The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, known as the Hillsborough Law, has completed its committee stage in the House of Lords, where peers raised concerns about how it would apply to emergency services.
What the Hillsborough Law would do
If passed, the Bill would establish a legally enforceable duty requiring public authorities and officials to act transparently during inquiries and investigations.
The Bill takes its name from the 1989 disaster at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, where 97 Liverpool fans were killed in a crush during an FA Cup semi-final.
Concerns over emergency workers
Baroness Levitt expressed concern that the proposed offence of seriously improper conduct would not apply to paramedics. She called on Parliament to correct what she described as an omission.
Baroness Levitt cited a case involving a paramedic accused of serious sexual misconduct against a vulnerable patient. She said the court concluded that the paramedic was not a public officer for the purposes of the common-law offence of misconduct in public office, meaning the conviction could not be upheld.
She said people were often at their most vulnerable when emergency responders attended and needed to be able to trust them. She also said that, if similar behaviour occurred again, a prosecution for seriously improper conduct would not be possible because paramedics were not included.
Baroness Levitt also said the Bill did not cover a proposed offence concerning breaches of the duty to prevent death or serious injury. She said a paramedic who deliberately withheld appropriate treatment from a patient because of racial prejudice could not currently be prosecuted.
Government response
Justice minister Lord Lemos said a Law Commission review had concluded that frontline healthcare staff should remain outside the Bill’s scope unless they were treating people in state detention.
He said existing case law supported excluding paramedics because their responsibilities were primarily owed to the person they were treating rather than to the public in general.
Lord Lemos also said healthcare services were delivered across both public and private sectors and therefore could not be regarded solely as a core government function. Including public-sector healthcare workers, he said, would create an arbitrary distinction between people performing the same role in the private and public sectors and add complexity to the Bill’s aim of clarifying who the new offences would apply to.
Next stage
The Bill will next be considered by the House of Lords at report stage, when amendments will be voted on, before returning to the House of Commons for approval.
Related: Former civil service chief Sir Chris Wormald takes seat in House of Lords
Source: The Independent UK
