Should Parliament pass the Public Office (Accountability) Bill to create a Hillsborough Law?

What stands out is not that a duty of candour for public officials passed easily but that the strongest conviction came from the generation that lived through Hillsborough's aftermath as adults, not the one that grew up with it as history. All 23 of the 55-64s voted yes, a rarer thing on this platform than the headline four-to-one landslide itself.

Everyone else moved in the same direction, just with a little more hesitation. The youngest voters and the middle-aged were both solidly yes but not unanimously so, and men and women landed on exactly the same three-to-one split, suggesting this was never a question that cut along the usual gender lines. The 25-34s were the softest yes of any group, though still comfortably in favour.

The result speaks to a rare moment of cross-generational consensus on accountability in Britain, echoing the long, cross-party campaign that followed the Hillsborough inquests and the more recent arguments over whether the security services should ever be allowed exemptions from telling the truth to inquiries. That the amendment removing their carve-out came before the vote, not after, may explain why resistance here was so thin.

If there was a fight to be had over spooks and candour, it was fought and settled before this chamber ever got a ballot paper.