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Coroners and Justice Bill

It is not my primary intention to address the main question that has occupied the House so far in the course of this debate. That is not because I do not sympathise with the arguments put forward by my Front-Bench colleagues—I do, but they are able to deploy them effectively, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has demonstrated, and I feel no need to add to them. I would make two exceptions to that self-denying ordinance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The first arises out of an answer that the Lord Chancellor gave—I was very surprised to hear it—to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), when they were engaged in debating the meaning of the phrase, "the court is satisfied". My right hon. and learned Friend sought to place directly into the Bill the burden of proof required for the court to be satisfied, and the Lord Chancellor, to my very considerable surprise, said that it should be a "matter for the court". Surely that should be a matter for Parliament; it is for Parliament to lay down the burden of proof, particularly on an issue as important as this one. It would then be for the court to decide whether that burden of proof has been satisfied. This point was reinforced by an answer the Lord Chancellor gave to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). The main thrust of the Lord Chancellor's answer in that argument was that he was "lowering the bar" for the families, but how can we know whether the bar is being lowered if we do not know what burden of proof has to be met? There seemed to be a complete lack of consistency or, if I may say so, even logic, in that part of the Lord Chancellor's argument.