Coroners and Justice Bill

The right hon. and learned Gentleman's point would be a good one if inquests were criminal proceedings, but they are not. They are civil proceedings, and there is a much stronger parallel with POAC and SIAC—I believe that he established the latter process. Precisely because RIPA preceded Chilcot, we have those precedents in section 18 of that Act. I wish to provide the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) with reassurance about whether non-jury inquests could apply in the case of military inquests. If he looks at clause 7(2), he will see the circumstances in which a jury must sit in an inquest. They are essentially cases in which there has been a death in state custody or resulting from an act or omission of a police officer or member of a service police force, or a death""caused by a notifiable accident, poisoning or disease."" A senior coroner has the discretion to have a jury, but those criteria apply to state custody deaths or similar circumstances. They are simply irrelevant to military deaths, which arise in quite different circumstances. That being the case, the trigger in amendment 94 could not be fulfilled. That amendment sets out that the Secretary of State may certify an investigation under various criteria, including, as stated in proposed paragraph (b), if""the inquest will (if the investigation is not certified) be held by a senior coroner with a jury"." I can therefore provide the hon. Gentleman with the absolute assurance that he seeks. On the central issue, I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) and other hon. Members that I understand their use of the term "secret inquests", and we are certainly talking about inquests that will receive secret evidence, parts of which will be held in camera. However, it is common ground among all parties that there would have to be parts of inquests held in camera even if they were before a jury. The only part of such inquests that will be held in private, without the family being present, will be when there is protected evidence. When that takes place, counsel would be appointed to the inquest and directed by the coroner to take the responsibility of representing the family's interests and to test the evidence that could not be disclosed. I appreciate that that is second best, but the process has been used in plenty of other circumstances relatively satisfactorily. Under the set of procedures that we have discussed, the Secretary of State certifies, and the matter then goes before a judge to determine—I stress to hon. Members that it will be for judges to decide; amendment 97 plainly anticipates the judge's holding an inquest without a jury on the established criteria and if he is satisfied that it is necessary to do that to avoid the matter's being made public or unlawfully disclosed, and the next limb anticipates an inquest with a jury. I emphasise to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) that the central issue will not be the certificate but its effect. The certificate simply triggers the application, so it is hardly necessary to go behind it, although the learned judge will want to know the reasons for it because they will be germane to the evidence to be protected. The question then is whether there are ways in which to protect the material other than being without a jury.