Coroners and Justice Bill

Because the Secretary of State may be concerned about the need to protect the information. However, we do not believe that the Secretary of State should be the determining individual, who decides whether to dispense with a jury. I know that my right hon. Friend is sceptical about the independence of the judiciary, but, as someone who has been rolled over in judicial review after judicial review almost weekly since I became a Secretary of State 12 years ago, I believe that the courts are very independent, and on precisely the sort of issue that we considering. I remind my right hon. Friend of the excoriating judgments by the Law Lords about control orders. If the courts were a patsy, they would have said, "Fine, we'll simply accept them." Hon. Members of all parties accept that there may be occasions when the information to be protected is such that it cannot go before a jury. The difference between Conservative Front Benchers and us is that we believe that a judge in the High Court should make that judgment. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) rather eccentrically takes the view that a Secretary of State should make it. Under his proposal, when the information could not be presented before a jury, it would be for a Secretary of State to establish a special inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005.