Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, it is partly not to delay unnecessarily the Minister’s reply to the speech that we have just heard that I curtail my remarks. With this scattergun of a Bill, it is impossible to avoid doing what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, has described as jumping from one point to another. I shall jump from one to no more than three others. The first is that I welcome the Government’s objective—we all do—of modernising and tidying the law relating to coroners. I regret to say that what I welcome most are the two points from which the Government have withdrawn since the publication of the Bill. The first is that we will not have special coroners appointed by the Secretary of State in certain inquests in the sure and certain hope that the coroners will not prove difficult. The second is that, since last Friday, the Secretary of State will not be able to dispense with an inquest jury by issuing a certificate in qualifying circumstances. That is immensely important and welcome, as the Minister knows very well, because the Government’s characteristic swipe at jury trial was unacceptable. In recent times, this House has had to deal with many attempts to curtail jury trial. To my recollection, they have all been generated much more by concern for administrative convenience and economy than for concern for public confidence in the justice system. For example, it is far from uncommon for families to harbour suspicions of cover-up at an inquest, especially where some big beasts are involved in the proceedings. That is just where the random selection of a jury is so important and reassuring, because, drawn from the community at large, as we all recognise—or should—they can look at evidence with the ordinary shrewdness and probable scepticism that sees them through their everyday lives. That is good for public confidence, and that is why we have relied on it for so long. Mr Straw’s latest recantation is very welcome and I hope that we shall have an undertaking during the wind-up speech tonight that there will be no attempt to unpick that withdrawal. Next, I express—rather lightheartedly, but not wholly—my sympathy for coroners when they come to contemplate in their part of the Bill the subtly and mysteriously varied states of mind for which they will be required to examine themselves. It would weary your Lordships if I were to identify line by line where the items in this menu are to be found, but a glance at the first few pages of the Bill and at Schedule 1 reveals the following questions that, on occasion, the coroner will have to ask him or herself: "Have I been made aware?" "Have I reason to suspect?" "Have I reason to believe?" "Do I think?" "Does there appear to me?" "Does it appear to me?" "Am I satisfied?" "Am I of the opinion?" "Have I reasonable grounds for believing?". Even a senior coroner will have reasonable grounds for believing that a different mental state is intended to be described by each of those varying tests, but they will not know what they are. I hope that the Minister will undertake to consider whether the coroner’s lot may be made a little happier in that regard. It should not be difficult. It is very important that coroners are not faced with difficult mental gymnastics. Moving on from coroners, I, too, voice my disappointment that the Government have opted for a step-by-step approach to the law of murder—and very modest and hesitant steps they are. I entirely endorse what has been said about the approach to the law of provocation. I personally think it quite wrong that special provision should be made to remove from consideration the fact of sexual infidelity. That is entirely mistaken and I hope that it will be corrected in Committee. The Government have rejected the Law Commission’s recommendation for a three-way classification of homicide offences—first and second-degree murder and manslaughter—which the commission thinks would better equip us to deal with the "stresses and strains" on the law in this field, as it puts it. Those stresses and strains are manifest, as we all know. They have also rejected the recommendations on the appropriate labelling of offences and sentencing. Among the many advantages that the commission’s approach would have is the ability to make a departure from what I regard as the deeply damaging mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for every murder. Here, I reluctantly depart from the policy of my party, but I share with it a commitment to honesty in sentencing—it is just that that commitment leads me here to the opposite conclusion. Before I turn, lastly, to an opportunity unfortunately missed, I come briefly to an opportunity unfortunately taken. It is to be found in Clause 61, in which the Government propose to flout the wise principle that there must be an end to litigation. Only last year, as we all know, the issue of a further free speech clause being added to the provisions of the Public Order Act 1986 was very fully debated. I will not go over it all again, as we have heard the argument powerfully expressed by my noble friend Lord Waddington tonight. Noble Lords understand the point very well. The Government say that it was cursorily debated. It was not: 138 of your Lordships voted in the Division and my noble friend Lord Waddington’s amendment was decisively carried. Rather than restore an anomaly whereby a free speech clause remained in the religious hatred offence in the same Bill but found no place in the new sexual orientation offence, the law ought to be allowed to rest as it has so been shaped only 11 months ago. I warmly agree with what has been said by many noble Lords. The opportunity missed is one that would correct a manifest deficiency in this country’s jurisdiction to prosecute for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. I entirely endorse what has been powerfully argued by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza. Let me deal with the retrospective question. At present, perpetrators of those offences in whatever part of the world are within the jurisdiction of United Kingdom courts only if the subjects are UK nationals or technically resident in the UK and if the crime was committed after 2001. Currently, there are people technically present in Britain who are suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide who cannot be prosecuted here because the crimes were committed before 2001—the date when the International Criminal Court Act came into force. The result is that, although their actions were always criminal in our law, persons present but not technically resident in this country cannot be prosecuted for an atrocity crime committed prior to 2001. That needs putting right, as the case involving four Rwandan citizens the other day has made clear: they had to be let go. That can be done without changing the substantive law retrospectively, which is not what is proposed. All that needs to change is the procedural law relating to jurisdiction. The argument has been pioneered by the Aegis Trust and by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. I hope that, when it comes to be debated in Committee, Ministers will support it. There is much to be achieved in Committee—a Committee of this unelected House that finds itself having to do the work that the elected House has turned its back on.