IT WAS the kind of speech that stops you in your tracks. Not least because the powerful, emotional, occasionally snarling tirade against every institution condemned at the Hillsborough inquest was delivered by an MP. Not the kind of person who tends to get hot under the collar about very much these days.

Indeed, as Secretary of State for Media, Culture and Sport, Andy Burnham was heckled by Liverpool fans commemorating the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, in which 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at an FA Cup semi-final.

According to a newspaper account of the 2009 commemoration service: “A brooding discontent began to sound around the ground as Burnham’s first words emerged from the public address system.

“‘This,’ he said of Hillsborough, ‘was an entirely man-made disaster, a horror not diminished by the passage of time.’ But almost before he could complete his first sentence, the heckles and jeers had formed themselves into a lengthy and prolonged mass chant of “Justice for the 96”. The politician was drowned out.”

Yesterday in the Commons, however, Andy Burnham was heard in silence. Perhaps those difficult moments at Anfield brought home to him more than anyone else the enormity of Hillsborough, the enduring hurt and the massive resentment caused by the cover-up that was finally exposed by the “unlawful killing” verdict. The Leigh MP told MPs the cover-up had been “advanced in the committee rooms of this House and the press rooms of 10 Downing Street. It persisted because of collusion between elites in politics on both sides, police and the media. There must be no holding back in pursuing prosecutions”.

But that’s easier said than done – on both sides of the Border.

Burnham demanded several urgent changes to the law in England to ensure guilty authorities can’t escape scrutiny so easily again. But according to campaigning lawyer Aamer Anwar, exactly the same changes are needed in Scotland too.

Burnham’s first big ask is to demand legal aid funding for families involved in inquests (in England) or Fatal Accident Inquiries (FAIs) here. According to Deborah Coles, co-director of the campaigning charity Inquest: “Scotland – like England and Wales – has a lengthy and intrusive process to get funding for families who want to challenge the official account of a death which occurred in the care of the state. The truth about Hillsborough arose only because there was finally an equality of representation and legal argument – before this, police officers and chief constables were defended by teams of top lawyers funded by the state whilst the families were not.”

Aamer Anwar supports the call for a change in the law north and south of the border, so the family of anyone who dies in the care of the state is automatically granted non-means-tested legal representation. Currently, legal aid for families to contest an FAI is available but determined “by probable cause” – whatever that means. Moreover, according to Anwar, the FAI is often too late to ensure the state will press ahead with a criminal prosecution. “You need campaigning lawyers involved from the start. If families wait for due process they are often too late to get justice. But at the start no legal aid is available.”

Anwar has represented the family of Sheku Bayoh since he died in police custody while being restrained by police on a Kirkcaldy street. Anwar has no expectation that these pre-FAI costs will ever be met. His three-year campaign on behalf of murdered waiter Surjit Singh Chhokar was conducted on the same basis. The Liverpool-born lawyer says: “It’s currently almost impossible to take on the might of the state and the Police Investigation Review Commission (PIRC) when there’s been a death in custody. In the case of Sheku, it took 32 days of continuous pressure before police officers even gave evidence.

“Meanwhile, information was drip-fed to the media, which left his family subject to fierce attack. Theresa May has announced an inquiry into the whole system of accounting for deaths in police custody. Scotland should do the same.”

Secondly, Burnham has called for reforms to stop public bodies “spending public money like water to protect themselves” in inquest hearings – often at the public’s expense. It’s common practice in Scotland too for the Police Federation and even the state to support senior police officers who are subject to legal challenge. Jack Grant, from the Law Society, says the NHS in Scotland habitually puts together a top team from its publicly funded Central Legal Office to defend medical negligence cases while families are left struggling to get legal aid. Will this uneven playing field be reviewed in Scotland?

Thirdly, Burnham demands a new law “ending the scandal of retirement as an escape route where wrongdoers claim full pensions”.

He wants a “Hillsborough clause” inserted into the forthcoming Justice Bill in England, stopping senior police officers from retiring before disciplinary action against them – and Theresa May has said she’s willing to discuss it. Shouldn’t the same restriction be applied in Scotland? According to Anwar, all nine of the police officers involved in the Sheku Bayoh case are currently off sick. Should they be able to retire on grounds of ill health before Bayoh’s case has been resolved? If not, what action is being taken to prevent that?

Finally, Burnham has demanded a second stage of the Leveson Inquiry to examine the Hillsborough families’ inability to tackle the Sun’s front page headline – THE TRUTH – which he said was guilty of “smearing a whole city in its moment of greatest grief”. Isn’t that something we should examine too?

Of course criminal investigations are under way now that may result in charges of gross misconduct, manslaughter, misconduct in public office, perverting the course of justice and perjury.

But it’s truly shocking to realise that this week’s landmark verdict might not have happened if Theresa May and the Tories had succeeded in ditching the Human Rights Act and withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). According to Deborah Coles, the second Hillsborough inquest has been a much broader process than the first – which returned a majority verdict of accidental death in 1991 – for one reason alone. It had to be compliant with Article Two of the ECHR, which upholds the right to life. She said: “Article Two places a duty on the state to investigate and ensure families have a central role. The Human Rights Act was fundamental in bringing this much more wide-ranging inquiry.”

Another reason Nicola Sturgeon was absolutely right to block Tory plans to scrap the Human Rights Act last year.

But will she – if re-elected – examine the legal shortcomings highlighted by the Hillsborough inquest so Scottish justice fights for families, not for the powers that be?

Alex Thomson, of Channel Four News, put it well: “You’ll never walk alone has been their anthem. Yet families of the victims have walked alone for 27 years.”

Let’s make sure such injustice is impossible in Scotland.