Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging the efforts made from these Benches to obtain a right to legal aid at inquests. However, the Minister should acknowledge that hand in hand, marching side by side, has been the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who has been extremely effective in putting forward submissions similar to ours. As the Minister pointed out, the amendment does not go as far as we would like. At Second Reading I said I would have liked to have had legal aid as a matter of right in every inquest where the state is represented—not in the categories set out here, but where there is representation for other parties seeking to diminish the liability of the organ of the state involved. However, I am grateful to the Minister for the distance the Government have moved. I am concerned about the change in wording between what he said to us, both in discussion and in Committee, to the effect that, although as a matter of principle the legal aid would have to be means-tested, he was, ""mindful that it would be appropriate to waive that, save in exceptional circumstances"." When I received a letter from the Minister dated 3 November, the wording had altered slightly but possibly significantly. He wrote: ""This funding will be means tested, but the Legal Services Commission will have the power to waive the means test limits where appropriate"." That was the wording that the Minister used today—not that it will be waived "save in exceptional circumstances", but that it will be waived "where appropriate". I should be glad if the Minister would explore which wording we are to rely on. It may be helpful to your Lordships if I give an illustration of what I mean. A lady called Moyra Stockill died tragically in Middlesbrough police station on 10 December 2003, having been a patient at St Luke’s Hospital, where she had been committed under the Mental Health Act. She had suffered a mental illness due to bereavement after the deaths of her husband and a younger sister and she had developed a habit of putting things into her mouth. One problem in the hospital was that she pushed paper tissue into her mouth, which had to be extracted by means of tweezers and a suction pump. When, allegedly, she became violent towards staff in the hospital, the nurse decided to call the police. However, a male nurse pretended to be a policeman and spoke to her as though he were a policeman before the police arrived. Anyway, she was taken to Middlesbrough police station, where there was a failure of communication; there is a dispute between the police and the hospital over what happened. She was put in a cell with a toilet, where she stuffed toilet paper down her throat and died. Nobody knew about it. That was in 2003. The inquest was supposed to take place on 19 October 2009—six years later. Throughout that period, her daughter, who is a single parent with very little income, was subjected to the stress of the constant delay due to the considerations of the CPS and so on about what was going on. She applied to the Legal Services Commission for funding and the waiving of the eligibility requirements in accordance with the procedures that have pertained until now. Eventually, on 18 March this year, it was decided that she could have legal aid to support advocacy at the hearing but that she would have to meet the costs of £4,000 that she had incurred up to that date. Her only income was an inheritance from her mother who had died. She was in the position of having to pay £4,000 from the inheritance of a mother who, by one means or another, had died in the circumstances that I have mentioned. At the inquest, there were 12 legal representatives, including six counsel representing police officers, the care trust, the medical professionals and so on—all paid for by us, the taxpayers. It is the taxpayer who pays for the state to be represented, while this poor lady is faced, I believe, with a £4,000 payment. If ever there were circumstances where someone should have had full legal aid to cover the costs of the proceedings, these were they. I come back to the wording used by the Minister, who said in debate that, ""it would be appropriate to waive"," a means test, ""save in exceptional circumstances".—[Official Report, 21/10/09, col. 748-49.]" That was changed, possibly under pressure from the Legal Services Commission, to the means test being waived "where appropriate". I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that. I am pleased to hear that there will be a new section of the funding code, which will be brought in by order after consultation with the parties. What all these families have found to be so difficult in applying for exceptional legal aid in the circumstances that have pertained until now is filling out the forms and getting over all the applications and representations that have to be made. If there is to be a new section of the funding code, I hope that it will simplify all these procedures, and make it easy for a family to make the application for legal aid and to set out all the circumstances of the case. I have every sympathy with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who points out that decisions like this would be helped by a direction or order of the coroner who has read the papers, and who knows precisely what issues are involved as well as how the other parties to the inquest will be represented. I know that there is a lot of cavilling in that, but it is an important issue. In particular, I am sure that the Minister will tell me whether the means test will be waived, save in exceptional circumstances, as a matter of course.