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Coroners and Justice Bill

My hon. Friend is right, and that is the next point that I want to address. The Government came up with their amendment in the other place, but my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) is right that it proposes a full judicial scrutiny process, with a Minister making an application to a court in a hearing at which interested parties can make representations. I would have preferred that. As I said earlier, if I had had the opportunity to table an amendment to that effect yesterday evening, I would have done so, but I must accept that it is now impossible procedurally to achieve that desirable end. Indeed, that is what the Secretary of State told me, and I do not think that he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Essentially, amendment 1B is a fall-back position, and my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire is right that it raises questions. It seems to me that, in effect, it asks the Lord Chief Justice to take an administrative rather than a judicial decision—based, I suppose, on his independence and sagacity—because the Lord Chancellor has to get his agreement to a transfer from inquest to inquiry. In the other place, Lord Mackay of Clashfern raised that concern specifically. He said:""I assume—I hope this is correct—that the Government consulted the Lord Chief Justice when they put forward this proposal, so that he knows about it and is willing to undertake this extremely important judgment at the stage when it is supposed to me made."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 November 2009; Vol. 714, c. 830.]" He also pointed out that if the Lord Chief Justice were to decline to move from inquest to inquiry it would be, he assumed, the end of the matter. In reply, Lord Bach made it clear that the Lord Chief Justice was aware of the proposal and—I infer—has not expressed the view that he could not undertake that role. At the same time, it is also clear that he would have the final say in the matter. Quite a lot of the debate in the other place was taken up with Lord Bach seeking to provide reassurance to the noble Lords that the procedure being proposed genuinely involved giving the Lord Chief Justice an effective veto over whether the shift would take place. For the reasons that I have already given, I hope that we are not putting on the Lord Chief Justice a burden that we should not place on him. I have a residual anxiety about that. Secondly, I had anxieties when the proposal went to the other place that the wording was such that the Government amendment could be construed as amounting to no more than an ability to say, "You can't have such a judge", and that another name would be put up automatically rather than giving the Lord Chief Justice a genuine veto over the process. Such was the extent of my anxiety that while the proposal was in the other place, I sought at the last minute to change the wording from "that judge" to "a judge". The Government's response was that that was not necessary. A series of assurances were given during the debate, which I am sure that the Secretary of State will repeat, to the effect that what was intended was a genuine judicial lock through the Lord Chief Justice. I repeat that I am grateful that the Secretary of State has listened. Notwithstanding that, however, I hope that he will not take it amiss that I have tabled a further amendment. The reason for doing so was that if the Government's intention is correct and their drafting is right, the further amendment cannot be regarded as anything other than affirming their amendment—it is innocuous in intention; it will not wreck or damage the Government's proposal; and it will not cause the Government any further problem. Our amendment (a) makes it clear that the approval is not just about the start of the judicial process for the inquiry and the appointment of the judge, but that the Lord Chief Justice also has to indicate approval for the Lord Chancellor to request the coroner to suspend the investigation. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) rightly said a moment ago, that provides slightly wider discretion in the consideration of what the issues might be and—to pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore)—ensures that the grounds on which we move from inquest to inquiry are very narrow. I am sorry that the amendment was tabled at such a late stage, but we are in this place to do our job right to the end. For the reasons that I have set out, I think the amendment is a real improvement that I hope the Government can accept.