Commons Reasons and Amendments

Part of Coroners and Justice Bill – in the House of Lords at 5:15 pm on 11 November 2009.

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Photo of Lord Bach Lord Bach Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Justice, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice 5:15, 11 November 2009

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for moving her amendment. The amendments seek to strike out paragraphs 3 and 8 of Schedule 1, thereby removing the duty on a coroner to suspend an investigation following a request to do so from the Lord Chancellor in circumstances where an inquiry has been established into the circumstances of the same death. It remains our view that it is entirely appropriate that when an inquiry is established into the circumstances of a death, the coroner's investigation should be suspended and resumed only if the coroner considers that there are sufficient grounds to do so. To do otherwise would, in our view, be a waste of public money as both sets of proceedings would in essence be considering the same issues. It could lead to confusion and inconsistency as well as possibly causing added intrusion into the private grief of the family for no discernable benefit. Those problems would be amplified only if the two separate investigations came to different conclusions, particularly if they heard different evidence from different witnesses. The added grief that this would cause to the bereaved family for no good reason is surely not something that we should want.

Moreover, in those exceptional cases where an inquiry had been established in order to protect highly sensitive information, such as intercept material, from public disclosure, it could well be the case that any coroner's investigation that proceeded in parallel with an inquiry would not have access to the full facts and would not therefore be Article 2 compliant. It is questionable whether any coroner would want to proceed with an investigation in those circumstances. We consider that a coroner's investigation should be suspended pending the outcome of an inquiry and it should be a matter for the coroner to decide if there is sufficient reason to resume the investigation at the conclusion of the inquiry.

Given the concerns expressed by noble Lords about delays in complex cases, if not in inquests generally, we would have thought that that in itself was sufficient reason not to have two similar types of investigation into the same case. For any Members of your Lordships' House who may be tempted to vote for Amendments 1C and 1D, perhaps I may remind them that the effect of these amendments would be, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, pointed out, to strike out the judicial lock in the process of establishing an inquiry, which I described earlier. If Amendments 1C and 1D were carried it would still be open to a Minister to establish an inquiry to investigate the circumstances of a death, but the important safeguard in government Amendment 1B would not be there because that part of the Bill would be omitted. So I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. If she does not, I invite the House to vote against it.

I will respond to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and to those who spoke and agreed with him on the questions that he asked, and will also answer the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who asked what was meant by "indicating approval" and whether it would be on the public record. I will come to that in a moment.

The noble Lord mentioned a judge. Amendment 1B(b) refers to "a senior judge" who has been appointed under the Inquiries Act as chairman of the inquiry. The Lord Chancellor cannot simply go through a list of judges until the Lord Chief Justice is content to approve one of them. The Lord Chief Justice is being asked to approve the displacement of a coroner's investigation by an inquiry in the most rare of circumstances. I hope that my next sentence will answer some points asked by other noble Lords. If the Lord Chief Justice does not give his approval to the suspension of the coroner's investigation, no inquiry will be established. I could not be clearer than that.

The noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked whether the exchanges between the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice would be made public. I do not think that he will be surprised by my answer, which is that they will not. They will be summarised in the Written Ministerial Statement that the appropriate Secretary of State will be required to make when announcing an inquiry. There could be an oral Statement if there were major public concerns about the death that was the subject of the inquiry. We know that noble Lords and honourable Members in another place are quite able to ask Questions and get Statements if they so require.

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked whether the judge who is to chair any inquiry will have powers to appoint other panel members. I do not wish to appear disrespectful—the noble Lord will know Section 4 of the Inquiries Act 2005 much better than I do. When an inquiry panel is appointed:

"Each member ... is to be appointed by the Minister by an instrument in writing ... The instrument appointing the chairman must state that the inquiry is to be held under this Act ... Before appointing a member to the inquiry panel (otherwise than as chairman) the Minister must consult the person he has appointed, or proposes to appoint, as chairman".

The senior judge would be consulted before that appointment was made.

The noble Lord's second question, which was also asked by other noble Lords, was whether the report of an inquiry would be published in full, subject to the exclusion of security information as approved by the judge. The answer is that it will—only security matters will not be disclosed. This will be a matter of agreement between the Minister and the inquiry chairman. I hope that that goes some way to satisfying noble Lords who are interested in these matters.

I have said what I want to say. In due course I will move my amendment.