---

Coroners and Justice Bill

I support this amendment because the points which my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, have just raised need to be answered by the Government. I think that all of us have met with situations where people have died without loved ones and with no one else to represent them. One thinks of the parallel of the amicus curiae who can intervene and represent people in court when someone, for instance, is in a persistent vegetative state or when their long-term care is being considered. I signed this amendment because I had read recently in the newspaper of a case where someone had been found dead in their council flat. They had been left there for literally weeks on end undiscovered and had no relatives or friends. That seems precisely the kind of case that the coroner ought to be probing to discover where the culpability lay for the neglect of someone who was literally allowed to die unbefriended and uncared for. Many of us in the Chamber represented constituencies when we were in another place and, sadly, one did occasionally find that there are people living in a state of almost toxic loneliness. I think that it will be the great curse of the 21st century. It is estimated that some 1 million elderly people do not see a friend, neighbour or relative during the course of an average week. I think that this is an issue that we will have to contend with in the future. It would be good if the national coroner had the right to admit an organisation, such as Help the Aged, or an interest group that has been campaigning in some respect about some of these questions, in order to appear on behalf of the person whose case is being considered.