Clause 7
5:30 pm
Henry Bellingham (Shadow Minister, Justice; North West Norfolk, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is quite right on that point. We should look at clause 7(2)(c), which contains the words
“that the death was caused by a notifiable accident, poisoning or disease.”
That will obviously cover private hospitals or establishments as well. It is important that we get that in the Bill.
Amendment 96 is consequential on amendment 94. Amendment 97 would extend the grounds for an inquest with a jury and remove some restrictions that are in the Bill, which refers to the fact
“that the deceased died while in custody or otherwise in state detention and that either the death was a violent or unnatural one, or the cause of death is unknown”.
Amendment 97 would effectively take out that restriction.
I would like to pick up on a briefing sent to us the other day by Inquest—an organisation working for “truth, justice and accountability”—which I submit the Government should listen to more often. Its briefing note reads:
“However, we raise a note of caution in that new clause 7(2) differs from the current Coroners Act 1988 clause 8(3) in that it does not specify that an inquest must be held with a jury if the death occurred in prison and was neither violent nor unnatural, or where the cause of death was unknown, or does not fall within the other criteria set out in 7(2) a — c. The intention here is to allow coroners discretion not to have a jury in cases of deaths of detainees where there is clearly no reason to do so.”
My concern is that we will see fewer such inquests taking place with juries. That which is meant to be the exception to the rule could become the default position.
I am concerned about what the Government are doing here. Obviously, we want to see a system that is as efficient as possible, but we also want a system that is fair. As I said at the start of my brief remarks, it is important that the public have complete confidence in the system. When we are talking about deaths that are at the most violent end of the spectrum and deaths where there are important questions about what happened—because, for example, we are looking at something that took place in state custody or in another part of the state system—having the security and comfort of a jury is important.