Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Slim]

I spoke in one of the previous debates on this issue. I think most of us had some hope that the previous Administration would change their mind and agree to the position of chief coroner. We had a tough debate and actually defeated the Government of the day. We were hopeful that the previous Administration had seen some sense and we felt that they would, eventually, give us a chief coroner. I have seen one or two new faces on Front Benches and in your Lordships' Chamber and I want to, if I may, for a few minutes come a little closer down to earth. After any military action, it is a fairly awesome job—not a pleasant job and a very moving job—to gather one’s dead who have made the supreme and final sacrifice for King or Queen and country. They are dead. Dead is dead. Why then does it take one, two, three or more years to declare such a person, man or woman, officially dead? What about the grieving widow? What about the mother? What about the family waiting, not really understanding what a coroner’s inquest is, not being told, not being supported, not being moved to the inquest, not being paid for, not being looked after? That is one of the reasons why we need a chief coroner.

We need a leader in this outfit somewhere. We need someone who can administer, speed the process and make certain that everything is done more speedily and correctly. The chief coroner must be rather special. He must be a leader and an administrator. I do not mind whether he is a judge or not, but he must be competent. He must grip these coroners who are scattered around the country, a little lethargic and not necessarily working every day of the week. There needs to be a little bit of cohesion here. The chief coroner is vital.

Is an unproven, newly constituted Ministry of Justice good enough to do this? I do not think so. Who is the leader who will emerge from this legal morass? I wonder. I do not think that this is possible. Surely the Government have heard enough today to realise that they are on the wrong track and that there has to be a chief coroner.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I offer a somewhat different point of view. What worries me particularly about the speech given by the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, is that the way in which the chief coroner is set up in the Act of Parliament will not deliver the things that this House so far in this debate seems to believe are within the power of the chief coroner to deliver. I am somewhat surprised when it is said that the problem is with officials. Surely if there is a problem, it is with the Lord Chancellor of England and not his officials. Why do we elect Secretaries of State and the Lord Chancellor, now that we elect the Lord Chancellor? We elect them presumably because we believe that they can deliver, not that they cannot.

I think that there is very general agreement across the House about the objectives. The situation has not been satisfactory, and that has been exposed at great length. When I reread the proceedings on that Bill at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report, my very strong impression was that the arrival of the chief coroner was a given; it was not debated in any depth or detail. That illustrates that we have got into the habit of believing that if we have serious problems, we cannot rely on our existing institutions. We must have a new one, a silver bullet institution, to solve problems.

I urge noble Lords to read Chapter 6 of and Schedule 8 to that Act. I have had quite long experience of having been on public bodies. I have been chairman, chief executive and vice-chairman on all sorts of public bodies. In fact, one of my noble friends said to me the other day, “I’m glad you’re taking part in proceedings on the Public Bodies Bill, because there are hardly any bodies in it that you have not been on”. As I think I told the House the other day, I once got a letter thanking me for being on a body that I had never been on. So I have had experience of advisory bodies, executive bodies and even a public corporation—an endangered species of which there are very few left.

The way in which the chief coroner is set up in that Act is more advisory than executive. It in no way puts the chief coroner in such a position that John Humphrys will wish to interview him or her, rather than the Lord Chancellor, if something goes wrong in the future. The accountability chain has not been changed in a way that dilutes the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor. All that has happened is that another step has been put into it, so I say to my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill that the chief coroner does not have the independence that my noble friend is looking for. There is some space within which the chief coroner can operate, but there is no independence.

I give noble Lords only one illustration. The Lord Chancellor can decide how many staff the chief coroner shall have and what each member of staff shall be paid. In my submission, this is not just a done deal or a solution for doing the things that need to be done to improve the performance of the coronial system, to achieve consistency and to do all the things with which we would all agree to make sure that things are done in a timely fashion. If one reads that debate, and what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said at the time, one will see that they qualified what they said very carefully all the way through. They talked about the problem of expense and the problem of it taking two to three years to set up the Chief Coroner’s Office. They did not promise this House that the office would have executive authority, which I think is what people are looking for. I am not an expert on appeals, but it seems to me that even in that matter, the chief coroner is not the final word. I hope that he is not, or would not be. The final word is in the Court of Appeal.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

As the noble Viscount was good enough to refer to me, does he accept and agree that under the European Convention on Human Rights we have an obligation to ensure that there is an effective, independent system of inquests, independent of ministerial interference, and that the previous Parliament, in creating the system that is now threatened, believed that it was giving effect to that convention obligation?

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I fully agree that the separation of the powers of the Executive from those of the legal profession and our courts is absolutely central to our constitution. Unfortunately, this Bill does not affect that separation because the chief coroner does not have that independence. If one reads the terms under which he is employed and what he has to do to satisfy the Lord Chancellor, the real power has been left with the Lord Chancellor.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I am puzzled by the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. As I understand the Act, the chief coroner will enjoy considerable independence. He or she will be appointed by the Lord Chief Justice and will report to the Lord Chancellor. If the Lord Chancellor were to tell the chief coroner how to perform the substance of the duties, I have no doubt whatever that the courts would uphold the independence of the chief coroner under the Act.

The other point made by the noble Lord—

[Viscount Eccles]

On that point, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is correct. But the appointment can be made by the Lord Chief Justice only with the approval of the Lord Chancellor. All my experience of public appointments has shown that the power of appointment rests with the Lord Chancellor.

[Lord Pannick]

I remind the noble Viscount that the same is true of judges of the Supreme Court. There is no suggestion that people cannot be independent in their judicial role because the Government have a responsibility for their appointment or for the appointment of their staff. The performance of the function is what matters. The noble Viscount said that we elect Governments so that they can deliver. I suggest to noble Lords that there are some functions that can be delivered to the satisfaction of the public only if they are delivered by an independent body. The reason for that is that the decisions they are making are either judicial decisions or quasi-judicial decisions which often concern the relationship between the individual and the state.

These points were made with great power by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in opening this debate. She referred to the support given by Dame Janet Smith in the Shipman report to the creation of the office of chief coroner. Dame Janet put her finger on the fundamental point which has provided the recurrent theme in the debates in this Committee so far and will continue to be the recurrent theme of the debates in this Committee unless and until the Government change their general approach. The point was made by Dame Janet at paragraph 19.22 of her third report on the Shipman inquiry. She said that,

“if coroners and the Coroner Service are to command the confidence of the public, they must be and must be seen to be independent of Government”.

That applies also, as the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, said, to the views of the bereaved. They must have confidence in the coronial service if it is to perform its function. Dame Janet added:

“Although coroners investigate on behalf of the state, they might well reach verdicts and make recommendations unwelcome to Government”.

That point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. Dame Janet went on to say that,

“it would no longer be satisfactory for the coroner service to be administered from within a Government Department”.

But that is precisely what the Government are now proposing.

There are many functions under this Bill which the Government are seeking to bring within the Ministry of Justice, of which the role of the chief coroner is just the latest. These roles can effectively be performed only by bodies that are independent and are seen to be independent. The man or woman from the ministry simply does not know best and cannot be seen to know best. This core principle is being trampled on by the Bill. I have great sympathy for the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, because the Government’s position in relation to the chief coroner is quite indefensible.