Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, the amendment would replace two amendments that I moved in Committee and that did not find favour with the Minister. I return to this without apology because, although it may be of narrow interest, it is extremely important to those who are affected. Briefly, the background to the amendment is that, in the early days of casualties coming in from Iraq and Afghanistan, very few coroners had specialist knowledge of conflict, of the way in which wars work, and of the general ethos of the armed services. This made for difficulties that were very painful for the families who were affected by the deaths of service men and women. Fortunately, or unfortunately, practice meant that, finally, several coroners had considerable experience of these things. The difference that this made to the inquests and to the feelings of the families cannot be overestimated. The fear is that that expertise might be lost with the passage of time, so the amendment seeks to ensure that a senior deputy chief coroner has overall responsibility for supervising any military inquest and that the coroners who undertake it have had specialist training. The Government argued that this was unnecessary because training would be dealt with in the Bill and so this point did not need to be made. That is all very well but, if it is not in the Bill or the subsequent Act of Parliament, the chances are that, with the passage of time, all this will be forgotten and the same problems will arise when there is another series of deaths from conflict. I know that some felt that training coroners with specialist interests might make them more likely to challenge the Government where there was some possibility that the Government were to blame for the deaths. I do not dwell on that; let me give the Government the benefit of the doubt that no such thoughts would cross their mind. But nonetheless, I still maintain that we need a specific regulation within what will be an Act of Parliament for many years to come in order to ensure that these matters are dealt with properly. In this, I am not alone. Outside the House, the Royal British Legion is deeply concerned and certainly wishes me to put forward amendments to this effect. What is more, the War Widows’ Association, which perhaps has more of an interest in this than anyone, is equally concerned that there should be something in the Bill. I declare an interest inasmuch as I am the president of the association. I hope that I might get a little more from the Government than I did on the previous occasion, perhaps not a whole olive branch, as mentioned by the noble and learned Baroness in an earlier debate, but perhaps I may have a few leaves. I beg to move.