Coroners and Justice Bill

At the risk of boring the House, I would like to refer to the debates and discussions we had in this House on the Corporate Manslaughter Bill. It was agreed then that the prison service should be made subject to the provisions of that Bill, largely on behalf of all the concerns people had that prison management somehow was able to escape from the normal supervision that would have been expected in cases where it might have contributed to death. During the course of that debate, the whole question arose of the families, and the way the families saw delays over inquests, and the fact that they went to inquests expecting more than an inquest is designed to give—which was clearly brought out in the debate yesterday, when I was unfortunately unable to be here. One of the reasons I welcome the formation of a more formalised coronial service, if that is right, is that I suspect that when coroners involved in a case relating to deaths in custody comes to decide whether this is a case that ought to go to a jury— because it contains aspects that deserve something more than a normal inquisitorial process—they will be better informed, and therefore the doubts that exist over the system at the moment may be ameliorated. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, said, there will not be all that many, but it is important that the whole system is subject to overall review, rather than it being left to be a sort of post code lottery. In this way, relatives can expect that the jury system, in which they as citizens have more confidence than a non-jury system, will result in fair rights, not depending on where they happen to be.