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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I wholly support this series of amendments. I find it quite extraordinary that the coroners service should be outside the Courts Service. I have previously told your Lordships that I spent part of my youth in a coroner’s office, where I was articled, and that my principal was the coroner for Denbighshire. He sat on the Gresford colliery disaster inquest, which is probably one of the biggest that this country has ever seen. He sat in all sorts of places and it was most unsatisfactory. Today we are supposed to be updating the system. In north Wales, we had for a period a full-time north Wales coroner. I think, although I am not sure, that there are now two—one for north-east Wales and one for north-west Wales. There are some eight local government organisations and, of course, they are subject to the Welsh Assembly. Local government is devolved, so we have a position in my part of the world whereby the coroner is selected, paid, controlled, disciplined and so on by the Lord Chancellor’s department, but is also paid for by a devolved organisation. I do not know how they split it, but it is an extraordinary muddle. The only reason for this can be that the Ministry of Justice simply does not want to take on the expense of court buildings. However, magistrates’ courts are closed all over the place. There are plenty of buildings and plenty of empty courts today in the Crown Court, as I am told. Certainly, in north Wales there are ample opportunities for a proper coroner service to be given to the people. I look forward to hearing from the Minister whether there is any reason, save that of cost and budgets, which would prevent the very sensible reform proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, being accepted. He has our full support.