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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment for two reasons: disappointment and respect. I am disappointed about this decision, given all the hours that we spent discussing the various stages of the Coroners and Justice Bill last year. The one constant throughout that process was a hope that, 109 years after the previous reform of the coronial system, a chief coroner would be appointed to lead us out of this morass. I say that because experience tells me that until and unless you have a named person with responsibility and accountability for actually making things happen, things do not happen. It is all very well saying that the Government intend to do this and the Government intend to do that, but that had been the situation for 109 years and it is not working. Only if a chief coroner is in place will there be a hope of leadership, consistency, drive and oversight of all the things that are listed. I refreshed my memory by reading the speeches of the late lamented Lord Kingsland, who I respected and who was so strongly in favour of the chief coroner in all our discussions. He, too, appreciated that at last this post constituted a way of reforming something that needed reforming. At an earlier stage in the Committee, I mentioned that I was extremely disappointed in the impact assessment accompanying the Bill as it says that nothing that is proposed has any impact on either human rights or the criminal justice system. However, here we are, at Amendment 26, with goodness knows how many amendments to come, and already we have something which is driving terrible coaches and horses through both human rights and the criminal justice system. Then I looked at the so-called savings. They reminded me of a phrase that we used to use in the Army—““situating the appreciation””. An appreciation comprises examining a subject and then deciding what you are going to do about it. Sometimes people know what they are going to do and write a report to suit their solution. The maths ruthlessly exposed by my noble friend Lady Finlay shows that these costings are a sham. There has been no attempt to say how much more it would cost to have a chief coroner than to have all the improvements allegedly to be made by the Ministry of Justice which will achieve the same end. Until and unless we have an honest appraisal, it is dishonest to overturn the ruling of Parliament that something should be done to put right a system which has affected us for so long, and to endorse the decision of noble Lords in all parties to put bereavement at the heart of the process. That will be the case only if someone is responsible and accountable for seeing that it happens. I am not going to rehearse all the cases that we dealt with affecting military inquests and inquests involving prisoners, delays, training of staff, consistency and the fact that you cannot obtain establishments in which to hold inquests because you are not a member of the court system. We have all been through all that. To risk throwing all that away is very dangerous, and I very much hope that the amendment will be supported.