Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley]

My Lords, I, too, put on record my appreciation for the Government’s decision, having been involved at various times in this subject. As I recall, a chief coroner has been identified, but I cannot remember whether he has actually been appointed; he may or may not still be around. It would be extremely helpful if the Minister made very clear, having decided to go ahead with the chief coroner, that the appointment will be filled expeditiously, as will those of the medical officers and others who will assist him. To pass the Bill into law to include a chief coroner, without an assurance that those posts will be filled promptly, would be something of a pyrrhic victory.

[Viscount Slim]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister and the Government. I have worked rather hard to see that we have a chief coroner. One little area that is not often remembered is that when it comes to the military side, the widows, the mothers and the dead servicemen actually still belong to the Ministry of Defence, which is responsible for them. These people should not be left out of the thoughts of this new chief coroner—which I am so pleased about. I hope that on his introduction to this very important post, he goes across to meet and talk to the Ministry of Defence, and perhaps visits a battle zone—this would be rather sensible. He would then get the feel and the ethos, as the noble Baroness has just said, of military thinking on these occasions.

I end by saying one further thing which I have said on this subject in your Lordships’ House before. At the moment, thank God, the casualty and death rate for war is fairly steady and fairly low. However, some things can go wrong very quickly in an operational area, and somewhere the coroner’s system has to be geared up for a higher casualty rate coming in across its bows. At present, we are waiting one to two years for conclusion. If the rate was to increase and the coroners did not have a plan for this, then I can see bereaved families, widows and mothers waiting up to four years before conclusion. For the sake of the chief coroner, I hope that he will get to know the military and will look ahead for, God forbid, worse rates of death.