Coroners and Justice Bill

I shall speak to Amendments 191B to 191D, which are grouped here in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde. These additions amend Schedule 2 to the Access to Justice Act 1999 to include inquests into the deaths of members of Her Majesty’s forces. The assistance given would include the provision of legal aid and advocacy. Those benefiting from these amendments would only include family members or next of kin of deceased service personnel. I acknowledge the assistance of the Royal British Legion in formulating these changes. As I mentioned at Second Reading—and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has given more detail tonight on this—too often, the MoD is represented by counsel, while families have no automatic recourse to legal aid. Government counsel, the costs of whom now run into millions of pounds, are said to be present to assist the coroner. An inquest is not an adversarial court, so it is asserted that there is no need for the deceased’s next of kin to be legally represented. Pressures on the legal aid budget are also prayed in aid of refusal, which is offensive to the bereaved and does not chime in any way with the undertaking to deal fairly with the families of service personnel. That was a specific cross-government undertaking in Command Paper 7424, The Nation’s Commitment, to which I have already referred. It is, therefore, as much a duty for the Ministry of Justice and the devolved Administrations as for the Ministry of Defence not to cavil over the cost of making such provision. Moreover, we have recently had the Appeal Court ruling that Article 2, the right to life, can be applied in the field. Unless the ruling is overturned on appeal to the Law Lords or the Supreme Court—and I presume that it will be appealed—that will inevitably mean that the deceased’s next of kin may need legal assistance if human rights legislation may be involved. Alternatively, now that military inquest coroners have built up their expertise, perhaps the MoD should no longer have to field counsel at those hearings to assist the coroner, otherwise it might be for the coroner who will preside at the inquest to authorise legal aid for the deceased’s representatives, if requested, whenever the MoD is represented by counsel. The Royal British Legion and the War Widows Association held an event for bereaved Armed Forces families last year. I shall quote some extracts from the conclusion of a detailed letter that clearly outlines experiences of the bereaved: ""This feedback is lengthy but demonstrates that the process for inquest is seriously flawed, biased and unsupportive. The very department that heads up inquests receives all information and determines what families are told. Had we known half of the … information before we went to inquest the agenda and the proceedings would have been entirely different and we could have provided more assistance to the coroner. All bereaved families should be entitled, no matter what their means, to legal assistance under the legal aid system. This process leaves us still today, over two years since"," the loss of, ""our son, bereft of any sense of being treated with respect and receiving any natural justice. The MoD is a powerful machine, and if our ‘small voice’ can be used to make easier the experience of other families that inevitably will"," follow, ""in our footsteps, and if a more transparent and open process can be achieved, then writing this today has been worth the heartache and pain in reliving not only the traumatic pictures of that very fateful day but the experience of what we have had to endure over the last couple of years"." Those are very telling words, but they most strongly justify the purpose of my amendments. More must be done to help those who have most suffered the most traumatic loss of a healthy young man or woman just starting their adult life. We must not leave the next of kin feeling so bereft of help at such a dreadful time. In the foreword to Command Paper 7424, the Prime Minister said: ""I am determined to ensure that they"—" that is, the Armed Forces and families—"are fairly treated". I urge the Minister to accept this amendment.