Introduced in September 2025, the Bill progressed smoothly through its early Commons stages and enjoyed broad political support. However, its passage stalled abruptly in January 2026 following controversy over provisions governing how the duty of candour would apply to the intelligence and security services. Campaigners and MPs argued that proposed exemptions risked hollowing out the Bill’s central purpose. After intense pressure, the government withdrew the contested clause and paused the Bill’s progress, leaving its future timetable uncertain.
The Parliamentary process - and where it stalled
Timeline of Parliamentary progress
- 16 September 2025 – The government introduces the Public Office (Accountability) Bill in the House of Commons. The Ministry of Justice publishes accompanying fact sheets, impact assessments and equalities analyses explaining the Bill’s aims and expected effects.
- 3 November 2025 – The Bill clears its Second Reading in the Commons with broad cross‑party support.
- Late 2025 – The Bill proceeds to Public Bill Committee, where MPs conduct detailed clause‑by‑clause scrutiny. An amended version of the Bill is published on 4 December 2025.
- 14 January 2026 – The Report Stage and Third Reading are initially scheduled but postponed.
- 19 January 2026 – The government again delays the Bill’s return to the Commons, citing the need to reassess provisions affecting national security and intelligence agencies.
- Mid‑January 2026 – Following backlash from MPs, campaigners and bereaved families, the government withdraws a controversial amendment and removes the Bill entirely from the Commons agenda. No new date for resumption is announced.
Where the process broke down
After passing its Second Reading, the Bill moved into detailed scrutiny in a Public Bill Committee, where MPs examined how its proposed duties, offences and safeguards would operate in practice. By early December 2025, the government appeared confident that the Bill was on course to complete its Commons stages early in the new year.
That confidence has been diluted in January 2026. The immediate cause was Clause 6, which addressed how the new duty of candour and assistance would apply to the intelligence services. As drafted, the clause placed the duty primarily on agencies as corporate bodies and allowed only the head of an intelligence service - such as MI5 or MI6 - to authorise whether individual officers could be compelled to provide candid evidence. Some commentators worried that in practice, individual accountability could be blocked by senior leadership.
This worry has triggered criticism. Some MPs, legal commentators and campaign groups argued that it created a de facto exemption that contradicted the Bill’s stated aim of preventing state cover‑ups. The campaign group Hillsborough Law Now, alongside families affected by the Hillsborough disaster and the Manchester Arena bombing, criticised the clause as a “carve‑out” that risked repeating the very injustices the legislation was designed to prevent.
As opposition hardened, more than twenty Labour MPs signalled they could not support the Bill with the clause intact. Faced with the prospect of a significant rebellion, the government withdrew the amendment, pulled the Bill from the parliamentary timetable, and committed to further discussions with campaigners and bereaved families to renegotiate the appropriate scope of the duty for national security bodies.
What the Hillsborough Law would do
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill is deliberately wide‑ranging. Its long title reflects an ambition not merely to impose new duties, but to recalibrate the balance of power between the state and those affected by state failure.
According to the Bill text, explanatory notes and Ministry of Justice policy documents, the legislation would:
- Create a statutory duty of candour and assistance requiring public authorities and public officials to act with honesty, transparency and frankness when engaging with inquiries, inquests and investigations into state conduct.
- Establish enforcement mechanisms to ensure that the duty is meaningful, including criminal offences for serious breaches of the duty and for deliberately misleading the public.
- Replace the common‑law offence of Misconduct in Public Office with clearer, modern statutory offences designed to provide greater legal certainty while maintaining robust accountability.
- Require public authorities to promote and maintain ethical conduct, including through internal governance arrangements and codes of conduct.
- Introduce parity of representation for bereaved families at inquests involving public authorities, funded through a significant expansion of legal aid, so that families are not left facing the state’s legal teams without equivalent support.
The Ministry of Justice has described the Bill as a response to repeated findings across multiple public inquiries that public bodies too often default to defensiveness, selective disclosure and reputation management when under scrutiny, rather than full and proactive cooperation.
Clause‑by‑clause themes highlighted in scrutiny
While the latest compromise language for the intelligence services is pending, Committee scrutiny and the official materials surface several operational themes that matter to practitioners and leaders:
- Scope of “public authorities” & officials. The duty is expected to reach across the public sector and those performing public functions - with debate continuing at the margins about private entities delivering public functions (e.g., outsourced services).
- Enforcement architecture. The Bill envisages a combination of criminal offences, organisational codes/ethics frameworks, and mechanisms to enable participation of affected persons in inquiries/investigations where state conduct is in issue.
- Parity of Arms (legal aid). The MoJ materials describe the largest expansion of bereavement‑related inquest legal aid in a decade, making it non‑means‑tested where a public authority is an “interested person”- addressing the longstanding imbalance between families and state‑funded teams.
- Transition from common law to statute. Replacing Misconduct in Public Office with clearer statutory offences responds to criticism that the common‑law offence was uncertain and over‑broad.
- Candour vs national security. The unresolved drafting question is how the duty will bind security and intelligence bodies (and their officers) while safeguarding privilege, public interest immunity, and national security. The government’s first attempt (now withdrawn) concentrated liability at the corporate level and required head‑of‑service authorisation for individual candour - an approach critics said undermined accountability.
For legal teams planning ahead, recent practitioner analysis contrasts the proposed duty with the common‑law “cards face up” duty of candour in judicial review, and explores foreseeable litigation flash‑points (e.g., privilege boundaries, PII).
What’s next - and what it means in practice
With the intelligence services provisions unresolved, the Bill is currently paused in the House of Commons. For it to become law, it must still complete its Report Stage and Third Reading, pass through the House of Lords, receive Royal Assent, and be brought into force through commencement regulations, potentially on a phased basis.
The House of Commons Library has confirmed that no new date has been scheduled for the Bill’s return, and progress now depends on whether the government can reach agreement on how to apply the duty of candour to national security bodies without undermining either accountability or legitimate security concerns.
Analysts note that the outcome of this debate will be decisive. A narrowly drafted exemption risks weakening the Bill’s credibility, while overly rigid provisions could face resistance on security grounds. The government has indicated that it intends to use the pause to co produce revised wording with campaigners and families rather than impose a unilateral solution.
