Clause 11
Coroners and Justice Bill
12:00 pm
Bridget Prentice (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Lewisham East, Labour)
I am sure that everyone in this Committee will agree that this has been a very constructive, serious and sensitive debate. I want to congratulate our Hansard writer. A week or so ago, The Observer suggested that the only people paying any attention to this debate were a couple of journalists. Nick Beech wrote back saying, “Never fear, Hansard’s here.” He said that Hansard will provide a clear and accurate transcript of proceedings and that with the 24-hour media, it will provide it by the following day. Therefore, in putting forward very serious and deliberative ideas and propositions, hon. Members are safe in the knowledge that they will be recorded properly.
During the course of this debate it has become clear that there are no easy answers. No one has said, “Here is a simple solution. Let’s do that, and it’s all fine.” I shall explain what the clause is designed to do and then explore how we might be able to progress and respond to some of the suggestions made by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee.
The crux of the issue is that clause 11 addresses how we protect highly sensitive material that is relevant to a coroner’s investigation but that cannot be made public. I think that most Opposition Members, as well as Government Members, recognise that there is a problem and that a solution is needed. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said, the Opposition have approached the matter by using parliamentary devices to get the matter aired more fully and in more detail, and I accept the thinking behind that. It is right that when we make proposals that would remove juries, there should be full and rigorous testing of whether those proposals are acceptable and, if they are, whether they will work.
On a number of occasions, hon. Members have mentioned the two cases that my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East and I have mentioned as being behind the proposals. I want to put it on record that, in fact, we are now down to one of those two cases. In the second case, referred to by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, the coroner has decided that she can progress the inquest without needing the sensitive material. It might be said that I am arguing against my own position, but that shows that, through detailed consideration, one of those cases can be dealt with under the present arrangements, which is a good thing. However, it also highlights the fact that it would be only very exceptional cases indeed in which the proposals set out in clause 11 would ever need to be used. I do not want to go any further into the detail of the cases mentioned, because I do not want in any way to compromise the judicial process.