Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Iain Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I wish to confine my remarks to the issue of the office of chief coroner. Successive reviews and inquiries over many years have highlighted the need for a chief coroner to oversee standards and handle appeals to deal with unsatisfactory decisions. There are currently no performance management procedures and no appraisals of the performance of individual coroners. There is no culture of mandatory continuing professional development, as there is in the medical, legal or accountancy professions; some coroners may choose simply not to undergo further training and development, and no one is there to pull them up about it. There seems to have been, certainly over the past couple of years, almost universal consensus that having the post of chief coroner would bring about real progress in raising standards, and would provide leadership, direction and a degree of accountability. It is disappointing that we do not have that consensus now.

The truth of the matter is that in my part of the world, the Teesside area, we need the coroner to improve and we need a much better service for families. For the best part of a decade, performance measures for the Teesside coroner have been significantly below the average for England and Wales. Eight years ago, the Teesside coroner, Mr Michael Sheffield, had a backlog of about 200 cases, and bereaved families had a wait of about 35 weeks—double the national average at the time—for an inquest to be completed. The then Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, responded to calls from local MPs of the time, such as Dari Taylor, the late and great Ashok Kumar, and Vera Baird, as well as from my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell), by launching an inquiry. Mr Sheffield claimed at the time that he welcomed an inquiry, stating, somewhat bizarrely:

“I hope that the terms of the inquiry will enable the cause of the backlog of inquests to be inquired into.”

That raises the question: if the coroner himself did not know the reasons for the delays, why did he not know and how could others hold him accountable for that?

In the aftermath of the inquiry, performance measures for the Teesside coroner improved, but over the past few years they have grown steadily worse again. Last year, the average time taken in England and Wales to complete inquests was 27 weeks—just over six months—whereas the equivalent figure for the Teesside coroner’s district was 43 weeks. The coroner’s office took more than 12 months to complete inquests into 76 deaths—a quarter of all the deaths it investigated in 2010—and three quarters of all cases it investigated took more than six months to conclude.

By contrast, the coroner for my Hartlepool constituency —Hartlepool and Teesside have traditionally had separate judicial administrative arrangements, and long may that continue—was able to conclude inquests in a significantly better time scale than the national average. The average time that the Hartlepool coroner took to investigate deaths in 2010 was only 20 weeks, and no investigation took more than 12 months to conclude. The Hartlepool coroner has consistently over-performed in terms of the time taken to conclude inquests. Why is there such a difference? Why is the difference in performance so striking? Why does Hartlepool do so well compared with the national average, whereas the Teesside district lags so far behind?

[Robert Flello]

Does my hon. Friend think that taking such matters in-house in the Ministry of Justice, hiding them away so that they are the responsibility of some civil servant one week and of some department the next, will improve things and make them better?

[Mr Wright]

No, I think it will make them much worse. That sense of accountability, which we do not have at the moment, would arguably be lost for ever.

Is the contrast I just mentioned a question of resources, particularly at a time of local authority cuts? Is it a question of competency? Is it a question of needing additional training? We do not know, because the whole process is opaque and shrouded in mystery. In the modern age, that is not good enough. Why can families in Teesside who have suffered through the death of a loved one not have some help and support and see the efficient and swift conclusion of the inquest? That is the very least that they deserve.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that because we will not have a chief coroner who can improve standards, we will get more appeals? The only way to go forward at the moment is a judicial review, so will the cost of dealing with such cases not increase rather than decrease?

[Mr Wright]

I absolutely agree. It will not be value for money for the public purse. There will be additional costs, and one of the virtues of a chief coroner’s office would be to help provide an overview of work allocation. I think the establishment of a chief coroner could provide a more rational and therefore more efficient allocation of work, perhaps through the creation of specialist coroners who could provide specific expertise. We could save money and provide a better service for bereaved families.

It is impossible, or difficult at the very least, for Members of this House to hold coroners to account for their performance. I recently asked a parliamentary question to the Lord Chancellor about the grounds on which an individual holding the post of coroner can be removed from that office, only to be told by the Minister that the only ground for removal was personal misconduct or behaviour, but the Minister could not provide a definitive list of possible offences. The Lord Chancellor can remove a coroner only with the agreement of the Lord Chief Justice. There is simply no transparency in the matter and no criteria by which the House or the public can hold a local coroner to account and determine whether he or she is providing an unsatisfactory service and should be removed. In this day and age—particularly when, as we have heard from the Royal British Legion, servicemen and women are falling for our country—bereaved families in Teesside and elsewhere deserve better. They deserve greater clarity and transparency.

I have written to the Lord Chancellor about the matter of poor time scales in the Teesside district and I am awaiting a response, but let me reiterate in conclusion that families in Teesside deserve to see inquests into the deaths of loved ones concluded with sympathy, professionalism and swiftness. They are not getting that at the moment and are not being provided with an adequate explanation on why and how matters will be improved. The Bill does not help; in fact, it makes things worse.