Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, the Bill raises momentous constitutional, judicial and ethical issues which are being debated with your Lordships’ customary incisiveness. I shall just consider one item from the extensive menu that the Bill presents, and that is the issue of treasure. The Minister reminded the House earlier that, since the 12th century, coroners have had responsibility in relation to treasure. It is therefore perhaps not unreasonable that, in the 21st century, we should update the legislation. We should not be impetuous in these matters, but we should not be dilatory either. It was a mystery why the provisions on treasure in the 2006 draft Bill were omitted from the Bill which we have before us, but happily we no longer need to inquire into that mystery, because today my noble friend told the House that the Government would reinstate in the legislation the provision for a single national coroner for treasure for England and Wales. I am very grateful to him for that. I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group, and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. The draft provisions on treasure were widely supported when they were presented, as certainly will be the Government’s change of heart announced today. Already, it has been generously welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, from the opposition Benches. It will be very much welcomed by the all-party group and the Society of Antiquaries, and by the British Museum, which has statutory responsibilities for administration on behalf of the DCMS of the regime created by the Treasure Act 1996. It will be welcomed as well by the National Council for Metal Detecting, which represents the vast majority of people who actually make finds of treasure. The definition of treasure is complex and derives from the 1996 Act but, in summary, it means any gold or silver finds that are over 300 years old; groups of coins in certain circumstances; and, where they are prehistoric, base metal groups or hoards of items. The provisions in the draft Bill were retabled in Committee in another place, and debated on 24 February. Mr Henry Bellingham set out the case for them admirably and in doing so acknowledged then, as I do today, an indebtedness to the British Museum for its advice on these issues. Ministers listened to what was said in that debate, and, in due course, accepted its conclusions. That seems to me, on a miniature scale, a very good instance of how parliamentary democracy ought to work—a point I think worth making, given that today it is unfashionable to suppose there is any good whatsoever in parliamentary democracy in this country. Why is it right to establish a single coroner to deal with all cases of treasure? Coroners in many areas, facing a multitude of pressures—a number of which have been described by noble Lords earlier—have been failing to meet the target set for them in the Treasure Act’s code of practice to resolve treasure issues within three months. The average time taken is about twice that. There is much variability: in some areas—Durham and Leicester, for example—it has been taking a year to deal with these cases. In Bridgend, it took nearly three and a half years for the coroner to hold an inquest in a particular case of treasure. I of course make no complaint or criticism of the Bridgend coroner. As was movingly described to us in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, the Bridgend coroner was under the most extraordinary pressure in the exceptionally tragic circumstances in that community. Indeed, any coroner being aware of the urgent desire of bereaved families for inquests to be completed could readily be excused for not making the consideration of treasure cases his top priority. But evils have arisen out of these delays. People who have reported finds have been prevented from receiving their due rewards, which is unfair on them, and the prevalence of delays has made it likely that others will be deterred from reporting finds that they may make. That tends to take us back towards the state of affairs that prevailed before the 1996 Act and before the creation of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. That was chaos: items of treasure simply disappeared, important information about our archaeology and history was not recorded, and lucrative opportunities were provided for criminals operating in the antiquities market—a matter which the Government solemnly committed themselves to tackle seriously when they subscribed to the UNESCO convention. Not only will the system of having a single national coroner be more efficient and speedier, we can expect that a dedicated coroner will be more expert in this field, and it will be cheaper to have a single treasure coroner—never a negligible consideration. The BM has computed that the saving will be of the order of £320,000 to £400,000 a year. So the decision that the Minister has announced today will be good for everyone: good for the finders of treasure, good for the landowners on whose land the treasure is found, good for the museums where these items of treasure should be consigned, good for scholars, and good for the public who appreciate items of treasure and learn from them. I did not hear the Minister say earlier whether it was the Government’s intention also to reinstate in the Bill the provisions that were in Schedule 3 to the draft Bill. That schedule would have brought forward three amendments to the Treasure Act, all uncontroversial and all recommended in the 2002 review. The first provision would widen the obligation to report finds of treasure to anyone who comes into possession of it, not just finders. That would put pressure on dealers and others such as people operating internet sites, notably eBay. The second alteration would provide a power for the coroner to require anyone reporting a find of treasure also to deliver that treasure—if it was in their possession—to the coroner. The third reform would extend the limitation period for prosecutions, which is currently six months. If coroners take a year to establish the evidence, it is very difficult indeed for the police to proceed. The system created by the Treasure Act is a success. The number of finds reported has risen from some 25 a year before 1997 to more than 800 in 2008, but the delays which have infested the system have tended to bring it into disrepute and to undermine its effectiveness. Parliament would, therefore, do well to legislate the solution that the Government themselves originally proposed.