Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

To abandon having a chief coroner is to deny long-awaited improvements to the coronial system to those who deserve justice. It will leave us with a system that is unfit for 21st century society. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 26, to which I was very happy to add my name. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, was speaking, I was thinking that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, may have been very clever in putting these provisions in the Bill in the knowledge that the House would want to consider them very carefully. Perhaps this was a clever ruse on his part because really, in his heart, he supports us.

The creation of the post of Chief Coroner for England and Wales was at the heart of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The role was designed to ensure judicial oversight, enforce national standards and increase accountability. Introducing national leadership under the chief coroner’s post was a crucial step towards tackling the unacceptable delays, inconsistent standards of service delivery and lack of accountability which plague the current system.

The NCEPOD report of 2006 reviewed, in detail, autopsy reports in hospitals and in the community. There had never before been a comprehensive review of the autopsy process and reports of death at the request of coroners. It was the first time that data had been requested directly from coroners. Indeed, 88 per cent of them contributed data to this report.

The report was a major contribution to the discussion about changes in the coronial system. It recommended, among other matters, that there should be nationally uniform criteria and standards for the investigation of reported deaths and made recommendations about training and the independent review process, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred. In many ways this was the final evidence that was needed to bring forward the reform to the coronial system proposed in the 2009 Bill, which had cross-party support.

The chief coroner is needed to act as a counterbalance, as it were, to the weight of the Chief Medical Officer. Does the Minister really think that a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice will have the necessary authority to operate at the highest quasi medical/judicial level which might be required from time to time, to say nothing of ensuring that a modern, compassionate and timely coronial system for families and relatives exists, given that it is absolutely necessary? The answer to that has to be no. That is why this amendment is so important, why these Benches will support it and why we think that it is very important to get on with reforming this system by appointing the chief coroner.