Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, nothing that I say should affect the unanimity of the verdict that Members of this House have expressed on this matter until now. I spoke at some length in Committee and nothing that I said on that occasion will be improved by repetition. As a circuit judge, I never had occasion to try a murder case, but 40 years ago, I was a Minister in the Home Office dealing with criminal matters from day to day. James Callaghan, the Home Secretary of the day, told me quite robustly that this was lawyer’s work and that although the decision in relation to life cases would ultimately be his, he would expect to have my firm views with regard to each case. I found myself almost weekly being involved in situations where the law ordained that there should be a rigid sentence without exception but where the range of difference between one case and another, as every speaker has endorsed, was so immense that one could not conceive of the justice of dealing with them in a rigid and uniform way. It therefore seems to me that the amendment is utterly justified and meritorious. Not only can it simplify and clarify the law, because it can take over from considerations in relation to provocation, but it can make it much more transparent. From time to time over the centuries there has been what might be described as pious perjury on the part of juries, and thank goodness for that. They have somehow bent the facts in order to prevent dreadful injustices. I have no doubt that even nowadays juries exercise some measure of pious perjury in arriving at verdicts of manslaughter rather than murder. What is now less than honest can become totally honest and transparent. As more than one speaker has stressed, society at large, right-thinking, intelligent, fair-minded, balanced society will accept this. If we wait for the day when the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and the Sun look in a balanced, reserved and cool way, we will have to wait for ever. I noticed the Minister recoil almost in horror when it was suggested that he was politically motivated here. I have immense regard and respect for him. All I say is that it would be unfortunate if he was seen to stand with the tabloids against remedying an obvious injustice as soon as possible.