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Home Affairs and Justice

Indeed. I, too, wondered about the status of the document. There can be nothing of greater status than the words put into the mouth of Her Majesty when she delivers the Gracious Speech so I am puzzled about the relationship between the two documents. I am taking the uncharacteristically cynical view that the coroners Bill is not about to hit us. That is serious because coroners throughout the country know that the system they are trying to run is ramshackle although they are doing their best with it. The coroners who conducted the two inquiries into the Shipman affair both indicated that they believe the proposals made so far would not meet their concerns. The Government have an opportunity, but they are being seriously neglectful of a situation that affects many of our constituents. I do not argue that the answer is lots more inquests. The Committee took the view that we probably have rather too many inquests in the English jurisdiction—the Scottish jurisdiction does not have them at all; it has fatal accident inquiries, but only rarely. A larger number of inquests is not necessarily the answer. The system may not require a huge addition of resources but it requires much more coherence so that it does not miss Shipman-type cases altogether. I realise that the Government will make some reforms that can be carried out in a non-statutory way. I realise, too, that they have tried to address the serious problem of military inquests arising from Afghanistan and Iraq by giving more resources to the two coroners most affected—in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire—but that simply illustrates the creaking and ramshackle nature of the system. It is only through phone calls from Departments and offers of extra help that we can deal with things that the system should be capable of coping with already. The Government must return to that matter, and the Committee will continue to monitor what they are doing on that and other issues.