Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, this Bill rightly reopens the debate of what to do about inquests that involve particularly sensitive information. We last debated this in your Lordships’ House under the Counter-Terrorism Bill last year. At that time, we certainly did not feel that the Government’s proposals were acceptable. Indeed, today, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has spent some time accurately kicking the clause when it was down, as he described it. There is certainly still a problem with the Government’s new proposals. The Ministerial Statement last week commended the use of the Inquiries Act 2005 and talked of using a special, ""procedure only in very exceptional and rare circumstances".—[Official Report, Commons, 15/5/09; col. 68WS.]" During the passage of this Bill, this House will have to debate exactly what the circumstances will be that need especial scrutiny. The Inquiries Act 2005 is one answer that the Government have come up with, but that is likely to be deficient in a similar way as was found under the Counter-Terrorism Bill for coroners; the panel will have the same problem in that it is not authorised under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to receive intercept evidence. The Government will need to address that, as they intend to for coroners. What this House should not accept is a system that allows the Government to hold secret inquests, or juryless inquests in those cases outlined under Clause 7, for any reason that is not absolutely accepted by this House. It was far from clear when we debated the Counter-Terrorism Bill that there would be any case where that would be justified. There might need to be safeguards. Indeed, we came up with a number of safeguards at that time. I hope that we will do so again. There is also the principle that inquests should be open to families. The exclusion of families for part or most of the inquest is highly undesirable. As we debate this Bill, we shall need to debate thoroughly the circumstances when a family might be excluded. Recently, the Terry Nicholas case, which was one of those that failed the intercept evidence test, has been resolved by the coroner in a thoroughly practical way. I believe that that will be an example to us as we go through this Bill. The coroner used her common sense; she redacted the sensitive information and the family were not excluded. The delays that the Rodney family have so far suffered because of the difficulties in using intercept evidence are quite unacceptable and I hope that legislation can resolve their case. Indeed, for families, all delays of many years in holding inquests are equally unacceptable. Going through the inquest process is extremely traumatic for a family member. Not only are they dealing with the grief and shock that such a death brings, but also, if an inquest is being held, it usually means that the death has been unexpected, violent or shocking, and often all three. The state has two duties at such a time. The first is to try to discover the truth of why the death occurred and the second is to learn any lessons for wider society. The fulfilling of these duties should be conducted in such a way as to avoid undue further trauma for the family. I believe that part of that trauma is induced when there are the sort of delays of which we have had some examples. My local press, the Western Morning News, highlighted such a case only last Saturday. It reported that Mr Pullman has been waiting since 2003 when his only son Adrian died. The inquest opened and adjourned in 2003 and has not resumed. It is not a straightforward case because of the number of agencies involved—care agencies, the local authority, the police et cetera—but it does not involve national security or anything like that. I believe that six years is an inhumane time to make a family wait for an inquest to be held. I hope that the timescale within which inquests are held will also be the subject of debate in this House. My noble friend spoke about legal aid, which I am sure the House will, rightly, dwell on. Another criminal justice issue about which I feel strongly is the treatment of children within the system. I know that my noble friend Lady Linklater will speak on that. Later, I shall address the sloppy drafting of the Bill in relation to criminal memoirs, because I believe that, while the provisions are justified, they have not been drafted as they should be. Finally, Part 8 is to be welcomed. The Minister is right to worry that the Government need to continue to listen to arguments about the scope of the assessment notice and enforcement for non-compliance. There is no reason in these days of PFI and the way in which the public and private sectors work together to have such a sharp division between the treatment of the public and the private sectors in terms of their duties under data protection. Of course we welcome the withdrawal of the information-sharing system, but some interesting points were made at the Information Commissioner’s conference last Wednesday that I hope we will have time to expand on in Committee. For example, Michael Wills MP, the Minister for Justice, said that freedom of information requests will be extended to private sector companies holding information of public interest. Since Part 8 deals with ICO powers and that office has responsibility for the Freedom of Information Act, will the Minister consent to introducing those changes into the Bill? We will be able to make a number of improvements to Part 8, including the one suggested in the March 2009 report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Government should reconsider the Information Commissioner’s request that the proposed power to issue assessment notices be extended to data controllers in the private sector. It is not only data controllers who are involved, because other people may fall under the scope of this provision. We may need to debate this in Committee.