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Andy Burnham describes the Hillsborough tragedy, the police cover-up and smear campaign against fans that happened afterwards, and the long campaign by survivors, relatives and Liverpudlians for justice that has been running ever since as the story that has done most to shape his political outlook. As a young culture secretary, he gave a speech at the Hillsborough 20th anniversary memorial in 2009 which was instrumental in persuading him that the government had to redouble its efforts to ensure the full truth came out.

Today he is expected to give his first speech in the Commons since his election as MP for Makerfield in the debate on the Hillsborough law bill.

In an article for the Liverpool Echo , he says the Hillsborough law is about more than just a single football disaster; it is about changing the way power is distributed in Britain, and dismantling its unaccountability culture.

double quotation mark The truth on its own is not enough. Without accountability, there can be no justice. That is why I introduced the first Hillsborough Law almost ten years ago, supported by Keir Starmer, as one of my final acts in parliament. Its return this week is another major step towards ensuring no family has to endure what the Hillsborough families have endured.

Yet this is about more than Hillsborough alone.

The infected blood scandal. The nuclear test veterans. Grenfell. The Post Office scandal. Different tragedies, but too often the same pattern: institutions protecting themselves instead of the people they exist to serve.

Bishop James Jones described it perfectly as “the patronising disposition of unaccountable power”.

Those words have stayed with me ever since. The Hillsborough Law is our chance to begin dismantling that culture once and for all.

The lesson of Hillsborough goes beyond introducing a duty of candour. It asks us what kind of country we want to be. One where power is concentrated in distant institutions, or one where it is shared more fairly with the people and places those institutions are meant to serve. If an entire city could be ignored for two decades while telling the truth about the deaths of its own people, what other communities have gone unheard? Which voices have been overlooked simply because they lacked power?

For me, this has always been about changing that. It is why I believe we must continue to redistribute power, strengthen our towns and cities, and build a Britain where every community is treated with equal respect and where, in the face of injustice, nobody walks alone.

In the article, Burnham also recalls the impact of his speech at the 20th anniversary memorial.

double quotation mark On 15 April 2009, I stood on the Kop before the memorial service. One word echoed around Anfield : “Justice.”

That moment changed me. It forced me to confront uncomfortable questions about how power operates in our country, and why an entire city could spend twenty years telling the truth only to be ignored.

How could Liverpool be right all along, yet dismissed for so long? How could so many voices be raised, and so few people in authority be prepared to listen?