---

Coroners’ System and Death Certification

I thank my colleagues on the Committee and other hon. Members for their contributions, including the hon. Members for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and for North Durham (Mr. Jones), my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), and the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham). They all made valuable contributions. I also thank the Minister for her response. I hope that she will write to me about one or two of the points that she was unable to cover, such as post-mortems and religious objections to them, which I believe the Government are still considering. We all want to help her to get the Bill on the statute book, because we are conscious of how urgent the need for legislation is, but we cannot ignore the fundamental problems that we have identified. There can be few present who do not still feel uncertainty as to whether the chief coroner and the national structure can deliver very much if the complex resource and power problems that will remain in the system are not sorted out. Several of us who looked into this matter remain very dissatisfied with the idea of medical examiners being sited in the employing trust of the institution at which criticism may be directed at the inquest or in subsequent negligence proceedings. The right place for those medical examiners is in the coroner’s office. I genuinely believe that the Department of Health needs to sit down with the Department for Constitutional Affairs and work through this issue. The proposals are very good in many ways and will fill the gap that we were worried about, but they retain a fundamental weakness. I do not intend to leave the Minister alone on this; I shall continue to pester her, because I know that that will make her continue to pester her officials and Department of Health officials. We have to get this right and we have to get it right soon. Question put and agreed to.