“(1) A person (‘D’) is guilty of an offence if—

(a) D conceals the deceased body of another person, and

(b) D intends to obstruct a coronial investigation, or

(c) D conceals a death to facilitate another criminal offence.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b), the circumstances in which a coronial investigation is required are set out in section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), concealment of a homicide will be conclusive evidence of an intent to obstruct a coronial investigation.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.

(5) The common law offence of obstructing the coroner is abolished.”—

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss new Clause 84—Desecration of a corpse—

“(1) A person (‘D’) is guilty of an offence if—

(a) D acts with severe disrespect to a corpse, and

(b) D knows that, or is reckless as to whether, their acts are ones of severe disrespect.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), whether an act is one of severe disrespect will be judged according to the standard of the reasonable person.

(3) A person is not guilty of an offence under this section if—

(a) they had a reasonable excuse for their acts,

(b) the act would otherwise be criminal under section 1 of the Human Tissue Act 2004,

(c) the act is also a criminal offence under section 70 Sexual Offences Act 2003 (‘Sexual penetration of a corpse’),

(d) a person, prior to their death, has given consent for the acts to be done to their deceased body, notwithstanding that they involve severe disrespect to the corpse.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.

(5) The common law offence of preventing a lawful and decent burial is abolished.”

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. There can be few things worse than learning of the murder of a close relative. There is then the trauma of the trial and the detail that is raked over to ensure a conviction. In certain cases, the never-ending turmoil of not having a body to lay to rest is an unimaginable form of emotional torture.

The tireless work of Marie McCourt ensured that Parliament passed Helen’s law in March 2020. The body of Helen McCourt, Marie’s daughter, who was murdered in 1988, has never been found. Her killer never disclosed the whereabouts of her body. Marie’s campaigning successfully changed the law so that parole boards must now take into account whether killers have refused to co-operate in the recovery of their victims’ remains.

Anomalies in the law remain when a body is never found, however, and they must be addressed. That is why the two new clauses would create two new offences: that of concealing a body and another relating to the desecration of a corpse. New Clause 83 would replace the common law offence of obstructing a coroner with the offence of concealing a body. New clause 84 would replace the common law offence of preventing burial, which has its origins in ecclesiastical law, with the new offence of desecration of a corpse. That would also address gaps in the law and capture a range of intentional acts of severe disrespect, including the mutilation of a corpse, the drawing of lewd images on a deceased body, and non-penetrative sexual acts performed involving a corpse.

In 2017 the Law Commission acknowledged:

“The law governing how we dispose of the bodies of our loved ones…is unfit for modern needs.”

The current law is haphazard in how it is applied to deal with the serious wrong of behaving with gross disrespect towards deceased bodies. The existing common law charges of preventing a lawful and decent burial, hiding a corpse and obstructing a coroner have been rarely used.

When Helen McCourt was murdered in 1988, murder trials without a body were exceptionally rare. Sadly, today they are common because, as forensic detective methods have become more sophisticated, killers are resorting to ever more desperate measures to hide evidence of their crimes. In 2019 the Home Office confirmed that since 2007-08 there have been 50 homicides—convictions for murder and manslaughter—without a body. One can only try to imagine the huge extra distress this causes victims’ families, and as the law stands the killer will receive no further punishment for the additional horrific crimes committed after the initial homicide. The distress to the affected families will only continue to rise without a change in the law. If offenders knew that they would face charges relating to non-disclosure and desecration as well as for the homicide offence itself, they may think twice about committing the offence and maintaining silence about it.

I thank Dr Imogen Jones of Leeds University, a specialist in this area of law, for her help in drafting the new clauses. I will end by paying tribute to Marie McCourt, who has continued to highlight these issues following her success in changing the law in March 2020. It would surely be a fitting testament to her tireless campaigning to see these new clauses passed into law, and it would also serve as a legacy to daughter’s name.

I thank the Shadow Minister for his speech and for introducing this new Clause so eloquently. He mentioned the tragic case of Helen McCourt, which I am sure is on our minds as we debate this new clause. Along with Conor McGinn, I have met her mother Marie McCourt, who has campaigned tirelessly on this issue for many years, which led ultimately to the passage, as the shadow Minister said, of Helen’s law a few months ago. It was a privilege to take it through the House of Commons as the Bill Minister.

The Government once again are very sympathetic to the sentiments and the intention behind these new clauses, and I would like to look briefly at new clauses 83 and 84, which combined seek to repeal and replace two common law offences, as the shadow Minister has said. New clause 83 would repeal the common law offence of obstructing a coroner, replacing it with a statutory offence, while new clause 84 seeks to repeal the common law offence of preventing lawful burial.

It is worth just saying that, as with many common law offences, they are quite wide-ranging measures in their scope and cover potentially quite a wide range of behaviour. One of the risks we run when we seek to codify the common law—as we sometimes, or indeed often, do—is that we may inadvertently narrow the scope of the existing common law provisions. Of course, we will also be reducing the maximum sentence, because as common law offences these offences currently have a maximum sentence of life whereas by creating a statutory offence, as these new clauses seek to do, there would be a specified much lower maximum sentence.

It is worth saying that the common law—as, too, the non-common law—does cover the question of concealing a body in various ways. In circumstances where an offender is responsible for a homicide, the fact that they concealed or mutilated the body is already taken, not as a point of common law but as a point of sentencing guidelines, as a clear aggravating factor at sentencing. Therefore, on conviction the sentence will be increased, reflecting the fact that the sort of behaviour the shadow Minister has described has occurred. Where the concealment of a body is part of a course of action that includes the killing, the sentence for murder would again include that as an aggravating factor in deciding the starting point for the sentence. If we have a separate offence, the danger, of course, is that the offences may be served concurrently, so we may not have someone in prison for any longer, whereas if it is an aggravating factor for the main offence, we may well get a longer sentence. We need to be mindful of those technical reasons that might inadvertently have the opposite effect to that intended.

It is also the case, of course, that once someone is convicted of an offence of this kind—this includes refusing to disclose the location of the body—we have legislated via Helen’s law, as the shadow Minister said, that the Parole Board is now obliged as a question of statute to consider the non-disclosure of the whereabouts of the body when making release decisions. That was previously in parole guidelines but is now statutory, which also sends a message to the Parole Board about how strongly Parliament feels about this. Non-disclosure could also lead to a later release point. All those points are important to bear in mind.

On new clause 84, which seeks to deal with the desecration of a body, the meaning of acting with severe disrespect to a corpse could, under the new clause as drafted, include several circumstances such as mutilation, hiding or concealment, unlawful burial or cremation, or otherwise preventing the lawful burial of a body. It could also mean taking photographs of bodies where it is inappropriate or unnecessary to do so. The Government completely understand the thinking behind the new clause, because, of course, the bodies of those who have passed away should be treated with dignity and respect.

A number of existing criminal offences can already be used, such as preventing lawful burial and decent burial, as well as perverting the course of justice if the activities are designed to prevent justice from being done. Those are common law offences with a maximum penalty of life, as I said. There are also statutory offences such as disposing of a child’s body to conceal a pregnancy or burning a body other than in a crematorium, as well as offences that can apply in some circumstances, such as misconduct in public office if such a person—that could even include a police officer—is in public office.

The desecration of a body is likely to be connected to another offence. Therefore, as with the previous new clause, an act of desecration is likely to be an aggravating factor in sentencing the other offence, which might be murder or manslaughter, resulting in a more severe penalty. Again, we come to the question of concurrency: if a separate offence is created, the two sentences might run concurrently, whereas if instead the act aggravates the main offence, there may be a longer sentence. Those points are worth making.

The intention of the new clauses may be to ensure that people who commit such acts would spend longer in prison, and we obviously sympathise with that, but it is possible that, for the reasons I have mentioned, they would not achieve that effect. Such matters can be reflected either through the existing common law offence or as an aggravation to the principal offence. We now have Helen’s law regulating release from custody where that happens.

The Government recognise the campaigning done by Marie McCourt, and I know that the Lord Chancellor has met her as well as the hon. Member for St Helens North. The Lord Chancellor has met her a number of times and I have met her as well. We want to continue discussing these issues with Marie and her family and to think about whether there is anything else we can do to ensure that the awful circumstances we are discussing are fully reflected beyond even what I have already described. We are receptive to ideas in this area and are happy to talk about them and think about what else can be done, but, for the reasons about the precise way in which the new clauses are crafted, we do not think they would take the law as it stands any further forward. However, we are happy to work with Marie, the hon. Member for St Helens North, shadow Ministers and others to see if there are other things that we can do.

On the basis of what the Minister has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

I do not know how hon. Members have managed it, but new Clause 84 has already been debated, so we come to the final question.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.

It is customary at this stage to mark the end our deliberations in Committee by reflecting on the ups and downs, the agreements and disagreements and the range of subjects on which we have deliberated. Our debate on the police covenant at the beginning of the Committee’s deliberations feels like a long time ago. I am pleased that the Bill and no fewer than 84 new clauses have had the benefit of rigorous scrutiny by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee over the past few weeks.

I thank in particular you, Mr McCabe, for your stylish chairmanship of the Committee as well as your co-Chair, Sir Charles, who was equally stylish and equally good at keeping us all in good order. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, for sharing the privilege, the pleasure and the workload of our Committee with me. I thank the Opposition Front Benchers—the hon. Members for Croydon Central, for Stockton North and for Enfield, Southgate—for their constructive and at times lively approach to the matters that we have debated, but that is all absolutely in the role of this Committee and what this process is supposed to do in this place.

I would, of course, get into lots of trouble if I did not thank the Government Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby. If Chairs keep us in order, Whips whip us in to make sure that we remain in good order. I give my sincere thanks to him because it is a very difficult job at times and one that does not get much praise.

I thank the Clerks for herding us in the right direction when we needed to be so herded, and the Hansard writers, whose ability to keep note of what we are saying never fails to amaze me. I thank the officials and the lawyers from the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Transport. A huge amount of work goes on behind the scenes to help Ministers to prepare for a Bill Committee, and it is very much thanks to them that we are able to do so.

That flows inevitably to my very sincere thanks to the Bill manager for the Home Office, Charles Goldie, and the Bill manager for the MOJ, Katie Dougal—I hope I pronounced that correctly. They help Ministers to swim serenely above the water while they are working terribly hard underneath, so I thank them very much for their hard work and effort.

Thanks also to our private offices, who help Ministers to turn up at Committee on time. Finally, of course, thanks to the members of the Committee. I know that, for some Members, this was their first Bill Committee—I hope that we have not put them off for life—but they have all contributed in their own way and have played a vital role in scrutinising this important piece of legislation so that it is ready for the House’s wider scrutiny on Report in a week and a half’s time. Thank you all.

The very fact that we are within three minutes of the reporting time for this Bill justifies my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate fighting for all the time that the Committee has had to deliberate. I thank you, Mr McCabe, and Sir Charles for chairing our weeks of deliberations with skill and good humour.

I thank the Government Members who made a contribution and even those who were able just to crack on with their correspondence, and Ministers for listening and making us some promises that I am sure they will keep. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle, recognised very early on that a 16-year-old is not an adult in any circumstances whatsoever, and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Croydon South, very kindly said that he would act as an advocate for Opposition Members who might be having problems engaging with other Government Ministers.

My thanks also go to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central for sharing the Front-Bench role with me and for championing our position on shopworkers and protests. I thank all the other Opposition Members who did a grand job holding the Government to account on everything else—from violence against women and girls, to pet theft. I thank the many organisations, too numerous to mention, that championed their causes and helped us to champion ours, too. Without them the challenge to the Government would have been all the poorer. I thank the Committee Clerks for their professionalism and their patience and, of course, our friends in the Hansard service.

Finally, I thank our Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate, who will now hang up his whip and get into his new role on a full-time basis, as I understand it. I thank him especially because I really did need him daily to tell me, “It’s okay, Alex, we will get through the business. We will get to the end. We will get all the new clauses dealt with—rest assured.” So, thank you to him.

Bill, as amended, accordingly to be reported.

Committee rose.