Coroners and Justice Bill

I hesitate to speak on this group of amendments, but I feel that I have to. I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde. Indeed, the requirement to specify who the interested persons are relates to an amendment which I will be moving later, and her points are well made. I have a concern, though, about removing the ability of a coroner to exclude certain persons when a child is giving evidence. I say this based on our experience in south Wales, where children in a small community have been intimidated and frightened of speaking out. I understand the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in relation to the press but wonder whether there need to be reporting restrictions so that if members of the press had to breach them, they would know that they were doing so but for good reason, which would afford some protection to the child. I would certainly welcome the assurance he mentioned about libel law being protected whether the hearing was in public or not. I also ask the Minister whether, if we completely adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and were a full signatory to it, that might solve the problem in protecting children when they are giving evidence in what is often a desperately stressful situation because it often relates to the death of their own sibling. That is why I have a concern with simply deleting Clause 36(3)(b).