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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, share many of the reservations that have been expressed about what is a pre-emptive strike against the chief coroner and the centralised medical functions set out in the Coroners and Justice Act. Although, having been brought up in the days when we had to consider public expenditure cuts, I know that it is often a wise strategem to abort projects that have not been undertaken rather than to remove those that have become established, nevertheless I do not think that it is just my personal and extensive involvement in Committee on the Coroners and Justice Act in another place that leads me to the conclusion that we should have at least some unease about the Government’s proposal. I will listen very carefully to my noble friend's justification of that. As I understand it, the argument for a centralised chief coroner was essentially that, although coroners have performed their functions for centuries at local level, the demands of a more modern, more mobile society for a more technically and legally accountable service require a measure of concentration of effort, a perceived professionalism and—to paraphrase the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham—declared leadership in a single figure, such as the chief coroner. Those requirements seem to me to be very difficult to discharge by committee. In that legislation, exactly the same argument resonated across the parties about whether there should be a coroner for treasure, which is a specialist area that also had to be considered. The House needs to remember that, although coroners have little day-to-day impact on the bulk of the population, coroners have an intimate and dramatic impact on those who are bereaved, particularly in the case of a sudden death. That is the more enhanced whenever there is any suspicion—whether or not it is justified—that the authorities may have failed in their duty of care under Article 2 of the European convention. That is probably often, but certainly by no means always, an issue in military inquests. I can imagine that some of the centralising functions that would have been otherwise attributed to the chief coroner or to his medical adviser under the Act could be carried out administratively within the Ministry of Justice—although if that happens, I hope that Ministers will get a grip in ensuring that the outturn administrative costs are less than those that are attributed to the chief coroner under the present schema—but I come up against the basic problem about whether it is wise to remove the judicial function of detecting the need for an appeal and to have that function carried out in a way that is not perceived as being independent of government. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said in her introduction, the outcome will almost certainly be more expensive judicial review and more cases going to Strasbourg because of the apparent lack of integrity in the process. Finally, we all accept that the need to tackle the Government’s deficit means that some bodies—even those for which there is some justification—may need pruning or abolishing, but this process of pruning should never be a one-way street of unrequited losses. From time to time, it will still be necessary for us to introduce a modest but effective social advance. I regret that this particular initiative provided under the Coroners and Justice Act seems to be in any kind of danger.