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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I will in due course speak to Motion A1. I start by addressing Motion A because, without doing so, I cannot address Motion A1. I thank the Minister for his detailed explanation and for the assurances that he gave the House. I wish to put a few questions and seek a few further assurances, although he gave a number of them in his opening speech. I am grateful to the Minister for quoting my honourable friend in another place, particularly when he referred to the difficulty of introducing intercept evidence at this stage. However, to be fair to my honourable friend, I ought to complete the quotation. The Minister quoted him as saying that our party is, "““on the record on countless occasions as wishing to see intercept evidence available in criminal trials and at inquests””." The Minister then stopped. However, it is worth quoting the extra sentence that my honourable friend added, in which he made it quite clear: "““That is desirable and it is a shift that needs to take place””.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/11/09; col. 60.]" Having said that, we feel that we have taken the matter as far as we can in this Bill. I have no doubt that in future there will be further opportunities, in both this House and another, to consider the benefits of allowing intercept evidence to be heard in courts, including coronial courts. However, it is not necessarily a matter that we need to discuss further at this stage. Moving on to what my honourable friend Mr Grieve and my late noble friend Lord Kingsland referred to as the ““judicial lock””—my late noble friend made these points many months ago—the Minister has made an effort to meet this with Amendment 1B, which we are asked to agree in Motion A. As the Minister explained, the key addition is new paragraph (c), which provides that the Lord Chief Justice must indicate his approval to the Lord Chancellor of the appointment of a senior judge to chair an inquiry. In deciding whether to accept the amendment, we have to ask ourselves whether that is enough. If one were marking an exam paper, one would have to say that the noble Lord could have done slightly better, but we are grateful for what we have. We have asked for the route to be one of formal application and, in talks with the Lord Chancellor, the Government have given us the impression that it is too late in the passage of the Bill to insert that the Lord Chancellor must make an application to court for an inquest to be suspended and an inquiry to be established. That route was proposed some time ago, and I cannot see why the Government could not accept it. In fact, I wonder whether, if it was really something that they found attractive, they could not even now do something about it—but that possibly is too late. I leave that thought with the Minister. I turn to the amendment that the Minister has presented, on which I have a number of questions. First, what precisely in the amendment that he proposes does ““indicated approval”” mean? Clearly, there is no formal application in the sense of having judicial procedure through the courts. Would the exchanges between the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice be a matter for public record? I am encouraged by the apparent improvement in the language from Section 10 of the Inquiries Act 2005, which states that, when a figure is appointed to an inquiry, the Minister must merely consult the Lord Chief Justice. In the current amendment, we must have his approval. That suggests to me that the Lord Chief Justice must agree with the reasons given by the Minister for needing an inquiry. In asking the Minister to confirm that, can I ask him also to explain carefully the wording of the new paragraph? If the Lord Chief Justice does not approve ““that judge”” whose name has been put to him, what happens then? Is the Minister saying that another judge will be nominated for approval? If the Lord Chief Justice refuses to give his approval for any judge, because he felt that the case presented to him by the Lord Chancellor was not suitable to be heard at an inquiry, what would happen then? In the Commons, the Lord Chancellor said that, "““it goes without saying that I have to ask the Lord Chief Justice from time to time to nominate a judge; if he or she were to decide that no judge were to be nominated that would be the end of the matter””.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/11/09; col. 57.]" I believe that that is an ambiguous statement. It is the end of what matter? Does it mean that the Lord Chancellor would stop asking for an inquiry, as he would not have the approval of the Lord Chief Justice for a judge to be nominated, and accept that he had not made his case, or does it mean that he would simply ignore the Lord Chief Justice and push through an inquiry without an approved judge? I would welcome a clear statement on the record that, if the Lord Chief Justice does not approve a judge to chair an inquiry, there will not be an inquiry. I expect that the effect of the proposed mechanism is that the Minister, as I think he made clear in his opening statement, will be obliged to make a statement explaining what is going on and, in the words of my honourable friend in another place, explain to the House why an inquest was impossible, answer the hostile questioning of the House and allow Members of the House to express a view. We would expect nothing less than that—a chance for Parliament to be able to debate the matter. I think that the Minister was talking merely of a Written Statement, but I should be grateful for what he has to say. The last question that I wished to put to the Minister was on seeking confirmation that a judicial review would be available. However, since he has made it quite clear that it will be available, that is an assurance that I need not ask from the Minister. Having asked for those assurances, perhaps I may say that although it might be putting it too strongly to say that we endorse Motion A—it is an imperfect situation—we will not oppose its passage at this stage. The Government could have done better as they have been offered a great deal of advice. For us, to oppose it at this stage or to support it would not be the right way forward. I have some difficulty with the noble Baroness’s amendment moved in her Motion A1 because it would remove the inquiry route altogether. However, as she has accepted that the intercept route has stalled for the moment—at least, I presume she has accepted that—to remove it would put us back at square one. Obviously, I have some sympathy with her objections, but we have to take the pragmatic approach at this stage, as so often happens in this House, that half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. Therefore, we on these Benches will neither support nor oppose Motion A, but nor will we be able to support Motion A1.