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Coroners and Justice Bill

I will not give way as I am pressed for time. In 2004, the Law Commission published its report ““Partial Defences to Murder””. That was followed by its fundamental review of murder and manslaughter in 2006. The Bill is a piecemeal, fragmented and unsatisfactory approach to the issues of murder, infanticide and suicide. I listened carefully to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon, who is an expert on criminal law. As well as putting in a strong bid to serve in Committee, he gave some good reasons why this aspect of the Bill needs to be improved. A step-by-step approach is not good enough. As my hon. and learned Friend said so eloquently, in spite of the Government's good intentions, there are always dangers in simply cherry picking important, carefully reasoned and crafted, but highly controversial Law Commission proposals. That is why we must examine those provisions carefully. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire has some excellent ideas for combating the existence of overseas suicide sites. Surprisingly, the Government did not properly consult on the provisions on suicide, and they must be looked at again in much more detail. The Government did consult on sentencing, but I agree with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) that we need to look carefully at what really works, especially when it comes to community sentencing. We have no problems with plans for a sentencing council, but we are concerned about the guidelines that it will issue. At the moment, the courts are required to have regard to the guidelines, but in future they will have to follow the guidelines unless satisfied that to do so would be contrary to the interests of justice. That is a proposal for strict compliance and I share the concerns about that have been raised by the Bar Council, the Magistrates' Association and many other organisations. The Bill contains some good ladders, but it has one appalling snake—it is a 50-ft python—in the form of the data protection proposals, and I hope that the Government will rethink that part of the Bill. I will not rehearse the arguments now, but the proposals are very worrying, because they would undermine the whole essence of the data protection legislation. That is why so many Members on the Opposition Benches have spoken against them. We have several expert lawyers on the Conservative Benches. I am surrounded by top QCs and other lawyers, and we will do what we can to help the Government to improve this ill thought-out and flawed Bill. We will do our best to make it better legislation.