Coroners and Justice Bill

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his amendments and for the way in which he has spoken to them. We return to the issue of coroners’ investigations into the deaths of service personnel. The amendments relate to Clause 14. This clause, in conjunction with the amendments to the Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths Inquiry (Scotland) Act 1976 in Clause 41, makes provision for fatal accident inquiries to be held in Scotland into the deaths abroad of service personnel in certain circumstances. The intention is that requests to the Lord Advocate for a fatal accident inquiry will be made where the family of the deceased is based in Scotland. The Government aim to make what is a very difficult time for those bereaved families slightly easier, as it means that in most cases they will no longer need to travel long distances to England for an inquest. Subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 14 set out when the section applies, enabling a request for a fatal accident inquiry to be made to the Lord Advocate. The section applies to service personnel who die on active service, or in training or preparation for it, and to civilians subject to service discipline who were accompanying them. The noble and gallant Lord’s amendments would remove the requirement for the personnel covered by the clause to have been on active service, or accompanying those on active service, when they die. This would mean that a request to the Lord Advocate for a fatal accident inquiry could be made in relation to the violent or unnatural death overseas of any service personnel. I have carefully considered the noble and gallant Lord’s assertion at Second Reading that, ""all next of kin and families deserve the same fair treatment".—[Official Report, 18/5/09; col. 1270.]" I wholeheartedly agree, of course, that the families of service personnel who have died abroad other than on active service are equally deserving of our consideration. However, I cannot accept the amendments that he has spoken to tonight, as to do so would pre-empt the outcome of the independent review of the fatal accident inquiry legislation that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen of Whitekirk, is currently carrying out. His inquiry, announced on 7 March last year, is expected to report later this year. We consider that it would be premature to pre-empt his conclusions now by accepting these amendments. Hardly surprisingly, the noble and gallant Lord then asks me: why, if that is so, can we go as far as we have in Clauses 14 and 15? The answer is that we look forward to seeing the report from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen, to Scottish Ministers, but believe that the proposed amendments in this Bill can be made in advance of his work. We can go so far in advance of what he will say, but no further. The noble and gallant Lord will, perhaps, understand that there has been considerable discussion among various government departments—and, no doubt, the devolved Administrations—about how far we could go on this point while wanting to go further. We have listened to service families in Scotland and responded with these amendments, which will allow the coroner system in England and Wales and the fatal accident inquiry system that prevails in Scotland to be more responsive to families’ circumstances. We anticipate the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen, to Scottish Ministers. In the mean time, as part of their wider consideration of his recommendations, Scottish Ministers will consider whether the Bill’s provisions should be extended to cover the deaths of service personnel that occur in non-operational circumstances. I repeat what I said in my letter about the drafting of Clause 14, and thank the noble and gallant Lord for his thanks for that. I hope that I may have reassured him that we are doing what we can to assist bereaved service families north of the border, at what is clearly a very difficult time for them. I have done my best to explain why we cannot accept the amendments that the noble and gallant Lord raises tonight, nor later on in the Bill. They need to wait until the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen, has reported.