---

Coroners’ System and Death Certification

I shall come back to big incidents such as the Marchioness, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We always need people who can be deputies or work part-time. In a different context, the Church of England has a system whereby people who have been bishops elsewhere in the world or in England can be nominated as assistant bishops once they return to a particular diocese, and they then help out. Provided that they are willing and able, and still thought to be competent, people who have served as full-time coroners could be part-time or deputy coroners. We certainly need a back-up system; that is very important. It is clearly nonsense in this day and age—this is a topical point, but I shall not get into the difficulties of the issue—that we have a separate system for the royal household. I think that we all agree that there should be a common system for everybody, no matter where they come from. I am keen that we should keep a jury system where a set of issues or facts need to be resolved, or where a clear, potential conflict arises. It is difficult to say what triggers the use of a jury system—the point at which a coroner must decide whether something is a matter for a jury and not for them. I shall not pretend to give the answer, but we need a consensus about what triggers the point at which an inquest goes from being heard simply by a coroner to being heard in front of a jury. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed alluded to a similar point, which is that we must be clear about what triggers an inquest in the first place. A large number of inquests and post mortems take place in England and Wales. I am not suggesting that there are too many or that they are inappropriate, but it is not clear to the public, or even to many professionals, how the decision is taken after a death to hold an inquest or an inquest with jurors. I want to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for North Durham. We seem to need special arrangements in two or three types of case. The first such cases include that of the Marchioness. That was a huge local, regional and national tragedy, and people from all parts of the country were affected. The boats were owned by different people with companies registered in different places. The sinking actually happened in the middle of the River Thames, which is where the boundary between different local authorities lies. The boat ended up on the north side of the river, so it was dealt with by a coroner on the north side, but the collision probably took place in the middle. When there is a big case, such as a rail fatality or whatever, someone should be specially appointed for the purpose: a senior, tried-and-tested person who has the ability and experience to deal with it, and who has the confidence of the public. The Marchioness experience, which the Minister followed at one remove, was a terrible, traumatic one, and it was only when Labour came to power and the Deputy Prime Minister ensured that a public inquiry was held that the beginning of the end came to that failure to deal with the inability of people ever to get a say. They felt terribly badly treated by the first coroner, and in the end, they had to spend money to go to court to get that inquest overruled and ensure that a further one was held. We should avoid such situations. The second type relates to military deaths. It seems an anomaly that the Oxfordshire coroner has been dealing with military deaths that take place abroad, simply because the planes arrive at RAF Brize Norton, which is equipped to deal with families and the receiving of coffins—it does so well—but we need something with a broader base that does not require people to be dealt with there. If people on active service die abroad in the service of the country, we need the right system. We need expertise because coroners need to know about certain circumstances. The person in question needs to have experience, so it might be someone with experience in the services, as well as medical or legal experience. Thirdly, we need a system that looks after people where deaths occur abroad and the processes may have taken place abroad. I had a constituent called Jeremy Larkin, who died in the terrorist explosion at Sharm el-Sheikh a year and a half ago, when he was there with his girlfriend. His parents were intelligent, bright and committed, but they had a terrible time finding out what their rights were and how to go to Egypt to sort out the procedures and so on. I have raised the issue with Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, because it is partly a consular matter. However, we need to think through the system for dealing with British citizens or British residents where deaths occur abroad. We need a much clearer and more user-friendly system that supports people much better.