Coroners and Justice Bill

Local authorities are going to be responsible for meeting their obligations under the Bill. It may even be that the Chief Coroner will exercise the option of naming and shaming poorly resourcing authorities if there is no indication of improvement. We hope to bring much greater pressure than has been the case in the past with the individual coroner in a locality wrestling with the issue. We hope to bring a degree of national or at least regional comparison with, in the most extreme cases, the Chief Coroner indicating that standards are not high enough in a locality. I accept, as the noble Baroness says, that local authorities are not going to be able to throw a switch and solve these problems overnight. No issues with regard to resource allocations are solved in that way. The Bill is meant as a powerful instrument for the improvement of resources. It is not going to be achieved overnight—certainly not in the circumstances where we recognise that local authorities struggle to meet their commitments and have many challenges. The objective of the Bill is to create a framework in which improvement can be effected. I hope noble Lords will recognise that the Bill faces up to the question of a necessary structure to improve resources. What I hope I have identified as probing amendments can be safely withdrawn on the basis that the Bill significantly addresses these issues.