Coroners and Justice Bill

The proposal concerns me. The Minister was speaking against Amendment 183ZA, which would have extended the use of this clause beyond murder and manslaughter. However, under subsection (4), the Secretary of State could enlarge it to anything at all, although the Government seem at the moment opposed to enlarging it in any way. I find this sort of clause worrying and very unsatisfactory. I am not content by the idea of it being an affirmative statutory instrument. As a member of the Merits Committee, I have noticed that quite a few affirmative statutory instruments slip quietly through the Moses Room in Grand Committee without anybody really looking at them. I do not believe that I have ever seen a subsection quite like this, and it seems to me to be very unsatisfactory.