Coroners and Justice Bill

The House knows that this is a compendium Bill and that it touches on fundamental issues that affect the nature of our society. I want to draw attention to a conclusion of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which comprises Members of the House of Lords and Members of this House. Few people will have had the opportunity to read the Joint Committee's report. It states:""The breadth and size of the Bill and the legal complexity and diversity of the topics it covers have been the subject of concern during the Bill's passage through the House of Commons given the limited time provided for scrutiny. We add our voice to those concerns. Large, multi-purpose bills of this sort are almost impossible to scrutinise effectively within the limited timescale provided by the Government. Given the range and significance of the human rights issues raised in this bill, the Government should have introduced two or three separate bills, each of which would have been substantial pieces of legislation in their own right or ensured that there was sufficient time for full pre-legislative and Committee stage scrutiny in the House of Commons. We welcome the fact that two days have been given over for Report stage in the House of Commons, a step not taken in relation to previous Bills of similar size, including the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill"." It does not take much wit or imagination to appreciate that a Bill that covers certified or secret inquests, data protection, consumer reforms, witness anonymity, changes in the criminal law and procedural changes deals with big, big issues which the House should take seriously. What the Government are consistently doing is denigrating this Chamber—my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) raised that point during questions on the statement by the Justice Secretary earlier this afternoon—rubbishing us, in one sense, and pushing the whole duty of legislative scrutiny down to the other end. There are matters in this Bill that we simply cannot reach. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), we shall not be able to discuss contentions that affect every one of our citizens. What is the purpose of the House of Commons if the Government persist in introducing guillotine motions with timetabling that does not enable us to discuss the business involved? This is a denial even of the Justice Secretary's Bill of rights and responsibilities. What about the responsibilities of a Government to ensure that Parliament—the elected House of Commons—can discuss matters such as secret coroners' courts?