Clause 64
Counter-Terrorism Bill
5:30 pm
Elfyn Llwyd (Parliamentary Leader; Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, Plaid Cymru)
The Minister is obviously engaging deeply with this subject, as I would expect. He said, for example, that families should have closure. My experience as an advocate in inquests, and also from sitting as a deputy coroner, is that families very often leave an inquest feeling aggrieved because they did not get the right verdict. I suggest to the Minister that they would probably be less likely to be aggrieved if a jury decided rather than a single person.
Moving on to a slightly different point, if the Minister is saying that this will apply to only a small number of cases, he does not gainsay the fact that this could be opened up and used as often as was liked. It could be used every time someone dies in police custody or every time someone dies with any peripheral involvement of the police. My point is that that could happen, and I hope that he will tell me that I am wrong.