Coroners and Justice Bill

It is interesting to hear the Minister to use cost as an argument against these provisions, when of course the costs have been plonked upon local authorities. For once, the Government are not defending their own resources. I return to Amendment 17, where he conjured up the idea of the costs of numerous inquests in road traffic accidents. As I indicated in opening, the amendment simply puts back the existing law—namely Section 8(3)(d) of the Coroners Act 1988—which provides that a jury must be summoned in circumstances where, ""the death occurred in circumstances the continuance or possible recurrence of which is prejudicial to the health or safety of the public or any section of the public"." That is precisely what the amendment states. As far as I am aware, the coroner system has not so far been overwhelmed by motor accident cases. The suggestion that we are opening the door to a huge increase in inquests in those particular cases simply does not arise. The Joint Committee on Human Rights asked the Minister, in the course of the preparation of this Bill, to explain why the Government considered it appropriate to remove those existing provisions for compulsory jury inquests in cases where health and safety of the public might be at risk. The Minister explained that it was rare for juries to be appointed under the existing provision. The reason that she gave was that there was confusion about what it might mean in practice. Since it was rare, the Government considered that it was no longer needed and that it was sufficient to rely on the discretion contained now in Clause 7(3). The Joint Committee on Human Rights then asked the Minister to explain in what circumstances the coroner’s discretion to summon a jury would be exercised, and whether this could include cases where there might be a risk to the health and safety of the public, and a report from the coroner, which will be provided under paragraph 6 of Schedule 4, might be necessary to eliminate or reduce such a risk. The Minister told the Joint Committee in evidence that the coroner’s discretion to summon a jury would be exercised where it was felt that the public interest in the case was such that the coroner considered the additional scrutiny and independence of the jury would be beneficial, but that was not likely in the circumstances where health and safety was involved. On the one hand, the Minister's response to the exclusion of the existing law was that the coroner could exercise discretion to have a jury, but on the other hand, the Minister said that it was unlikely that the discretion would be exercised in those cases, which is a completely confusing answer. It is no surprise that the Joint Committee recommended that the Bill be amended to reflect the existing legal position. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referred to the discretion of the coroner and it is interesting to see how even that discretion has been limited by the Minister's answer. However, I am sure that any coroner in the future and any Chief Coroner will take heart from the Minister’s words that if there were a problem in health and safety cases no doubt a jury would be summoned under Clause 7(3). I heard what the Minister said about Amendment 16, where we sought to add the security services to the list. I was pleased to hear that there has apparently been no incident in 50 years, but the greater degree of participation that we have seen over these past few years of the security services in operational matters may very well lead to a situation where an inquest with a jury would be desirable. However, again, the coroner considering that would no doubt turn to Hansard and see that the Minister would approve of a jury in those cases.