Coroners and Justice Bill

I have several amendments in this group. I should like to speak to Amendments 7 and 27 and then turn to Amendments 26 and 29. The term "how" appears to be too simplistic for all the reasons outlined by my noble friend Lord Alton. I want to link this to coding, however; when a death has occurred, the narrative verdict goes to the Office for National Statistics, where coding has to be undertaken. I should like to give a shortened example to illustrate why "how" is too simplistic. Let me give the example of a drowning. A deceased person who resigned from work appeared to become depressed and did not want to bother his GP. He felt guilty towards others at work that he had not been replaced. His partner came home to find an empty house. Thinking that he had gone for a walk along the cliffs, which was near their home, his partner went to search for him but the body was found in the water. The emergency services were called, the body was retrieved from the water by the coastguard, and the post-mortem revealed drowning. That is a shortened version. The problem facing the ONS in coding was whether this was an accidental or unintentional death, intentional self-harm, assault or an event whose intent cannot be determined. We look at statistics to see what is happening in our society, particularly in the case of self-harm—we have talked a lot about suicides already—but without the accurate coding of a death we do not know. There is a problem when there is only a narrative verdict, but there is also a problem sometimes if there is not a narrative verdict because it does not set the context of the death. That was the thinking behind Amendment 27, which aims to make sure that whoever is involved in the hearing will put some thought into which category they felt would be most appropriate for the death to be classified as well as providing a narrative verdict. There are other examples that I could give, but because of the time I will not go into them. I have a whole collection, however, and it is to the credit of the Office for National Statistics that it manages to provide coding on some of the very complex verdicts that emerge. There is another problem about how a death occurred. As well as the means by which the death occurred, there can be important cases involving public health and safety, where the Human Rights Act does not apply and there is need for a broader inquiry, such as deaths raising concern about transport or workplace safety; the death of a vulnerable old person in a nursing home; or the death of someone in a private workplace. There needs to be a lot more said than simply "how" their death came about. On Amendment 26, the Bill appears to prevent verdicts of unlawful killing or neglect which appear to determine civil liability. As I understand it, there is a debate in the courts at present about whether an inquest can contain judgmental words such as "serious" or "unreasonable". It seems that this dates back to 1984. Since then, however, processes of judicial review, regulatory law and professional accountability have increasingly been developed. I am grateful to Inquest for drawing to my attention the inconsistency between this legislation and the legislation in Scotland where, if there is a fatal accident inquiry, deaths are investigated and the sheriff is allowed to determine, among other things: where and when the death and any accident resulting in the death took place; the cause or causes of the death and any such accident; the reasonable precautions, if any, whereby the death and any accident resulting in the death might have been avoided; the defects, if any, in any system of working which contributed to the death, or any accident resulting in the death, and any other facts which are relevant to the circumstances of the death. I understand from Inquest that it has long argued that the prohibition on verdicts appearing to determine an issue should be removed from coronial law altogether. The issue in an inquest is responsibility, not liability. There can be confusion, which is why these amendments have been put down. Indeed, I began to wonder, in the light of the recent judgment in Northern Ireland, whether this part of the legislation would now require a small amount of amending. I would leave that up to the Minister and the Bill team and not attempt to do that myself. Amendment 29 links to this and is quite specific about whether precautions were taken to prevent or avoid the death; and that is linked again to the safety aspects and whether proceedings or questions should be raised immediately following the inquest to protect others who might be in a high-risk environment but are unaware of it. That relates particularly to employers. I hope that that explains, as briefly as I can, the thinking behind this group of amendments and why the word "how" seems grossly inadequate and really should be expanded on.