Coroners’ Inquests

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

If you look around Europe at the moment you can understand why it is important that the Government take our economic situation seriously. We have transferred all the key responsibilities here to the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice. I am sure that noble Lords will all hold us to account if that does not work.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

Could the Government explain why the Statement, which I did not see before it went out and I did not know the contents of, did not contain a transparent costing to justify the abolition of the chief coroner? Why does the Statement contain the line,

“neither the judge nor any other individual will be responsible for the leadership, culture or behaviour of coroners”,—[Official Report, 14/6/11; col. WS 62.]

which makes it clear that the key recommendations of reviews by Dame Janet Smith, Luce and others that highlighted the reforms essential to the coroners system have effectively been abandoned?

[Baroness Northover]

I dispute what the noble Baroness says. The costings were done in 2009 and they stand. The problem about the proposals that came forward afterwards was that they talked about deferred costs, and we could not go down that route. I remind the noble Baroness, who would know this only too well, that the chief coroner was not going to be a panacea. The chief coroner could do what he or she could to persuade; they did not have statutory rights to interfere with coroners, who are independent judicial officers. They did not have that right any more than is currently the case. We all wish to improve the coroners’ system. There is a lot to be said for turning the spotlight on practices in different areas, as has happened with military inquests, and seeking to drive up standards that way.