians. Politicians did not build this movement—families did. It belongs to the people. It belongs to every family that has ever buried a loved one while the state watched on and buried the truth.
Today I feel something I was not sure I would ever feel: hope. For so many years, this place was part of the problem. Today, I believe it can become part of the solution. Today is not the end of a campaign; it is the start of doing things differently. It is about people in power telling the truth. It is about public bodies remembering who they exist to serve, and it is about making sure that no family is ever again left to fight the state on their own. That is the promise before us today, and we must not waste it.
To the families of the 97—those still with us and those we have sadly lost along the way: you will never, ever be forgotten. You carried a burden that should never have been yours. You fought with dignity when others showed none. You taught this country that ordinary people can overcome the most extraordinary abuse of power. To every survivor, I hope today brings some measure of peace, not because it can erase the past—nothing ever will—but because your suffering has brought about lasting change for generations to come.
For decades, I asked myself why I survived. Today, I think I understand—not because I have done anything extraordinary, but because I was given the privilege of standing here and carrying the voices of people who could no longer speak for themselves. If, in some small way, I have honoured the memory of the 97, if I have been worthy of the trust that the families and survivors have placed in me, if this Parliament finally ensures that no grieving family ever again has to fight the state simply to uncover the truth, then every setback, every disappointment and every sleepless night will have been worth it.
This law is about far more than Hillsborough. It is about the kind of country we choose to be—a country where power tells the truth, where public servants serve the public, where justice is not delayed until campaigners grow old, and where no family is ever left to walk alone. If we pass this law in the spirit in which it was conceived, the greatest legacy of the 97 will not simply be that they are remembered; it will be that, because of them, this country has finally, finally learned the lessons of Hillsborough. Every time I look at the number on my wrist, I will not simply remember those we lost; I will remember that they changed this country for the better. Never again!
- Ian Byrne is the MP for Liverpool West Derby. You can follow him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
- This article was taken from Ian Byrne’s speech in Parliament during the debate. You can watch it in full here.
