Coroners and Justice Bill

The whole debate has been dominated by two things. One is public confidence in the verdicts of inquests, which is related to the issue of the jury. Without a jury, how can we have confidence that verdicts in such cases will not be a stitch-up, especially given the circumstances in which juries are called into being in inquests in the first place? That was the point made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), among others. The second issue is about whether families are excluded from the process. Throughout his remarks, the Secretary of State never satisfied me or anyone else in the Chamber on that point. He had several goes at it, but in the end it came down to this: somebody else might, in certain circumstances, represent the family. That issue, which was raised by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) among others, goes to the heart of whether what has been proposed really protects victims and their families. I am certain after hearing the debate that it does not. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) made several important points, especially about cases in his experience where the security services have been involved. He also pointed out the simple fact that the cases that we are talking about are those that involve deaths at the hands of the state. That is why we need the widest possible use of juries in such cases. That is the counterweight to what the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said about cases in which there might be some nervousness about using a jury. We need to think about what those cases are. They are cases of deaths at the hands of the state in the first place. Whenever someone says that there are cases where the jury has to be excluded, they never come up with a convincing example. The one example of a case where the process is frozen, which the hon. Member for Stafford mentioned, is one that has nothing to do with national security. However, as the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) mentioned, in that case things seem to have gone very badly wrong legally. The other remark from the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham that made me nervous was his assumption, which I think the Government share, that juries are inevitably leaky. If one follows the wording of what is proposed, it would mean that a judge, even bending over backwards, would be unable to allow the jury to continue in the case, because he or she would have to conclude that the protected matters would end up being made public.