Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hunt and I seem to be splitting the murder issues between us. My noble friend confessed that he last saw much crime when he was doing his law exams in the late 1960s. My knowledge is marginally more modern, in that I did my Bar exams in the late 1970s. However, I shall do the best I can. I hope that I can say that I know even less about sexual infidelity—but that is entirely a matter for me. After all, this is after dinner. The noble Lord has laid out a compelling case for why this is, at best, a peculiar exception to be included in the Bill. It should go without saying that we do not suggest sexual infidelity to be an excuse or justification for murder, but that is quite a different thing from saying—as the Government hope to do—that the impact of another’s sexual infidelity on a person’s thoughts, actions and emotions should be disregarded entirely. As the noble Lord pointed out, there are different levels of infidelity. What this really involves is not the sexual relations of the defendant but a breach of trust. We agree that a defendant who relied on sexual infidelity alone as a defence for murder without anything deeper or broader would be highly unlikely to succeed, and rightly so. But to select one aspect of human behaviour and totally exclude it as a consideration is denying the court the opportunity to weigh up the circumstances of the case in their entirety. We on these Benches sincerely doubt that a jury, in this day and age, would be convinced that a husband or wife should be exonerated from murder because the spouse had strayed outside the marital vow of fidelity. The Government are refusing to treat juries as panels of grown-ups, which is what they are, if they think that they should not be allowed to consider breach of trust in its correct place as part of the circumstances of the case. We also question the Government's choice of wording. How does something that is said constitute sexual infidelity? A confession of past wrongs is just that—a confession. It does not constitute anything more. The presence of paragraph (c) is more to do with gesture politics than serious reform of the defence of provocation. Therefore, I ask the Minister to help us in our debate by explaining exactly the problems of this paragraph and why the Government included it in Clause 49. Is it a Law Commission recommendation or the invention of someone in the Government? The provision inhibits due consideration of all the events surrounding murder and denies proper deliberation of the factors that may raise a partial defence to that murder. The law would be better served with its removal, and we on these Benches will support the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, should he wish to press this amendment.