The Guardian view on Covid and Hillsborough: families forced the state to face the truth | Editorial

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The Covid-19 inquiry’s procurement report and the Hillsborough law are not accidental companions. A criminal investigation means that findings relating to PPE Medpro remain unpublished.A Covid inquiry came about only because campaigners organised in the tradition of the bereaved Hillsborough families.

Lady Hallett did not call for a “duty of candour”, but her finding that secrecy persisted past the initial crisis makes the case for one.It is therefore fitting that MPs approved the long-delayed Hillsborough law, clearing the way for a positive duty to be imposed on public authorities and officials to tell the truth and cooperate proactively with investigations, while giving bereaved families funded legal representation – just like the public bodies ranged against them. The intelligence compromise matters: independent inquiry chairs, not the agencies under scrutiny, will get powers to decide what national security evidence is withheld.The moment has added significance because the next prime minister, Andy Burnham, had backed the Hillsborough campaign after being heckled for ministerial inaction.

It took him 20 years, he says, to find the courage to act. The bill’s authors are families, survivors and campaigners who turned suffering into a demand to permanently change the relationship between citizen and state.