Coroners and Justice Bill

Before the break, I expressed my views on the current law on provocation and the Government’s proposals to amend it. However, one thing is glaringly inconsistent in the way in which the Government are moving—Clause 49(6)(c). It appears that every human emotion can be invoked as a qualifying trigger for the loss of self-control, except something that has been done or said which "constituted sexual infidelity". For some reason, which I really do not understand, the Government seek to remove from provocation the issue of sexual infidelity. That can apply to a male or a female defendant. I have been thinking about my own experience, and in all probability I have come across sexual infidelity as a trigger for a female rather more than for a male. In other words, a philandering husband is the person who causes the loss of self-control by the wife, rather than the other way round. I spoke in Committee about the betrayal of trust involved in sexual infidelity. Sometimes arrangements are arrived at between husband and wife that you would not expect to lead to a loss of self-control—almost an agreement. But there are cases in which there has been a deep bond of trust between the partners, or at least one of the partners has thought there was, and they have been betrayed. That betrayal gives rise to the deepest of emotions, which can lead to anger, jealousy, and indeed to picking up a carving knife. I remember in one case a lady picked up a bread knife and put it down and picked up the meat knife to murder her husband, which rather suggests that she had an intention to kill or to cause some really serious harm. This removal of sexual infidelity as a cause of loss of self-control is just illogical and not desirable. I do not wish to repeat what I said in Committee, since this is Report, but the whole of the amendments that the Government have made are in my view obnoxious, and this is outstandingly obnoxious. What it really reflects is something that has run through the 12 years of this Government—a refusal to trust the good common sense of a British jury. They are the people who decide what the standards are, how deep the hurt is, and what justification there can be for the action of a particular defendant. I would rather leave these issues to the jury, if provocation has to stay, and not confine their consideration of the marital or other relationships between a man and a woman or a man and a man or a woman and a woman. I should rather leave it to their good common sense to determine whether murder, which is proved, should be reduced to manslaughter by reason of the partial defence of provocation. I beg to move.