Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Lord Rennard Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, the Bill is about more than Hillsborough, but we would not be here today but for the unlawful killings at Hillsborough 37 years ago. It must be enacted without further unnecessary delay, but still with significant scrutiny to help make sure that it achieves its aims.

As I said in our Hillsborough debate last November, it is welcome that the legislation will apply beyond public bodies to private bodies and contractors delivering public functions, but I fear that this principle will be undermined if subcontractors are not also included; nor will it be as effective as it should be if we fail to strengthen the whistleblowing protections so that breaches of the duty of candour cannot be buried. This may require the creation of an independent office of the whistleblower and other measures to ensure statutory protection for those who exercise candour and expose wrongdoing, perhaps among colleagues.

I speak as someone from Liverpool who is mindful of how the deaths of the blameless victims and the lies about them affected my city. It took great courage and determination in the face of establishment cover-ups to finally get the truth to be accepted beyond Merseyside and to bring about this Bill, but it should never have required a change in the law to make police and public officials tell the truth. A change of culture is necessary as well as changes in the law.

My fear now is that the Bill’s promise of accountability may be weakened by fragmented codes and inconsistent enforcement. We will achieve much through establishing the duty of candour, the provision supporting participation in inquiries and investigations and the proposed offences. The Bill requires public authorities to promote ethical conduct, and it permits authority-level codes and disciplinary consequences for employees, but there are therefore risks of ineffectiveness if there are different codes with different wordings and different complaint routes. A citizen’s entitlement to honesty, accurate records, a prompt response and correction of errors should not depend upon which authority is involved, which professional regulator happens to have jurisdiction, or whether the people responsible remain in employment when the issues are finally examined.

The criminal provisions properly require criminal proof, but a criminal investigation cannot be the routine response to every serious ethical failure. There needs to be proper investigation of conduct that is too serious for a merely internal response, but which would not properly be addressed by criminal prosecution. That is why the proposal made by Andrew Devine’s family deserves close attention. Andrew survived for more than 32 years with the catastrophic injuries he suffered at Hillsborough, and he was ultimately recognised as the 97th person unlawfully killed. His family’s experiences extended across decades of interaction with public bodies, healthcare regulators and the legal system. The family have therefore asked for there to be one enforceable code of conduct for all public officials, with significant sanctions, including financial penalties, for non-compliance.

The Bill could include a core statutory code so that no public body should be able to fall below a common minimum standard. The core duties should include honesty, candour, proper record keeping, timely disclosure, correction of known error, co-operation with lawful scrutiny, reasons for material decisions and fair treatment of affected people.

An effective system also requires independent enforcement. An authority implicated in institutional failure should not always remain the sole investigator and judge of its own compliance. A proportionate commission, accountable to Parliament, could triage complaints and refer suitable cases to existing regulators or employers. It could independently determine serious, repeated or systematic breaches. Its purpose would not be to punish every mistake: advice, correction, apology, training or warning may be sufficient in many cases. Public censure, a financial penalty or time-limited disqualification should be reserved for serious or persistent misconduct and imposed only through fair procedure.

Accountability should not disappear merely because a person resigns, retires or transfers before a matter is concluded. We should therefore ensure that the Bill creates not simply a series of codes but one intelligible baseline, with credible consequences for breaching it, and a fair, independent system capable of changing conduct before more families of victims have to spend decades fighting to establish the truth.

King’s Speech

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am mindful of the irony of raising issues of democracy in what is now an entirely appointed Chamber. My expectation when I entered the House in 1999 was that there would soon be elections to this place, and I never thought that it would take 29 years just to complete the removal of the right to sit here of hereditary Peers.

That modest step has taken place only 115 years since it was promised in the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911. That legislation from Asquith’s Liberal Government made reforms to the powers of the House pending it becoming a body

“constituted on a popular instead of a hereditary basis”.

Democracy is not perfect. In 1947, Churchill said that

“democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/11/1947; col. 207.]

So I believe that letting people use ballot papers to choose at least most of us who sit in this place, as opposed to relying on the personal whims of Prime Ministers and party leaders, would strengthen our effectiveness. It would avoid the accusations of cronyism that sully the reputation of the House, reduce the number of scandals concerning party finances, and prevent the prospect of peerages being bestowed, or blocked, as a means of persuading potential appointees to toe a particular line, switch party support, or open a chequebook. Too many appointments have been made here to make people Ministers, who then shortly afterwards give up on that job, or of people who want the title but not the responsibility, and who also rapidly disappear.

It took 27 years to end the temporary gentlemen’s agreement allowing for the holding of by-elections to replace departing hereditary Peers because of determined filibusters by a handful of Members. It was clear that the will of the House on that issue was unfairly blocked. So it was with the assisted dying Bill, where it was made impossible to return the Bill to the Commons for it to be considered further. I am strongly opposed to introducing timetables in this place for government legislation, but I think the time has come for us to be able to agree timetables for Private Members’ Bills.

We also need in this Session to strengthen legislation to safeguard core democratic principles. The latest Representation of the People Bill fails to do that because it does not provide for a cap on the size of donations to a political party except for those from overseas. Extremely wealthy donors can potentially buy a political party, purchase a party leader, and change the outcome of a general election with, for example, the reported £1 million payments to two party leaders to make them agree on an electoral pact.

We need to put a cap on the size of any one donation in any one year. I suggest that the precise limit should be proposed by the Electoral Commission. Donations such as Frank Hester’s to the Conservative Party of £20 million in the previous Parliament, and those of Christopher Harborne, perhaps of up to £30 million, to the various iterations of the Reform Party and its leader, must be banned if our democracy is not for sale.

Hillsborough Law

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, in a television documentary about Kenny Dalglish, the man known in my home city as King Kenny reveals how he was contacted by Mr Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of the Sun, who was seeking advice on how to end the widespread boycott of his product in Liverpool. He was told firmly that he needed to print a new front page that simply read, “We lied”. Four days after the disaster, the Sun’s front page had been headlined “The Truth”, but it published false and deeply damaging claims and made vile accusations against the victims. It took many decades for the truth to be revealed.

For that, we must thank those who overcame the barriers created by officialdom, as outlined by my former candidate in Liverpool, and my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool. We must thank the heroic campaigners and families whose unwavering strength and courage eventually dragged this necessary legislation before Parliament. Their fight to expose institutional defensiveness, lies and deceit over three decades demands our utmost respect.

The Bill seeks to correct a monstrous injustice done to the 97 who died and to avoid similar injustices involving institutional cover-ups. It has taken the 36 years since Hillsborough for us to set about establishing a statutory duty of candour to provide for transparency and frankness on the part of public officials and authorities, with consequential criminal penalties for wilful deception. Calls for such measures were resisted by almost everyone in authority until the 20th anniversary memorial of the disaster took place at Anfield. The speech given by the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport was loudly interrupted by booing and cheering, and chants of “Justice for the 96”. That was the number of fans who had died, to be followed later by Andy Devine, who was in a coma from his injuries before he died 32 years after he was crushed. A previously reluctant Government were then persuaded to look again at Hillsborough by setting up the independent panel.

With the legislation that is now proposed, we must also change the culture which allowed the cover-ups, falsehoods and denial of justice over the decades. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, repeated, the warning from Bishop James Jones about the danger posed by the “patronising disposition of unaccountable power”, and this extends well beyond those involved in the Hillsborough deceit. To dismantle that power and ensure the Bill is effective, I believe we need to focus on three critical areas that demand strengthening as the legislation proceeds through Parliament.

First, we must achieve a genuine equality of arms in our justice system. This means correcting the grotesque inequality of families having to scrape together every last penny they can for representation to face what has been described in this debate as an army of well-funded state lawyers.

Secondly, we must ensure robust accountability with no hiding places. It is welcome that the Bill’s intention is to apply the duty of candour to private bodies and contractors delivering public functions, but we must ensure this measure is not weakened and includes all subcontractors. While the Bill includes complex provisions for the security and intelligence services, the principle must remain absolute: the duty to tell the truth must apply to everyone, without carve-outs that risk becoming new cover-ups. We must also ensure that accountability goes right to the top, resting personally with chief officers and executives—not merely the corporate body—to act as a true deterrent against the culture of defensiveness.

Thirdly, effectiveness depends on embedding mechanisms for disclosure and learning. As the noble Lord, Lord Wills, argued persuasively, we need to strengthen whistleblowing protections to help the facts come to light. We need that independent office of the whistleblower to ensure statutory protection for those who exercise candour. These measures would provide critical front-line defences against institutional misconduct.

Finally, the integrity of the Bill requires an accompanying commitment to a national oversight mechanism. Without a body responsible for monitoring and ensuring that recommendations from inquests and inquiries are acted upon, we face the problems described by the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, that hard-won lessons risk being left on a shelf, gathering dust, compounding the original injustices.

Our goal must be to pass a strong law, unwatered down, which guarantees genuine transparency and accountability.

“Hillsborough Law”

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not think that this Bill, which has not been published yet, will address that issue. However, I take the point that my noble friend makes. Really, he is raising a far wider concern and if there is anything more that I can say to him, I will write to him, but I think his question goes far wider that the Question itself.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on public inquiries following deceitful conduct by police officers at Hillsborough and Orgreave and in the spy cops inquiry. Would we not save a lot of money, and help to restore confidence in the police, if officers felt that they might lose some of their pension if they failed to observe a duty of candour and, for example, doctored evidence again?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I take the point that the noble Lord makes, and we will see what the recommendations are. As I have said in answer to earlier questions, it is foreseen that, under the duty of candour, the professionals involved could be subject to criminal and professional consequences with the full might of the law.

“Hillsborough Law”

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister is painfully aware that he made a promise and yet that date has slipped. Regarding the specific points made by the noble Lord, the Government have undertaken to look at this very closely and come up with legislation. I also am personally affected by this matter—a friend of my brother died in the disaster—and everyone I know who is involved in this is very seized of the matter and wants to get the answer right as quickly as possible.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, after the lies of the police at Hillsborough, embellished by the infamous front page of the Sun, why would the Government not insist on an enforceable duty of candour? Would that not reduce the costs of many millions of pounds in other inquiries concerning the police where the culture of secrecy and cover-up still persists?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

The Government have said that they want to introduce a duty of candour, with criminal consequences for those who do not live up to that standard. But it is part of a greater whole, which is the reason why the legislation has not come forward as we would have liked and why we are undertaking further talks with the parties I have mentioned.