Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

1st reading
Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

The Bill was introduced by the Bishop of St Albans, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of Peers for Gambling Reform.

Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of Peers for Gambling Reform. The focus of this Bill is on gambling-related suicide; indeed, I have heard one Member of your Lordships’ House describe it as a “gambling Bill”. It is no secret that gambling reform is a major concern of mine, but I start by stressing that the scope of the Bill extends far beyond gambling-related suicides and can include a wide range of factors that contribute to death by suicide.

I will give some background to set the scene. Under the current legislative framework in England and Wales, once a suspected suicide is reported, the death is classified as “sudden and unexplained” until an official determination is made. The coroner is then required to undertake an inquest alongside a jury to make a determination as to the cause of death and whether the death is to be registered as a suicide—a process that often takes up to six months from the confirmed date of death of the deceased.

The benchmark for making a determination of suicide was lowered in 2018 from the criminal standard of “beyond all reasonable doubt” to a civil standard of balance of probabilities, although it is still a high benchmark to make that determination. My reason for outlining the current framework for determining whether a death by suicide has occurred is to emphasise that the Bill I propose does not alter this framework. One Member of this House expressed the concern that a determination of suicide might affect life insurance claims. While it is clearly upsetting and deeply regrettable for the families who are denied life insurance claims on those grounds, the remit of this Bill would occur only once a coroner or jury has already made a determination of suicide, which would therefore have no bearing on this particular matter.

The Bill would amend the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to allow for the coroner or juries in inquests to record an opinion as to any factors that were relevant to a death in the case of a suicide. It would also amend the Coroners (Inquests) Rules 2013 to insert a new rule that would legally require the coroner or jury to record an opinion as to any factors that were relevant to the death by suicide and that explicit consideration be given as to whether the deceased had an addiction to gambling. The intention is that, by collecting more reliable data on the underlying factors that cause suicide in the UK, suicide prevention efforts by the Government can therefore be targeted at the underlying risk factors which cause suicides and allow for better interventions for those characterised as at risk.

Having spoken many times on suicides due to gambling-related harm, again and again I have heard the Government say that they do not have reliable statistics, and I keep asking them to help us to get some. Absolutely nothing has come back. I am hopeful that out of this some noble Lords will come up with even better suggestions, but this is my stab, and I hope that it will help us as a way forward. I realise that I may need a lot of help to look at exactly the best way forward.

Coroners are not required by law to record factors relevant to a death by suicide, but can do so on a discretionary basis. Since it is not legally required, there exists an inconsistency in how suicides are registered between those coroners who record the relevant factors and those who do not, which prevents reliable data being gathered on factors that were pertinent to the death. According to the ONS figures for 2020, there were 5,224 registered deaths by suicide in England and Wales. We know that 75% of them were males and that suicide rates were highest among those aged 45 to 49. ONS figures also highlight the regional variations in suicide rates: the death rate per 100,000 in London was nearly half that in the north-east of England, followed by Yorkshire and then the south-west.

Although they are not recorded in official registration, the Government do recognise many of the risk factors that lead to suicide. Before I continue, I echo the sentiments of the fifth progress report on suicide prevention, the most recent one, where it states:

“There are many complex factors driving suicide rates”


and expands on this further to say that rarely can a suicide be reduced “to one factor alone”. At the same time, I do not believe that this is an argument against recording the risk factor, or factors, underlying a suicide, especially when there are circumstances, the extent of which are unknown, where one or two risk factors were particularly prevalent.

The fifth progress report recognises that self-harm is a major risk factor in suicide, with evidence suggesting that 50% of people who have died by suicide have previously self-harmed. The report also recognises the risk posed through exposure to harmful online content, something that caught the public attention after the tragic case of Molly Russell.

Other risk factors that the report outlines include economic risks, with evidence suggesting that during the last recession the suicide rate rose 1.4% for every 10% increase in unemployment within men, and social risk factors such as homelessness, which the ONS is able to have official records on. Most of these assertions, however, do not rely on concrete data collected during the registration, which in reality means that we do not know how many suicides are attributable to these factors.

Coroners currently have the option to mark the relevant risk factors underlying a suicide. I have a copy of a sheet from one of the coroners in my diocese, which lists various options. You can tick financial difficulties, marital difficulties, recent or past mental health involvement, bereavement in the last 12 months, self-harm, physical health issues, a history of violence or being under investigation for criminal matters, and so on. I will not read them all; indeed, there are some caveats in brackets, which are important to take into account. The document I have dates from 2018, and I may need to defer to the Minister if I have an outdated version.

Some may argue that to record comorbidities is fraught with difficulties, yet doctors record them and the data has proved very valuable for medical research. This method of marking predetermined risk factors would allow accurate data on the relevant risk factors in a suicide to be accurately recorded; it is the approach that I favour. But conspicuously missing from these options is gambling-related harm, which, according to Public Health England’s evidence review on gambling harms, just published, is estimated to be responsible for 409 suicides annually. That translates to nearly 8% of the recorded suicides in 2020.

It is for this reason that included in the Bill is a specific requirement on the coroner to consider whether the deceased had an addiction to gambling. However, I recognise that the inclusion of gambling-related harms in the options of risk factors might be more appropriately set out in regulations or official guidance than in primary legislation. I am sure that I will get some advice in this debate on that provision. What matters is that it is included within these options, so that we can get accurate data on all the relevant risk factors, including gambling-related harm. We should collect them and publish them anonymously. This would be invaluable to the Government’s strategy to drive down the number of suicides. You do not drive them down in general but work out the reasons why they are happening, then have a strategy for a range of things, of which gambling-related harms is just one.

I believe that the Bill would be a great asset to the Government’s suicide prevention efforts. I hope it will allow us to give much more support and earlier intervention to those who are at risk of suicide. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I thank the Minister for her response and I am glad to hear that more attempts are being made to find out the data for us. I have been involved in this area for six or seven years now, and it feels as though the Government are constantly dragging their feet—as though we are having to pull them along. I am currently in contact with the Ministry of Defence. We have had to ask endless questions to try to find the information that we want; in fact, the MoD is putting down a Statement today because it has got confused too. This is an area that is not being attended to by Her Majesty’s Government.

I am grateful to all noble Lords, who have brought out some really interesting points; I have made notes. I am hugely grateful and will think about those things. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that, as I understand it, it is down to the coroner or jury to record a relevant opinion. Although the Minister said that she did not recognise this form, the coroner who gave it to me said, “All of us coroners starting out are using this; it is the old ones who won’t do it.” She was quite frustrated about it. I will go back and find out more information.

From what I can see, we are already recording this data. I know that the law is all about where, who, how and when—not why—but we have some of the “whys” already. We use “whys” widely in the world of medicine. It is complicated but, when we bring forward, for example, regulations to do with finance, and there is complexity, we just get our heads down and get our minds around the complexity. We do not say, “Because it is difficult, we are not going to try to do it.”

I do not pretend to know the best way of doing it. I would be hugely grateful if those of your Lordships who are much more expert in this could point me to the relevant people. I particularly like the idea of talking with others who also want this sort of data; I think there would be quite a groundswell of people saying that, while it may not be perfect, this form of data could give us some helpful ways forward. I am, of course, disappointed that Her Majesty’s Government cannot support the Bill. I will think very carefully about the points that have been made, but I will be minded to take this on to the next stage and work with others if they are willing to work with me.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Order of Commitment discharged
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

That the order of commitment be discharged.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.

Motion agreed.

Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 25th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

That the Bill do now pass.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I shall make just one or two brief comments. I am sure everybody is greatly relieved that the timing is going so well this afternoon, and I really shall not delay your Lordships for too long, but this gives me an opportunity to say one or two brief things and then give some thanks.

The reason behind the Bill is that, seven or eight years ago, a couple came to see me, sat in my study and told me how their son had taken his life because of a gambling problem. The sad thing about that story was the way they talked about the fact that they could see what was happening. He had gone in and out of treatment, but they just could not reach out to him. They knew what was going to happen, and they watched as he slowly spiralled down until that fateful day when he took his life. That led me on a journey. Eventually, we managed to get a Select Committee here. As your Lordships may be aware, Peers for Gambling Reform is now, I think, the largest lobbying group in the House of Lords.

That is what inspired me to work on this; that is the background. It is a very human story. The Bill has what sounds a rather calm, dispassionate title. The issue before us is that, whenever we try to grapple with this, we are told by the Government that we simply do not know the nature and size of the problem. Last year, Public Health England gave the most comprehensive estimate to date of the number of annual gambling-related suicides: 409 in one year. That accounts for 8% of all suicides in 2020.

In the recent inquest into the tragic death of Jack Ritchie, the coroner’s conclusion was that warnings, information and treatment of problem gambling had been “woefully inadequate” and failed to meet Jack’s needs. The coroner said that he could not be blamed for his gambling problem. That brought home to many of us something that we already knew: that many of these online products have been designed to be addictive and are having a devastating impact on people. The suicide headline is just the tip of the problem, but it is the most dreadful part of it.

I have learned an awful lot from putting the Bill forward. I am grateful for the help I have had from other Members of the House, but particularly from the Minister, who very kindly met with me. He has been very honest about the problems he sees with it, and I understand that. If we had had time, I would have brought amendments to address some of those points. I intend to put another Private Member’s Bill in the ballot for the next round, which will be a much broader Bill that will pick up many of the concerns of coroners, some lawyers, and indeed the Government.

Fundamentally however, my motivations behind the Bill have not altered. Suicide is a terrible thing and the best way to tackle it is to identify the underlying causes and put in strategies to address them. So I am grateful for all those who have helped it get this far and I will be returning to this later on. However, with those final words I draw to a close.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I too have no wish to delay the House, but I will say a couple of words to congratulate the right reverend Prelate on the progress he has made with the Bill and on his expressed wish to take the matter further with a further Private Member’s Bill. My experience of Private Members’ Bills is certainly that it is an attritional process that he is engaged in, and I am glad to hear that he is working constructively with the Minister. As we heard in the earlier debate, the Minister is very keen on data and he will no doubt be focusing his question—if I can put it like that—on how the coroners’ service can address the concerns which the right reverend Prelate has quite rightly raised.

The right reverend Prelate told a very moving story when he introduced the debate today and gave some statistics on the reality of addictive online gambling products. I have to say that anyone who has had anything to do with young men will know that such products are absolutely ubiquitously used, and there are all sorts of ways of enticing people into gambling further. So I wish the right reverend Prelate—and the Minister—well with future Private Members’ Bills.