---

Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, the Minister described this Bill to your Lordships’ House as "wide-ranging". We take the view that it could be broken up into several Bills and that it would probably, as a consequence, get better scrutiny. I prefer to call this Bill a miscellany or even a farrago, redolent of Mr Churchill’s famous pudding. However, I want to start off on a positive note. The Minister announced that the Government have had second thoughts about the position of the treasure coroner and have decided to restore it. That was the position when the draft Bill was considered. I say on behalf of the Opposition that we welcome that move, as, I am sure, do many Members of your Lordships’ House. The first part of the Bill is devoted to the coroners’ service. Broadly speaking, we support what the Government have done. However, in some respects, we think that they have not gone far enough, particularly in relation to financial arrangements, by which I am referring not to the total amount of money to be devoted to the coroners’ service but to the way in which it is to be distributed. The coroners’ courts are not to be part of the Courts Service and therefore will not get its support. The Chief Coroner has no budget. Therefore, everything depends on the postcode lottery. I should like to take this matter further in the time that I have available in this Second Reading debate; but I know that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is lying in wait for the Minister further down the speaking list; in due course, the Minister will get a much fuller and more competent analysis of this problem than I am able to give this afternoon. Briefly, I also draw the Minister’s attention to a letter issued by the Marchioness Action Group on 23 April. It says a number of things, but I think that I can encapsulate its sense of direction in a few sentences. It says: ""The new Bill does not incorporate lessons learnt after the Marchioness, Shipman and Alderhay. It has retained the ‘old’ Coroners System with only a few ‘minor’ amendments to existing laws. We therefore question the validity of the new bill to achieve a duty of care to the bereaved"." Without addressing myself to the content of that statement, I feel that it needs a response from the Minister. The Minister well knows of the bona fides of this action group and the appalling experiences that its members have undergone. This issue of a duty of care to the bereaved—even if, at the end of the day, the Government do not feel that it is something that they can put on the face of the Bill—needs a powerful answer. I hope that the Minister will attempt to give such an answer at the end of the debate. He may feel that something fuller is more appropriate at a later stage of the Bill. Another matter to which I must direct my attention under Part 1 is the Government’s decision, last Friday, to withdraw Clauses 11 and 12. This decision was announced in a press release by the right honourable gentleman, Jack Straw.