Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average number of days was for a body to be held before release by the West Sussex and Surrey coroners in (a) 2017 and (b) the first six months of 2018.

The Ministry of Justice does not have operational responsibility for the coroner service and only collects certain information from coroners, for example the number of deaths reported to them and the number of inquests and post-mortem examinations held. The Ministry does not collect information on the time taken for a body to be released to the family.