Coroners and Justice Bill

Infidelity has a very wide range. There can be the casual affair, where there is a feeling of disappointment; or there can be a breach of trust between partners where there has been a lengthy marriage, where there has been concealment, where one or other of the partners is disabled, and so on. It can be something that moves people to the depths of their being—that their partner should be in such a breach of the trust that has been imposed on them and is unfaithful in those circumstances. If the Government want to maintain the defence of provocation, and to maintain it on the basis of the loss of self-control—which is fundamental to the concept—I fail to see why a loss of self-control caused by a deep breach of trust and unfaithfulness should be any less a reason for reducing murder to manslaughter than any other form of provocation that may be advanced. It is fundamental. Looking back in history, one sees that that was one of the four reasons determined in 1709 and based on earlier common law provisions. Adultery was one of the reasons then for provocation. I do not want to go back to those days; I do not want to go back to provocation; but if we are to base the law on loss of self-control, how can we exclude the deepest feelings and passions, the breach of trust and breach of faithfulness, from our considerations? The important point that the noble and learned Baroness makes—she agrees with me on this—is that today a defendant would be fortunate to succeed on the basis of infidelity alone. Standards have changed, the sense of trust has changed. Today, a defence of provocation based simply on infidelity without a deeper and broader background would not succeed. Why not? Because juries come from the world we live in, and they are the people who assess the degree to which a person has been harmed and the degree to which that person can be excused from the consequences of a murder conviction—that mandatory life sentence—by reason of the passions that have been unfairly stirred up inside them. I do not accept the reasoning that the noble and learned Baroness has put forward, and I have no doubt that we will return to this at the next stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 170 withdrawn. Clause 45 agreed. Clause 46 agreed.