Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Newton of Braintree and Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for enabling Parliament to get back to the place where it should have been, and was, after the Coroners Act. She has done a tremendous job. It has also brought forth something that she mentioned briefly in her speech—she is now involved in the training of coroners. Already there is tremendous progress. I am also hugely grateful for all the work that my noble friend Lord McNally has put into this matter, because I am sure it is not easy to turn the ship of government around when it is sailing so fast in one direction. I can imagine the sort of effort that he had to put in.

The Royal British Legion and Inquest deserve particular gratitude, as do all the other organisations that signed the letter to the Times. A lot of them are run and supported by bereaved families, and it is not easy to go out and campaign when in the midst of grief. Some of those parents and siblings came to give evidence to parliamentarians about what had happened to them at inquests. I should like to take this opportunity to put on record my thanks to those people for giving us examples of why not only the training but the attitude of coroners to issues such as timeliness are extremely important.

I have one question for the Minister. The charter on the table is not now just for bereaved people but for anyone who comes before the coronial system. Some of us, including me, certainly felt that it should be a charter for bereaved people. It is not yet finalised and I hope that the chief coroner, who will be in a wonderful position to cast his or her eye over the draft charter, will have an opportunity to comment on it and perhaps improve it in the light of the things that he or she hears when talking to coroners.

Finally, I wish to comment from a purely personal point of view on the issue of appeals. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, made some very good points about the fact that the issue could lie on the table and be implemented later, if necessary, but my heart lies with the government position, and it is not really a question of cost. In many cases, there will never be real satisfaction for the bereaved because, even though the process may have been thorough, timely and open, that is just the nature of bereavement; there is no satisfaction. If the chief coroner manages with all his other coroners to get the process right, there should be no need for appeals. There will obviously be an interim period that will not be entirely satisfactory, but the package on the table is all that we could have hoped for and is one for which I am particularly grateful.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, I am going quietly on Amendment 54, but not on Amendment 53. I will go more loudly, but briefly, on this. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on her success. I thank the Government for giving her that success, even though she is showing some signs of looking the gift horse in the mouth. I have one very small point that is not about appeals, but about suicides. I declare an interest as the chair of a mental health trust.

One of the problems with the coronial system has been the great inconsistency between the verdicts of coroners, some of whom, it is alleged—I am not an expert on this but I have been to a number of meetings with people who have studied it very carefully—prefer to find suicides as accidental deaths to spare the families. I cannot vouch for that, but that is what is reported by reputable researchers. The Department of Health is devising a suicide prevention strategy. I do not see how such a strategy can be devised, let alone measured, unless there is consistency in coronial verdicts around the country. One thing that is required from a chief coroner’s office is the need to ensure consistency. I should be grateful for an assurance that part of the role envisaged will be to seek to bring about greater consistency in the practice of coronial courts around the country. I believe that I see the noble Baroness nodding her head at that proposition.