Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, this group of amendments returns us to the use of intercept evidence and its place at inquests. We have had much debate about how the Bill rightly modernises the coroner service. Of course, it should make it a service for the 21st century, so it should not duck a central fact of 21st century security and policing; namely, that intercept evidence plays an increasing part in much of that policing and security work. The coronial service must be enabled to work with that, which is the aim of my amendments. In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, said that I was barging in in a cavalier fashion in trying to introduce intercept in coroners’ courts. She will be happy to hear that I have met the intercept as evidence implementation unit about which she talked. I appreciate that its work is necessary and complex. However, does this House have the will to put at the heart of the Bill a single coronial system that operates when somebody dies, or will it accept the parallel system which the Government prefer because they cannot bring themselves to accept an adapted form of intercept that would work within the coronial system? The House will recall that this problem was highlighted by the Azelle Rodney inquest, but the increasing use of intercept means that this is a growing problem. The Rodney inquest has been outstanding for four years and we have already talked this afternoon of the effects of this delay, not only on family but also on witnesses. Four years is a long time for a witness to remember any facts accurately and it must seem like a lifetime in hell for the mother whose child has been killed. This inquest cannot be heard, we are told, because of the intercept evidence and/or the method of gathering it. The revelation of this evidence would jeopardise national security or the ability to detect and investigate further crime activity. We certainly accept on these Benches that there will be occasions when evidence cannot be openly heard and this is not a new problem. In Committee we were reminded that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, first proposed lifting the ban on this evidence 10 years ago. The Chilcot review recommended lifting the absolute ban on Section 17 of RIPA in February 2008. We tried in this House to address these problems in legislation in the Counter-Terrorism Bill in 2008 when the Government proposed secret inquests. In fact, in the face of united opposition, they withdrew that proposition, very sensibly. Today they propose a solution using the Inquiries Act to solve this problem, which we believe is an even worse solution than their previous unacceptable idea of secret juryless inquests. Under the Inquiries Act they will have far too wide-ranging powers to restrict public access to hearings and documents which will restrict the final report. I do not believe that the Government paid sufficient attention to what the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones—then shadow Minister for Security and now shadow Home Office Minister—said from Conservative Front Bench when she explained why she supported the amendments we tabled then, which were similar to those before your Lordships’ House today. She said: ""The point is not simply that inquests should be institutionally independent, but that they should be prompt".—[Official Report, 10/6/09; col. 721.]" She put her finger on the two overriding issues. Institutional independence is exactly what would be lost if we were to accept the Government’s solution of an inquiry substituting for an inquest because the state can be heavily involved in the inquiry process—setting the remit, deciding on exclusions, and so on. These amendments have been carefully drafted to ensure that all evidence, including that gathered under RIPA, can be heard by a judge sitting as a coroner. He is independent from Government and seen to be so. He has the power to address the fact that some of the evidence may need to be heard in private and may never see the light of day. But importantly, the whole process remains within the coronial system with all its independence from the state. This point was eloquently explained in Committee by the late Lord Kingsland in his usual forensic and concise manner when he said: ""The Opposition would much prefer a solution in the coronial context to the one in the context of the Inquiries Act".—[Official Report, 10/6/09; col. 725.]" He also pointed to a good compromise in an attempt to meet the Government’s concerns when he said: ""There may be room for an amendment that advances the possibility that, in certain circumstances, intercept evidence could be used in a traditional coronial context, with appropriate safeguards. However, if it is considered that the security nature of that evidence is such that relevant matters should be withheld from the jury, the Government could go to the second stage and initiate an inquiry—as long as the amendments that we tabled to the inquiry system were accepted by the Government".—[Official Report, 10/6/09; col. 727-28.]" Government Amendments 21 to 23 miss the central point that Lord Kingsland made so concisely. They also miss the point made in Committee so cogently by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that there are powerful safeguards already in our amendments but that if the Government feel that additional safeguards are needed, they should explain what they are and table those. The Government have ignored the constructive suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and instead simply invite us to accept the unacceptable. We believe that our coronial system ensures that the coroner sets the remit for an investigation into a death, and not the state. Our coronial system is there to ensure that citizens as jurors are involved in violent or unnatural deaths at the hands of the state. The fact is, they are there as the eyes and ears of society to make sure that the state has not overstepped the line. Ensuring our security may sometimes involve police shooting to kill, for example. We would all accept that there is a fine line between ensuring our security in such a way and impunity for agents of the state when things have gone wrong. It is not for the Government to have any part in deciding where that line is or, indeed, when it has been overstepped. Our amendments would ensure that the coroners system remains at the heart of the most difficult and controversial deaths. I beg to move.