The three speeches/headings immediately before

1. 1 earlier: Ann Widdecombe

   That is the whole point and I am sorry that the Lord Chancellor somehow cannot understand it. The whole point is that an intention to kill is not formed.

2. 2 earlier: Jack Straw

   I was racking my brains on this, and got a bit of approval from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches who are better versed on this than I am. I think that the right hon. Lady would find that in such circumstances—if, in her delightful phrase, a man was as drunk as an owl and the woman involved just pushed him and he fell, hit his head and died—since we can infer from what she said that there was no intention to commit either murder or grievous bodily harm, no charge of murder would lie, still less be followed by conviction.

3. 3 earlier: Ann Widdecombe

   What I have been totally unconvinced about tonight is why this particular motivation and provocation should uniquely be removed from a jury's discretion in deciding whether or not it was, in the circumstances rehearsed, an understandable ground for somebody losing control. The Minister has said that sexual infidelity cannot be, on its own, a cause for killing, and we would all agree with that. However, the whole point about loss of control is that the person does not make a rational assessment at the time of what he is doing and does not necessarily intend to kill, but is provoked into making an attack. On that basis, just about every single reason for losing control would have to be taken away from a jury's discretion. The Minister has not shown that there is some factor in this one cause of loss of control that justifies its uniquely being taken away from a jury's discretion.

   It is no reason to kill somebody if they get drunk, but let us consider a situation where a man comes home night after night as drunk as an owl. If his wife says to him "Don't do it again" and then moves towards him, pushes him in her fury at his being drunk as an owl and he falls over, hits his head and dies, she will say, "Of course it was not a good enough reason, but I lost control." Why somebody—it could be a man or a woman; it does not have only to be a man—coming home and finding his spouse of x years in bed with somebody else shall not trigger a similar loss of control is beyond me.

   The fact is that one cannot specify what is and is not a reasonable ground for loss of control for the simple reason that nothing ever seems reasonable when one looks at it from the point of view of somebody who is totally in control and rational. It is for a jury to decide the following question: was the provocation in this incident—whatever that incident may be—sufficient to cause that person, on the spur of that moment, to kill in that way? That is entirely a matter for the jury to decide. The hon. Lady has not made any case tonight for the argument that, quite uniquely, the one circumstance in which the jury cannot make that assessment should be sexual infidelity.