Brian Iddon (Bolton South East, Labour)

I have two simple questions for my hon. Friend the Minister, the first of which concerns the employment rights of coroners. For 10 years I campaigned to change the status of registration officers. They were statutory officers, which meant that they had no formal employer and no formal right to go through any employment legislation, including employment tribunals, if they were considered to be unfairly dismissed.

During many debates in which I tried to convert registration officers so that they would be covered under employment laws—that came about in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007—I learned that coroners were almost certainly statutory officers as well. Are they statutory officers? As such, do they have any rights under the various employment Acts? My second question concerns indemnity for coroners when, for example, their verdicts are challenged by a judicial review. Are they indemnified?

Bridget Prentice (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Lewisham East, Labour)

To answer my hon. Friend’s first question, coroners are office-holders and are judicially independent. We cannot recall an example of one ever having been dismissed, which might open another debate that we will not go into at the moment. They may have rights to compensation under article 1 of the ECHR, but that has never been tested. That is as much as I can advise him on that issue. On the issue of indemnity against judicial review, yes, they will have indemnity. That will be covered in the regulations made under clause 6.

Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

Before we embark on schedule 3, which has a lot of amendments, we had better do a little housekeeping. I understand that there is likely to be a Division in the House at about 7.20. Unless somebody leaps to their feet and moves the adjournment, I propose to sit until then and suspend the sitting until 8.30. That will give hon. Members time to vote and eat, quickly; it will not allow for a luxurious dinner. If anybody changes their mind, I would like to know, as I need to let the Officers of the House know.