Clause 3
11:30 am
Henry Bellingham (Shadow Minister, Justice; North West Norfolk, Conservative)
Clause 3 gives the chief coroner the power to direct another senior coroner to conduct investigations. I would be grateful if the Minister will give us examples of where this might be needed. Certainly, one can think of appalling accidents and disasters such as Hillsborough or Hungerford, where there was a tragic mass shooting in 1988. In those cases, the chief coroner would want to make sure that the inquests were moved to different areas—perhaps out of that particular county. Will the Minister give examples where a chief coroner might use the powers? Also, who will bear the cost of transfers? The chief coroner might direct an inquest which takes place away from the area in which a disaster happened; there would be substantial cost. Would the transferring coronial area pay, or would that fall to the area to which the inquest was transferred? The implications are significant, because we might be talking about an inquest lasting for many weeks and costing a large amount of money.