Coroners and Justice Bill

Amendment 25 is proposed by INQUEST and places an absolute duty on the Secretary of State to provide legal aid for families. Amendment 101 is proposed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and calls for the Secretary of State to publish a report on access to legal aid for bereaved families. Ms Harriet Harman, speaking in another place last year, said: ""If bereaved relatives with no legal representation turn up on the steps of a coroner’s court and find that the Ministry of Defence and the Army have a great battery of solicitors and QCs, they cannot help but feel that the position is unfair".—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/08; col. 421.]" One instance of that was the inquest in 2008 into the death of Mark Camm, who died following police contact. There were some 13 legal representatives at the inquest looking after the interests of the chief constable—specific police officers and detention officers, force medical examiners, the NHS trust, and individual accident and emergency doctors—with the family left to fend for themselves. A letter was written to the Secretary of State for Justice by no less than 30 organisations on 5 June, which made the point that: ""Although funding for representation is available in some cases, to receive it families have to make lengthy, complicated, intrusive and time-consuming applications to the Legal Services Commission. Even when this process is completed, many families who require and deserve funding do not receive it. With the state always legally represented, this creates an unjust imbalance between the parties involved in the inquest"." I would like your Lordships for a moment to contemplate what happens at an inquest where the state is involved. Undoubtedly all sorts of interests will be represented by lawyers. The evidence may consist of difficult evidence from the post-mortem, presented by the pathologist; it may frequently involve an investigation into what goes on in police stations; there may be comments where the Army or the forces are involved on particular systems and the procedures; evidence may be called in factory cases in relation to what has gone wrong within a particular factory involving the use of complicated machinery; and so on. An unrepresented family cannot conceivably cope with an adequate testing of the evidence that is brought before them. Of the applications that have been made under the discretionary process, in 2007-08 only 12 of 69 applications for extraordinary funding that were made to the Legal Services Commission were granted, and in the previous year, the figure was only 16 of 104 applicants. So it is quite clear that there is a considerable deficit in what is available. INQUEST has provided details of certain cases. For example, exceptional funding was denied for the family of a man who died in hospital a few days after a struggle with a police officer on the grounds that the death fell outside the definition of being in custody and raised no matter of wider public interest. In another case, earnings details were sought of the family of a man who was found dead in prison—subsistence farmers living in Ghana. The inquest into the death of a woman in prison was adjourned in November 2006 to permit the representation of the family, and her retired parents were asked for £8,500 by the legal services in February 2007. The retired parents of a man who died in prison were required to use the money set aside from their retirement to contribute a representation. The daughter of a woman who died in police custody was required to contribute from the inheritance she received from her mother who was the subject of the inquest. She had to contribute £4,000, notwithstanding the fact that she was a single mother of a three year-old. I am grateful to the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers which has provided me a great deal of information. The purpose of this amendment at this stage is to suggest that the Government look at the sort of circumstances—and put them in the Bill, or at least in regulations—in which legal aid funding could be granted. In my Second Reading speech, I made the point that wherever the state is represented, there ought to be at least a presumption, if not a requirement, that the family of the deceased should be properly represented at public expense. Every party represented at an inquest, other than the deceased’s family, may very well be seeking to avoid blame and to make sure that they are not sued. It is only right that the family should be properly represented. The coroner’s decision should therefore take into account factors such as these: the level of the representation of other participating parties; the likelihood of the bereaved family being disadvantaged due to complexity or understanding; the likelihood of experts and witnesses appearing at the inquest; and the assistance that such representation is likely to give to the coroner in establishing the circumstances of the death or in making recommendations in relation to future deaths. All these matters are of importance. Legal professionals who are engaged by a family can give proper advice on the civil legal system and whether a civil claim is worth pursuing, and no doubt if they can the legal representatives can cross-examine witnesses and experts. They may very well found a claim that will not require litigation because, as I said yesterday in another context, insurance companies will very often meet a claim as a result of what is said at the inquest. The budget for civil legal aid has decreased from £922 million in 2003-04 to £795 million in 2007-08—a £127 million decrease in civil legal aid. Those data were given in response to a Written Question in the House of Commons in November 2008. The funds must be available for proper legal representation in this case. I see the Minister laughing. I do not think that his laughter will be well received by bereaved families: people whose sons have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or people whose sons or daughters have been subjected to death in prison for one reason or another. I do not think it is a matter for laughter. This is a very serious issue, which must be addressed. It is important that bereaved families receive legal representation to explore the reasons for the death of their loved ones and are advised of the consequences thereafter. I beg to move.