Coroners and Justice Bill

It is much too late to do a proper hatchet job. However, there is a nice irony about this debate—I am very grateful to the noble Lord for initiating it—namely, that a Government who have been falsely accused of centralist tendencies will defend localism and a local response as opposed to showing centralist tendencies. The amendments would make Her Majesty’s Courts Service, rather than local authorities, responsible for coroner areas and appointments. In other words, they would make coroners part of a national organisation, and move away from the model of central leadership with local delivery that the Bill proposes. Our thinking on this issue has developed in a certain way. Following the reports of Tom Luce and Dame Janet Smith in 2003, we explored the option of a national coroner organisation in great detail. However, we were not persuaded that a centrally funded and operated service would significantly improve the coroners service and people’s experience of it. The Bill instead preserves the existing locally delivered and funded service but strengthens it through the introduction of national leadership and national standards. The cost of a national organisation, whether part of the Courts Service or a separate entity, would be disproportionate to the benefits it would bring, and perhaps even unaffordable. As the impact assessment published alongside the Bill shows—I do not think it is one that impressed the noble Lord particularly—we estimate that a national organisation would cost three times more than our proposed model. The approximate figures are £10 million additional funding for running costs under the Bill’s scheme and at least £30 million additional funding for a more centralist model. The other argument is that the nationalised structure would take years to set up. We hope that our model will take only two to three years. Joking apart, it would also be out of step with the Government’s moves in recent years towards bringing services closer to the local communities which they serve. We believe that the approach in the Bill is a better and more proportionate way forward. There will be a new national framework with leadership and guidance from the Chief Coroner, and we will retain local delivery with coroners and local authorities working together at a local level to ensure a high quality service to bereaved families. The Chief Coroner will set national standards for all coroners and their staff in England and Wales, and will monitor compliance with those standards, oversee the services for families set out in the charter for the bereaved, and issue guidance on particular issues. We believe that the appointment of a Chief Coroner will make a significant difference over time. At the moment there are 110 coroners and, frankly, 110 different ways of doing things—some very good, others not so good. We want more of the former and less of the latter. Local authorities will continue to fund the coroner system and provide accommodation, staff and other resources, and police authorities will continue to provide coroners’ officers in the majority of jurisdictions to ensure that services are tailored to any particular local needs. To confirm what my noble friend Lord Davies said in Committee on 9 June, if it seems that any particular coroner area is underfunded or that any coroner is using resources inefficiently, the Chief Coroner will step in to liaise between coroner and authority to improve the situation. Provision and use of resources will be looked at additionally by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Court Administration. We hope this will help to facilitate a consistency of service delivery across coroner areas while ensuring that coroners continue to be able to make independent decisions about individual cases. Having said all that, we naturally wish to keep the impact of our reforms of this system under review. They will need time to bed down and we must not rush to judgment. I do not rule out taking a fresh look in a few years’ time at how we best organise the service. The Chief Coroner will undoubtedly have a view on this, as will the Justice Select Committee of another place, which will want to examine the impact of our reforms as part of the now normal process of post-legislative scrutiny. In future there may be a stronger case for integrating coroners into the Courts Service, but given the long gestation period for the provisions in the Bill, that is a question for another day.