Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said she is confident disagreements with campaigners over a new law designed to stop cover-ups can be resolved before it returns to Parliament on Monday.The Hillsborough Law would introduce a legal obligation for public authorities to cooperate and tell the truth in inquiries.However, bereaved families and some Labour MPs have raised concerns the heads of security services would be able to exempt MI5 and MI6 officers from disclosing information.Nandy insisted security services would not be exempt from the legislation but she told the BBC the challenge was also ensuring officers, who often held confidential information, could continue to do their jobs.The draft law, formally known as the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, would place the same “duty of candour” on security service personnel as other public servants.However, under a change proposed by the government, this would be subject to the approval of the head of their service.Campaigners have argued this would allow those running security services to decide whether to disclose information and said they cannot support the bill in its current form.Elkan Abrahamson, a lawyer for the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, said this would leave them “unchallengeable”.He said it should be up to the head of an inquiry to decide whether information was relevant, adding there were already national security exemptions that allowed evidence to be heard in private.Families bereaved by the 2017 Manchester Arena attack have also called for the law to apply fully to security services.A public inquiry found MI5 had not given an “accurate picture” of the key intelligence it held on the suicide bom …
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnCulture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said she is confident disagreements with campaigners over a new law designed to stop cover-ups can be resolved before it returns to Parliament on Monday.The Hillsborough Law would introduce a legal obligation for public authorities to cooperate and tell the truth in inquiries.However, bereaved families and some Labour MPs have raised concerns the heads of security services would be able to exempt MI5 and MI6 officers from disclosing information.Nandy insisted security services would not be exempt from the legislation but she told the BBC the challenge was also ensuring officers, who often held confidential information, could continue to do their jobs.The draft law, formally known as the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, would place the same “duty of candour” on security service personnel as other public servants.However, under a change proposed by the government, this would be subject to the approval of the head of their service.Campaigners have argued this would allow those running security services to decide whether to disclose information and said they cannot support the bill in its current form.Elkan Abrahamson, a lawyer for the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, said this would leave them “unchallengeable”.He said it should be up to the head of an inquiry to decide whether information was relevant, adding there were already national security exemptions that allowed evidence to be heard in private.Families bereaved by the 2017 Manchester Arena attack have also called for the law to apply fully to security services.A public inquiry found MI5 had not given an “accurate picture” of the key intelligence it held on the suicide bom …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
