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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I support these amendments, to which I have attached my name, having had concerns raised with me by the Magistrates’ Association. My noble friend Lord Tenby is unable to speak today, but in Committee he spoke eloquently about his concerns as a long-standing magistrate and a representative of magistrates’ voices in your Lordships’ House. In 2003 the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, announced that the Government were to spend £4 million to recruit a more diverse magistracy. He described magistrates as the cornerstone of the justice system. However, surely by whittling away at the power of magistrates we risk devaluing their work and making it less attractive and more difficult to recruit to. Indeed, much of magistrates’ work has been taken away from them by the increase in the use of out-of-court settlements and penalties. I apologise for not being present earlier in the debate. I was co-hosting a meeting for young people in Portcullis House. At that meeting, Moira Gibb, the chair of the Social Work Task Force appointed by the Government, spoke about social work and the dire lack of social workers. There is a 33 per cent vacancy rate in some London boroughs. She said that social work has become too mechanistic, with too much box-ticking and centralised control. A recent authoritative report, the Cambridge Primary Review, said: ""Investment in primary education has risen dramatically and many recent policies have had a positive impact"." It goes on: ""The principle that it is not for government or government agencies to tell teachers how to teach, abandoned in 1997, should be reinstated"." The report calls for, ""top-down control and edict to be replaced by professional empowerment, mutual accountability and proper respect for research and experience"." I submit that there is a pattern to this. There is a whittling down of the people on the front line who have experience and the ability to make judgments and take the best decision for the case in hand. That is all the more reason to support the amendments.