Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, Amendments 1, 3 and 7 concern those coroners’ investigations that take more than 12 months to complete. They respond to an amendment which was tabled at Report stage by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and which the House agreed, on a Division, should be added to the Bill. The relevant provision now appears at subsections (8) and (9) of Clause 1, which Amendment 1 would omit. The other government amendments would have substantially the same effect as that passed by the House at Report. Government Amendment 3 places a duty on a senior coroner to notify the Chief Coroner of any investigation that has not been completed within 12 months of when he or she is made aware that the person has died. There will also be a duty to notify the Chief Coroner when such an investigation is finally completed or discontinued. This is a slight change to the noble Baroness’s amendment which would have required senior coroners to provide the Chief Coroner with details of investigations that are likely to take longer than 12 months to complete. I hope that the House will agree that the revised formulation is less open to subjective interpretation. We also considered whether Amendment 3 should require a senior coroner to notify the Chief Coroner of the date when an investigation of more than 12 months is suspended, as well as the date it is completed or discontinued. On reflection we decided against this. This is because a suspended investigation is ongoing until a coroner is in a position to make a decision on whether or not to resume it. In either eventuality, the amendment already requires the coroner to notify the Chief Coroner if more than 12 months have elapsed since he or she was made aware that the death occurred. In addition, Amendment 3 places a duty on the Chief Coroner to keep and maintain a register of the deaths which are reported to him or her under this provision. We considered whether the Chief Coroner’s register should be updated and publicly available on an ongoing basis—for example, as soon as the 12-month time limit has been reached in a particular case—but we concluded that this would be problematic for both resource and personal-privacy reasons. On personal privacy, while some families may have no objection to their loved ones’ names being displayed in such a way, others may well find it an unwelcome intrusion into their private grief. There is a risk that journalists or others may believe that it gives them licence to approach families directly to seek their views and opinions on matters relating to the death but entirely unrelated to a delayed investigation. Government Amendment 7 stipulates that the annual report, which the Chief Coroner must submit to the Lord Chancellor under Clause 35, must include a summary for the previous year of the number of investigations that have taken more than 12 months, the reasons and any action taken. Families and others whom the coroner has determined are interested persons in a case will be aware of any reason for delay as they will be provided, under paragraph 21 of the charter for bereaved families published alongside the Bill, with three-monthly explanations of the progress or otherwise of their case. This is the most appropriate way for coroners to be accountable to interested persons for the length of their investigations, and is the most proportionate use of resources to deliver the policy behind the noble Baroness’s amendment. I hope that the House will accept the government amendment in lieu of the amendment passed on Report. I beg to move.