Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, the amendment has the support of the Criminal Justice Alliance, which represents some 30 organisations that have been in correspondence with the Secretary of State for Justice on this important issue. I am grateful to the Minister for the opportunity to have a discussion with him prior to our Sitting today, and I hope to hear from him that he has listened to what we have said in relation to the amendment. I owe it to the House to say something about the purpose of the amendment. In the European Court of Human Rights, in the case of Z v United Kingdom in 2002, the judgment says that there must be a sufficient element of public scrutiny of the investigation into a death and its results to secure accountability in practice as well as in theory. In all cases, the next of kin of the victim must be involved in the procedure to the extent necessary to safeguard his or her legitimate interests. In the Lawrence inquiry, Sir William Macpherson emphasised, in paragraph 134 of his report, that: ""The Court considers that the right of the family of the deceased whose death is under investigation to participate in the proceedings requires that the procedures adopted ensure the requisite protection of their interests, which may be in direct conflict with those of the police or security forces"." In the 2006 report of the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, recommendation six states: ""Public funding must be provided for bereaved families for proper legal representation at timely inquests relating to deaths in state custody that engage the state’s obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human rights. Funding should not be means tested and any financial eligibility test should be removed whenever Article 2 is engaged. Funding should also cover reasonable travel, accommodation and subsistence costs of families’ attendance at inquests"." In addition to those powerful voices, I refer to what was said by Miss Harriet Harman in March 2008 on the Floor of the House in another place. She said that the coroner system needed to be made fairer for bereaved families and that: ""We need to give bereaved relatives at inquests a real sense of fairness and support".—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/08; col. 421.]" She also said that, ""it is important to improve the Coroner Service so that bereaved relatives can get answers to their questions".—[Official Report, Commons, 20/3/08; col. 1089.]" She said in addition: ""I agree with the hon. Gentleman that if bereaved relatives with no legal representation turn up on the steps of a coroner’s court and find that the Ministry of Defence and the Army have a great battery of solicitors and QCs, they cannot help but feel that the position is unfair".—[Official Report, Commons. 13/3/08; col. 421.]" I respectfully suggest to the House that the importance of having bereaved families properly represented is always viewed one way. Why is that? It is because inquests that include bereaved families and public authorities, such as the police, the Prison Service or the military, involve highly contentious issues, one of which is often the question of disclosure—a matter that we discussed a little earlier today in the context of intercept evidence. At times it is necessary to make applications for the disclosure of information but the demands of the bereaved families are often at odds with what the state and public authorities wish to maintain. In military inquests, the MoD often raises national security as a reason for non-disclosure or redaction, but sometimes, upon challenge by legal representatives of the bereaved, this turns out to be nothing more than embarrassing or problematic evidence against the state. Therefore, when it is necessary to tease out problems of disclosure and the provision of information, legal representation is very necessary. However, interested parties may sometimes face criticism. I remind your Lordships of the inquest into the death of James Collinson, a young recruit who died at Deepcut barracks. In that case, two soldiers who were on duty with the deceased at the time of his death were separately represented by independent counsel at the inquest, funded by the taxpayer, and advised by lawyers provided for them by the Ministry of Defence. These were two people who could conceivably be implicated in the death at Deepcut and they had full legal representation paid for by the taxpayer. That is in addition to the Ministry of Defence, which would always be separately represented, again at the taxpayer’s expense. In another Deepcut inquest into the death of Geoff Gray, members of the family were told by the coroners’ office that did not need legal representation, so they did nothing more than accept that advice. The inquest was over in half a day, during which the bereaved family experienced witnesses being prompted from the public gallery, and there were no disclosure arguments. That is a matter of great concern. Families that appear at inquests trying to find out what has happened to the deceased person are at a considerable disadvantage if they have no one representing them against the battery of lawyers who are provided by the state not just for the departments involved but also for people who might be implicated. It is quite wrong that they should be in that position. That is the basis of my argument, but how much would it cost if the provisions set out in my amendment were carried through? The best estimate that we have is from the ministry, which says that the cost of representation at an inquest is about £8,000 a time, and we are dealing with a maximum of 400 cases. I think that the Ministry of Justice itself has suggested that the cost of providing this service would be some £6.4 million, some of which could be recovered under decided cases in the event of a family being successful in recovering compensation as a result of negligence or something else being proved against the department of state. Therefore, the cost of these provisions is not huge. We come to the question of means-testing. There have been many cases under the present arrangement whereby the Minister in the case of the Army and the Legal Services Commission in the case of the police and the Prison Service have discretion to permit legal aid to be given to bereaved families subject to a means test. Very intrusive investigations have been made, and in some the home of a bereaved family, for example, has been taken into account. In one case, the money that was to be made available to the family as a result of the death of the deceased was also taken into account. We do not think that that is the right way to proceed. If the taxpayer pays entirely for the state departments to be represented, then, for the purposes of equality of arms, one would expect the state to allow the bereaved families not to have to undergo the indignity of means-testing and the taking into account of sums of money which may be very important to them in the position in which they find themselves. Those are the reasons why all these organisations, fulfilling the demands of the reports to which I have drawn your Lordships’ attention, suggest that the only proper way forward is to provide non-means-tested legal aid funds to bereaved families at inquests. That is the purpose of the amendment, and I beg to move.