Counter-Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I rise from the Opposition Benches to support the amendment tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Miller and Lady Stern. Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights places a duty on the state to investigate any death in custody by means of an inquiry which is capable of enabling those responsible to be identified and, if necessary, punished. I trust that that is indisputable. However, under existing English law, coroners are not permitted to see, let alone disclose to interested parties, any Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2005 material, even if such evidence is crucial in ascertaining how a person came to die. The consequence of that state of affairs is that our coronial law is not Article 2 compliant. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, said that the amendment would allow, "““wide disclosure of very sensitive material””.—[Official Report, 21/10/08; col. 1063.]" On any objective assessment of the situation, this simply cannot be the case. The proposed change to the Bill would merely bring the treatment of such material into line with the way it is treated in criminal proceedings, generally. For the terms of the amendment to be applicable in any given set of circumstances, the coroner would have to be a High Court judge, appointed under Section 14 of the Coroners Act 1988. The material in issue would be only RIPA-related material and the judge would have to be satisfied that it was essential to discovering how someone died before authorising its disclosure to the family of the deceased and to the jury. Reporting restrictions, in-camera hearings and confidentiality undertakings are all available to the judge to prevent matters receiving a wider audience.