Mr.
Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for her
explanation of the amendments’ raison d’être, but
I have one question for her. We have had a long time to get the Bill
right, including a three-year gap between the draft Bill and the Bill
before us, so will she tell us where the amendments came from? They are
sensible amendments, but I should like to know whether she suddenly
thought them up herself or whether she was lobbied by various
organisations. What is their
provenance?
Bridget
Prentice: The hon. Gentleman is right that this Bill has
had a long incubation period. I cannot remember exactly the provenance
of the amendments, but I suspect that having had all that time to mull
the proposals over, the Coroners Society, among others, might have seen
a gap such as that in the example that I have just given in the time. I
shall tell the Committee in writing where we dreamed up the
amendments.
Mr.
Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for that. May I
suggest that in future she gives us the amendments, so that we can
table them and get the
credit? Amendment
24 agreed
to. Clause
31, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Schedule
8Investigation
by Chief Coroner or by judge at Chief Coroner’s
invitation Amendments
made: 25, in schedule 8, page 135,
line 35, leave out sub-paragraph (1) and
insert—
‘(1) If requested to do so by the Chief
Coroner, the Lord Chief Justice may nominate a person within
sub-paragraph (1A) to conduct an investigation into a person’s
death. (1A) A person is within
this sub-paragraph if at the time of the nomination he or she
is— (a) a judge of the
High Court, (b) a Circuit
judge, or (c) a person who has
held office as a judge of the Court of Appeal or of the High Court (but
no longer does so), and is
under the age of 75. (1B) The
Chief Coroner may request a person who at the time of the
request— (a) has held
office as a senior coroner (but no longer does so),
and (b) is under the age of
75, to conduct an investigation
into a person’s
death.’. Amendment
26, in
schedule 8, page 136, line 1, leave
out from beginning to ‘has’ in line 3 and
insert ‘If a person nominated or
requested under this paragraph agrees to conduct the
investigation— (a) that
person is under a duty to do
so; (b) that
person’. Amendment
27, in
schedule 8, page 136, line 9, leave
out ‘judge nominated under this paragraph’ and
insert ‘person who has been
nominated or requested under this paragraph to conduct an investigation
and has agreed to do
so’. Amendment
28, in
schedule 8, page 136, line 15, leave
out ‘a person who is not a senior coroner’ and
insert ‘the Chief Coroner or some
other person who is a judge of the High Court or a Circuit judge, or by
a person who has held office as a judge of the Court of Appeal or of
the High
Court’. Amendment
29, in
schedule 8, page 136, line 21, leave
out paragraphs (a) and (b) and
insert— ‘(a) where the
person mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a)
is— (i) a judge of the
High Court, or (ii) a person
who has held office as a judge of the Court of Appeal or of the High
Court, a judge of the Court of
Appeal; (b) otherwise, a judge
of the High Court.’.—(Bridget
Prentice.) Schedule
8, as amended, agreed
to.
Clause
32Guidance
by the Lord
Chancellor Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to consider new
clause 17— Report to Lord
Chancellor ‘(1) The Chief
Coroner must give to the Lord Chancellor an annual report
which— (a) contains
matters that the Chief Coroner wishes to bring to the attention of the
Lord Chancellor, (b) includes
matters which the Lord Chancellor has asked the Chief Coroner to
include in the report, (c)
contains an assessment for that year of the consistency of standards
between the coroner areas, (d)
contains a summary for that year of the number, nature and outcome of
appeals under section 30,
and (e) contains a summary of
the recommendations made by senior coroners under paragraph 6(1) of
Schedule 4.
(2) A report covering one year must be given to the
Lord Chancellor by 1 July the following
year. (3) The Lord Chancellor
must publish all reports provided under this section and must lay a
copy before each House of Parliament within 60 days of receiving a copy
of the
report.’. 9
pm
Jenny
Willott: The new clause is closely related to the point
raised a few minutes ago by the hon. Member for Stafford as it concerns
the transparency, openness and accountability of the system on which
the Committee took a lot of evidence as it was raised by a number of
witnesses. We looked particularly at how to ensure that the system
identifies patterns, not just in situations such as Hillsborough, where
there are many people in a similar area, but in cases across the UK in
which similar verdicts are recorded by different coroners. That will
help us to tackle broader medical or health and safety issues as they
arise. The new clause would place a duty on the chief coroner to
produce an annual report that would be provided to the Lord Chancellor,
who would be obliged to publish it and lay it before the House of
Commons, so that it would be openly available and there would be
opportunities for much broader oversight of any issues
arising.
As the hon.
Member for Stafford said, there are many examples around the world of
coroners’ systems that operate effectively and openly, in which
lessons are learned in a much more transparent fashion than has been
the case up to now in the UK. He gave as examples the systems in New
South Wales and Ontario, Canada, where verdicts and recommendations are
made publicly available and are widely disseminated so that lessons can
be learned and patterns identified. The new clause attempts to do
something similar here.
I am prepared
to accept that the Minister might not like the wording of the new
clause, but I would be grateful if she gave her views on what could be
done to ensure that we identify broader patterns as they occur across
the UK, pick up on recommendations that coroners have made in different
coronial areas, and ensure that greater transparency and accountability
is built into the
system.
Bridget
Prentice: I hope that I can give the hon. Lady some
assurances. I think that there are sufficient powers elsewhere in the
Bill dealing with making annual reports. For example, clause 33(3)(d)
and (e) allows for regulations to be made on the provision and
disclosure of information, and for the Lord Chancellor or the chief
coroner to require information from senior coroners. That measure will
enable that information to be collated and published. I can also
confirm that the regulations are likely to include the matters that the
hon. Lady proposes in new clause 17. For example, each year the chief
coroner will have to provide a report to the Lord Chancellor with an
assessment of different coroners’ performance and on a range of
other issues, which will then be published. That covers some of the
hon. Lady’s examples. Having said that, there is no great
principle at stake here, and although I will not undertake now to table
a Government amendment at a later stage, I will reflect before Report
on what the hon. Lady has
said. I
will touch on clause 32 stand part. While we have argued and discussed
all other elements of the Bill, this clause is important in that it
gives the Lord Chancellor
the ability, for the first time, to issue statutory guidance on how the
coroner system is expected to operate in relation to interested
parties. For the purpose of clause 32 interested parties
include a spouse, a civil partner, a partner, a parent, a child, a
brother, a sister, a grandparent, a grandchild, the child of a brother
or sister, a stepfather, a stepmother, a half-brother and a
half-sister. A full list is in clause
36. We
anticipate that the first guidance that the Lord Chancellor issues will
be the charter for the bereaved, and that is why I wish to speak a
little on this now. We published a revised draft charter along with the
Bill, and I am grateful for the many positive comments that hon.
Members have made about it. That charter will set out the services that
bereaved families can expect to receive under a reformed system and the
means of redress if those services are not met, and it highlights other
opportunities that families will have for involvement. Equally, it sets
out families’ responsibilities, including information to be
provided to the coroner. Given that our immediate aim for reform is to
improve the service that bereaved people receive, the charter is
specifically for the bereaved. However, it is likely that guidance will
be issued on other aspects of, and participants in, coroners’
investigations, such as non-professional witnesses who have been
involved blamelessly, in transport crashes for example. This clause is
central to our aim to standardise and improve the service that bereaved
people receive from the reformed coroner system and on that basis I
commend the clause to the
Committee. Question
put and agreed
to. Clause
32 accordingly ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clauses
33 and 34 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
35Abolition
of the office of coroner of the Queen’s
household Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to consider new
clause 8— Transfer of the office of coroner of the
Queen’s
household— ‘The office
of coroner of the Queen’s household will, at the retirement of
the present incumbent, be transferred to the Chief
Coroner.’.
Mr.
Bellingham: Clause 35 abolishes the office of coroner of
the Queen’s household. The current holder of that office is
Michael Burgess, who is also HM coroner for Surrey. We discussed
earlier the great historic nature of the traditional post of coroner.
The post of coroner to the King or Queen’s household is also an
ancient one and I have worked out that it dates back to William I. It
would be a great pity if it were abolished without good reason. Was
this measure recommended in the June 2003 Luce report? What sort of
discussions have take place between the Ministry of Justice and the
Palace, at the time of that report and subsequently? I am well aware
that there have been issues more recently, particularly relating to the
summoning of a suitable jury in the inquest of the late Diana Princess
of Wales. That obviously posed challenges. I suppose it could be argued
that the exclusive nature of the office is difficult
to integrate with the new national framework that is being put in place,
and I understand why the Government may be keen to look at how the
office has been held by different coroners throughout the country in
the past. At the moment, it is held by the Surrey coroner, who will
become the senior coroner for that
area. I
am suggesting that, instead of getting rid of the post completely, it
might be more sensible to retain it, because from time to time
important and sensitive matters will have to be dealt with concerning
the Queen’s or King’s household. It is important not to
abolish the office, but to transfer it to the chief coroner. Under our
amendment, the chief coroner would also be the Coroner of the
Queen’s Household, which makes a great deal of
sense.
Alun
Michael: I am intrigued by the hon. Gentleman’s
suggestion, which seems to run counter to the developments in the Bill.
He referred to the fact that the Bill establishes a national framework,
but it does not establish a national organisation. The purpose of my
earlier questions to the Minister was to clarify that the amendments
that she moved a short time ago were to extend the judicial competence
of the chief coroner, not to give the chief coroner an organisational
responsibility. The chief coroner is a judge, so he is not necessarily
competent to run anything. I say that with some feeling, because I was
the first Minister to be a member of a jury when the legislation
changed to allow MPs and Ministers to be members of juries. The
experience did not increase my confidence in the capability of judges
to run
anything. The
hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we pass responsibility to the chief
coroner, who would then have to run something and to be the coroner,
instead of merely being the overseer or regulator of the coronial
service. Surely the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion is inconsistent
with the rest of the
Bill.
Mr.
Bellingham: With respect, the right hon. Gentleman
overestimates how onerous the duties of the Coroner of the
Queen’s Household are. Mr. Burgess, who is currently
the Coroner of the Queen’s Household and the Surrey coroner,
probably spends 1 per cent. of his time dealing with the former office.
It is much more a ceremonial post, and if the Government are keen to
move it away from the senior coroners, I am suggesting that they keep
the great ceremonial office in place. I know that the right hon.
Gentleman is keen on getting rid of a lot of things, but I am more of a
traditionalist.
Alun
Michael: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is suggesting
that the new post, which is innovative, should take on that activity,
but surely he is describing a local coroner having responsibility as
Coroner of the Queen’s Household. He is being far more dramatic
and innovative than I
am.
Mr.
Bellingham: I am suggesting a compromise. I understand why
the Government want to take the post away from what will be senior
coroners. They want to tidy up the system. I do not know whether Luce
suggested this in his report—the Minister may be able to touch
on that—but one way of keeping alive a great historic,
albeit a mainly ceremonial office would be to transfer it to the chief
coroner, which would be neat. The Minister may say that my new clause
is unnecessary, and that she will think again and keep the post of
Coroner of the Queen’s Household with the senior
coroners.
Jenny
Willott: As well as the ceremonial functions, an
operational function can be invoked. If the Government abolish the
post, is the hon. Gentleman clear about where the operational side
would go and who would be responsible for
that?
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