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Coroners and Justice Bill

The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has suggested that this is essentially about the Government trying to remove a responsibility from juries simply because juries would find it too difficult to deal with and because it is too difficult for judges to direct juries. I disagree that judges will not be able to direct juries. Judges are perfectly used to directing juries about what they can and cannot consider—they do it every day in court. It is not beyond the ability of judges to tell juries that sexual infidelity cannot be a qualifying trigger for a loss of self-control. If something else is relied on as the qualifying trigger, any sexual infidelity that forms part of the background can be considered but it cannot be the trigger. That is essentially what the legislation seeks to do—to stop the act of sexual infidelity being the trigger that enables people to say that these are extremely serious and grave circumstances.