Coroners and Justice Bill

If we look together at paragraph 6 of Schedule 4, it reads: ""Where … a senior coroner has been conducting an investigation … anything revealed by the investigation gives rise to a concern that circumstances creating a risk of other deaths will occur, or will continue to exist, in the future, and … in the coroner’s opinion, action should be taken to prevent"—" a crucial word— ""the occurrence or continuation of such circumstances, or to eliminate or reduce the risk of death created by such circumstances, the coroner may report the matter to a person who the coroner believes may have power to take such action"." It then proceeds to say what will happen next. The point that I was trying to get across in responding to this debate was that this was a power that coroners would be given under the Bill. The power already exists, as I understand it, under current rules and I should have thought that those who have spoken in this debate would welcome that power. In other words, if there were potential deaths to be prevented in future, the coroner should have a statutory way of getting that message across to the appropriate parties.