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Coroners Bill

I, too, express thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for introducing this important topic and raising these issues of concern. In my early years as a solicitor, the head of my firm, Mr Maurice Evans, was Her Majesty’s Coroner for Denbighshire. In that capacity, he presided in 1938 over the inquest into the Gresford colliery disaster of 1934, when 264 miners lost their lives. The mine was sealed and none of the bodies was recovered. At that inquest, the miners’ union was represented by Sir Stafford Cripps QC and the coal owners by Sir Hartley Shawcross QC. Your Lordships will appreciate that, with lawyers of that standing, very serious consideration was given to the issues. All that happened was that the mine manager was prosecuted for destroying the records of the condition of the mine prior to the explosion. ““The Ballad of the Gresford Disaster”” recalls: ““The fireman’s reports all are missing The records of 42 days The colliery manager had them destroyed to cover his criminal ways. Down there in the dark they are lying They died for nine shillings a day They worked out their shift and now they must lie In the darkness until judgement day””. My noble friend Lord Hooson tells me that he went with my late father-in-law down the shaft and was shown where the miners had been bricked in. In my day, the part-time coroner, my partner, was on his own. His staff consisted of his secretary, and there was no other support. Inquests were held in any convenient court room. I am not sure how his fees were paid—I think that it was probably by the local authority. Funding varied, and still varies, all over the country. Nothing has changed. The terms of reference and the procedure remain the same. I recall the frustrations of appearing for grieving families but being denied, under the procedure, any right to address the coroner or his jury on the verdict. My role was confined simply to cross-examining the witnesses, and, of course, there was no legal aid. I shall be interested to see whether my colleague, Mr Michael Mansfield, is able to address Lord Justice Baker at the termination of the inquest into the death of the Princess of Wales and what he will say if he is not allowed to do so. So far as I am aware, the system has not changed over these years. It was Dame Janet Smith, in her inquiry into the Shipman murders to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred, who pointed out how archaic and ramshackle the system of coroners had become in this country. To be fair, I say that the Government took up the cause, admitting that the current inquests system was failing. Harriet Harman told Members of Parliament back in February 2006 that the system was archaic and said: "““Under the current coroner service, families frequently get overlooked during the inquest process. There is nowhere for them to turn when they think that something is going wrong; there is no complaints system. The system is fragmented, with no national leadership””.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/2/06; col. 607.]" She said that the changes that she was proposing would give families the right to contribute to coroners’ investigations. Those were very fine words but, although a draft Bill followed, there has not been a great deal of action since. Since that statement was made, we have seen problems, to which previous speakers have referred, with inordinate delays in inquests into the deaths of servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. The coroners for Oxfordshire and Wiltshire were unable to cope with the numbers and others had to be drafted in. Another area of equal concern is the deaths of vulnerable people in custody. In some of those cases, there have been delays of up to three years. Again, so far as I am aware, the same limitations on legal aid and representation persist. The proposals that the Government put forward in their draft Bill for a service of full-time coroners were heavily criticised in the report of the Constitutional Affairs Committee published on 1 August 2006. Crucially, the committee found, first, that the limitations of the local structure of the current system gave rise to an uneven distribution of resources, and under the draft Bill that would remain. It also called on the Government to address the problems of under-resourcing in the existing system in order to create solid foundations on which reforms could be built. It asked the Government to reform the structure of the coronial system by creating a national service with centralised and adequate funding so that all coroners would be able to work to the same high standards. Another recommendation of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred, was a charter for bereaved people. However, the Constitutional Affairs Committee noted that the, "““raised expectations of the bereaved may lead to severe disappointment in circumstances where serious under-resourcing and, therefore, variable standards in service are likely to persist as a result of inadequate funding for reform of the coronial system””." Its final point was about public health and safety. It recommended that the Government took a, "““bolder approach to reform of the coronial system, embodying in legislation an enhanced role in relation to public health and safety””." It is a matter of significant concern that there should be proper funds to carry out the recommendations that a coroner makes at the conclusion of an inquest. The matter was discussed when the coroners Bill was dropped from the Queen’s Speech. Your Lordships will recall that it had been mentioned in the series of measures announced in the mini-Queen’s Speech in July. Then, the coroners Bill was promised but that promise was simply not fulfilled. In the debate on the Queen’s Speech, my noble friend Lord Dholakia expressed his anger that the coroners Bill was not included, and he referred to the problems that I have already mentioned. He stressed: "““We need the introduction of a system for monitoring inquest verdicts and statutory obligations on public bodies to respond to the findings of an inquest””.—[Official Report, 12/11/07; col. 273.]" One problem is that a coroner makes recommendations but, unfortunately, they do not carry sufficient weight to be carried out by the public bodies to which the recommendations are addressed. The problems in relation to families were very well summarised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who in that same debate said that, by delaying the introduction of the Bill, "““the Government are acting directly against those whose cause they claim to champion; namely, victims, and in this case their own victims—the relatives of those who have died in custody””.—[Official Report, 12/11/07; col. 316.]" As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, have pointed out today, it is a scandal that families are left for such a long time before they learn about the circumstances in which their loved ones died in combat. I am glad that it is the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who is to respond because he assured the House in that debate that the Government remained committed to reform and that the Bill had been deferred rather than abandoned. He said: "““We will look to see what can be done in the mean time to strengthen the coroner process””.—[Official Report, 12/11/07; col. 336.]" I am not aware that any steps have been taken to strengthen the coroner process since we debated the matter last November, but I shall be interested to hear whether there are any plans in hand. We are anxious that this archaic system, which does not comply with so many modern standards of justice, should be thoroughly and properly reformed, that adequate resources are put into it, and in particular that the recommendations of coroners should be followed through as they were in relation to the inquest held in 1938 into the Gresford colliery disaster.