Coroners and Justice Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Henley, makes the case for spelling out which Secretary of State quite well. I believe—and I will write to the noble Lord if this is not correct—that it is essentially for the avoidance of doubt. Our amendments already pick up his suggestion. There will be no requirement for future changes to the Secretary of State’s title in primary legislation. It will be covered in the transfer of functions order, as I said earlier. That will have the power to change the title in this case. I, too, was curious about what "acting personally" means. My answer begins: ""There is no intention that the Secretary of State will actually use these powers himself"," which I thought was a great start. The powers will be used by an appropriately senior prosecutor within the department. Where a Secretary of State is ordinarily granted a power in legislation, unless otherwise specified this power may automatically be exercised on his behalf by a large number of officials within his department. We want to ensure that these powers can be delegated by the Secretary of State only to no more than two appropriately senior prosecutors within the department. That is the sole reason behind the use of the phrase "acting personally".