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Research & Analysis Published 23 Feb 2026 ↗ View on Parliament

Offence of misleading the public: Public Office (Accountability) Bill — House of Lords Library

Clause 11 creates a new offence of misleading the public, designed to capture the most serious incidents such as the behaviour seen after Hillsborough.

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Offence of misleading the publicPublic Office (Accountability) Bill - House of Lords Library

Table of contents

1. Overview of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill

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2. Clause 11: Offence of misleading the public

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3. Debate in the House of Commons on clause 11

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4. Read more

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Approximate read time10 minutes

The House of Lords is scheduled to consider the following question for short debate on 26 February 2026:

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party) to ask His Majesty’s Government why Members of Parliament and members of the House of Lords are excluded from clause 11, “Offence of misleading the public”, of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill; and what consideration they have given to removing this exclusion.

1. Overview of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill

The

Public Office (Accountability) Bill

would implement a Labour manifesto commitment to introduce a ‘Hillsborough Law’, which would “place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, and provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths”.

[1]

The law takes its name from the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in which 97 people died and hundreds were injured following a fatal crush of Liverpool football fans at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield.

[2]

Since the disaster, and following investigations into it, there have been several calls for legislation to improve the treatment of survivors and their families in disasters such as Hillsborough. A 2024 Joint Committee on Human Rights report noted that:

The terrible suffering of the families of the 97 people who died in the Hillsborough disaster was compounded by a protracted failure over the following decades to uncover and acknowledge the truth of what happened and the mistakes made, and to start to apply some of the lessons learnt.

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The government introduced the Public Office (Accountability) Bill in the House of Commons on 16 September 2025. The bill would give effect to the Labour Party’s manifesto commitment.

[4]

The bill’s provisions include:

creating a statutory “duty of candour and assistance” (a legal obligation to act transparently) for public authorities and officials when engaging with inquiries, inquests and similar investigations

creating a framework to ensure ethical conduct in public authorities, including mandatory codes of conduct

creating new criminal offences of failing to uphold the duty of candour and assistance, and misleading the public

creating two new statutory offences to replace the common law offence of misconduct in public office

making provision for legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths; this would be done by expanding non-means tested legal aid to bereaved families for inquests in England and Wales where a public authority is an ‘interested person’

The passing of the legislation has been delayed based on concerns about how some of the measures would work. This relates to debate over how the bill’s provisions would apply to intelligence services. The government introduced amendments on this issue ahead of its scheduled report stage on 19 January 2026, but then announced that report would be postponed. In an oral statement in the House of Commons, Alex Davies-Jones, parliamentary under secretary of state for justice, said “it is clear from our conversations with the families directly and with the stakeholders that there are concerns about how the accompanying safeguards we proposed will work in practice”.

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She said the government was delaying the bill “so that we can find a solution and bring it forward in this House”.

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It has been reported since that an agreement with the families on the amendments may not be reached before the end of the session.

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2. Clause 11: Offence of misleading the public

The bill would create new offences, including an offence of misleading the public. Clause 11(1) states that:

(1) A public authority or public official commits an offence if, in their capacity as such an authority or official—

(a) they act with the intention of misleading the public or are reckless as to whether their act will do so, and

(b) they know, or ought to know, that their act is seriously improper.

Clauses 11(2) and (3) set out when an act would be considered seriously improper. An act would have to be considered by a “reasonable person” to be seriously improper, “taking account of all the circumstances of the case”. It would also have to meet the conditions under clause 11(3) that the act:

(a) involved dishonesty that was significant or repeated (whether by means of falsehood, concealment, obfuscation or otherwise) in respect of matters of significant concern to the public,

(b) caused, or contributed to causing, harm to one or more other persons, or had the potential to do so, and

(c) departed significantly from what is to be expected in the proper exercise of the person’s functions as a public authority or public official.

Under clause 11(4)(a), the clause would not apply to an act done “by a person in the exercise, or purported exercise, of functions relating to Scottish devolved matters, Welsh devolved matters or Northern Ireland devolved matters”. Clause 11(4)(b) includes an exception for the purposes of journalism by “a recognised news publisher” or people in the course of working for such publisher.

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Under clause 11(5) a person who commits an offence under clause 11 would be liable:

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years or a fine (or both).

Clause 11(6) provides for a defence for a person charged with an offence under clause 11:

(a) to prove that the act constituting the offence was necessary for the proper exercise of any function of—

(i) an intelligence service, or

(ii) the armed forces when engaged on active service, or

(b) to show that they otherwise had a reasonable excuse for their act.

Under clause 11—and the provisions of part 2 of the bill establishing the duty of candour—‘public authority’ and ‘public official’ link to the definitions given in part 2 of schedule 2 of the bill.

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Part 2 of schedule 2 provides a list of public authorities, including government departments and ministers of the crown, police forces, local authorities and NHS bodies. Schedule 2 paragraph 2(4) sets out which bodies are considered excluded bodies, which includes both the House of Commons and House of Lords.

A public official is defined in schedule 2 paragraph 3 as an individual who works for a public authority, otherwise holds office under a public authority, or does not fall under either of these but holds a ‘relevant public office’. ‘Relevant public office’ is defined by other provisions in paragraph 3.

The government’s equalities impact assessment for the bill states that the offence of misleading the public is designed to capture “the most serious incidents”.

[10]

It sets out the intended scope of the offence as follows:

The offence is targeted at misleading the public, and will not apply to individual interactions. It is intended to have limited implications for frontline health, education and local government workers in their daily work—only capturing cases of widespread cover-up, and serious dishonesty.

To have committed the offence, a public authority or official must have (i) acted with the intention to mislead the public or be reckless as to whether their actions would do so and (ii) known, or ought to have known, that their act was seriously improper. By “reckless”, we mean the criminal standard of a person acting with the knowledge that there is a risk that they might mislead the public and taking that risk without reasonable justification. It does not include accidental mistakes or inaccuracies.

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The bill’s impact assessment says the offence of misleading the public was “aimed squarely at those who aim to mislead the public or cover up the truth. It has been designed with Hillsborough at the front of mind”.

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The impact assessment gave the following examples:

For example, the chief executive of a hospital instructing staff to lie to the press about a major incident in order to avoid criticism, or a police force issuing a public statement that they know gives a false account of events.

[13]

3. Debate in the House of Commons on clause 11

There was limited discussion during the bill’s second reading and committee stage about why the government had drafted clause 11 to exclude both Houses of Parliament from the definition of public authority.

[14]

The government set out its reasons for why the bill was drafted in this way. During committee stage, Alex Davies-Jones, parliamentary under secretary at the Ministry of Justice, said that the definition of “public authority” under part 2 of the bill excluded Parliament to reflect “long-standing constitutional conventions of self-regulation and independence”:

Part 2 of [schedule 2] sets out the definitions of “public authority” and “public official” for the purposes of the duty of candour and assistance and the offence of misleading the public. These are broad definitions that are intended to capture anyone, including private companies, who exercises a public function.

Paragraph (2)(4) sets out that there are express reservations for the courts, Parliament and the devolved legislatures, reflecting long-standing constitutional conventions of self-regulation and independence. The north-south bodies established under the Good Friday agreement are also excluded to avoid capturing officials in the Irish government.

[15]

Some MPs want the scope of clause 11 to be extended to include members of both the House of Commons and House of Lords. For example, Luke Myer (Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) has tabled amendments ahead of the bill’s report stage to this effect.

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In addition, Sky News has reported that some MPs believe it would help the public’s perception of politicians.

[17]

For example, it quoted Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour MP for Poole) as saying “MPs shouldn’t be above the law. Politicians have such a low standing with the public and that’s got to change”.

However, concern has also been expressed about the potential impact of clause 11. For example, speaking at the bill’s second reading, Mike Wood (Conservative MP for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) argued that unless the definitions used by the offence were “watertight” it could subject ministers to “politically motivated lawfare”.

[18]

Sky News also reported that the government argued MPs and peers should be exempt because they do not make decisions on behalf of the state.

[19]

4. Read more

House of Commons Library, ‘

Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2024–26Progress of the bill

’, 20 January 2026

House of Commons Library, ‘

Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2024–26

’, 23 October 2025

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