Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former assistant deputy coroner—something that I did for as short a period as I could. Coroners, like judges and judicial officers, sit alone and quite often become isolated. If they always sit in the same place, there is a danger that their arrangements will not be consistent with those of adjoining coroners or indeed of coroners in other parts of the country.

Coroners receive a certain amount of training, as did I. As far as it went, it was good but it was not sufficient. The advantage for judges and judicial officers is that not only do they have the Judicial Studies Board but, infinitely more important, at the top of the ladder is the Lord Chief Justice, and under him are senior judges who keep the standards up and give very important guidance. That is absolutely essential. The purpose of the chief coroner and the deputies beneath him or her is to give important guidance to individual coroners right around the country who sit on their own and are isolated, and to offer guidance and keep the standards up, as the standards also vary. Losing a post not yet filled would leave coroners to carry on without that necessary help. It would also deny the public a sufficiently good coronial system.

In answer to a Question asked at Question Time some weeks ago, the Minister said that the guidance would be given by the Ministry of Justice. Like judicial officers and indeed judges, coroners are independent, and it is just not good enough for the Ministry of Justice to offer guidance to those who sit in a judicial or semi-judicial capacity. It just will not do. The Minister clearly did not understand—or perhaps, rather more importantly, the Ministry of Justice did not understand—that the sort of guidance it would give would not be good enough. Judges would not accept it, and why on earth should coroners accept it when it is possible to have a much better system? It is clear to me that the roles of chief coroner and the deputy coroners and so on are essential, as set out so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and that this amendment absolutely deserves to be carried.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

I declare an interest as patron of The Compassionate Friends, which is a support group both for parents whose child has died and for their families. I should have liked to put my name to Amendment 26, but three others got there before me. I support everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, said.

I feel that the charter for the bereaved being offered by the Government will be a fob-off if it is not backed up with meaningful changes in the Coroners and Justice Act, so I do not think that what is being proposed is acceptable. What was striking when that Act went through was the degree of political consensus. Indeed, your Lordships’ House was particularly important in pushing the Government to give a concession on the timeliness of inquests because, up until that stage, the chief coroner was not going to have the power or duty to enforce timeliness. That is an important issue not only for the bereaved but for witnesses, because when years have passed, it is much harder to recall the circumstances of what went on. I also echo the comments made on the costings. My noble friend Lord McNally gave us the costings on a previous occasion, but the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has explained that those are the Rolls-Royce costings. All that we are asking for is a trustworthy car to get us from A to B, not a Rolls-Royce.

My second point concerns the independence issue. As your Lordships will remember, from time to time the Government come into conflict with coroners. For example, sometimes the Home Secretary might think that a secret inquiry would be better, as happened under the previous Government and under Governments before that—perhaps the most notorious being the so-called “death on the rock” case—and as I am sure will happen again. If such cases do not promote the need for an independent coronial system, nothing does. That is the reason why this House has a duty to stand firm and why I shall be supporting the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the advisory panel on deaths in custody. That is relevant because the panel made recommendations on the back of the legislation that created the role of the chief coroner that were endorsed by the ministerial board on deaths in custody.

There are a number of reasons why Amendment 26 should be supported. The first relates to process. Whereas the passage of the Coroners and Justice Act involved a very long process in this House that included a considerable period of debate on what was a major piece of legislation, the Public Bodies Bill seeks to overturn by means of what is almost a footnote—one line in Schedule 1—all the work that was done in both Houses, which considered the issues in great detail. In addition, the Coroners and Justice Act was regarded by many people as long overdue. The process point is whether it is right and proper that such a major piece of legislation should be dismembered by a single line in the Bill.

The second process point is that we have had no adequate explanation of why the Government regard the proposed abolition as being able to produce significant savings. I am aware that every death in custody costs the taxpayer, on average, £500,000 or so for the investigation process and all that goes with it. A good and effective coronial service that picks up the lessons from deaths in custody could easily save substantial sums of money. One of the problems, on which my panel made recommendations about the role of the chief coroner, is the need to draw out at national level the material that emerges from narrative verdicts and from Rule 43 reports and to identify the best practice that emerges from those.

Another reason why my panel felt that the role of the chief coroner is important is—as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, has just referred to—the impact that delays can have on families. One issue that concerns me and the panel that I chair is the very long period that can elapse before a proper hearing or inquest is held into the deaths of people who die while in the custody of the state. Sometimes there are good reasons for such delays, but sometimes the reasons are extremely obscure. There is certainly a problem in the allocation of work among coroners. The appointment of a chief coroner provided the possibility of being able to allocate work more rationally by perhaps creating specialist coroners who could look in detail at particular types of death and thereby build up a body of experience. The chief coroner could also draw attention, where necessary, to the fact that some coroners might be inadequately resourced by local authorities, which is the mechanism by which coroners are funded.