Coroners and Justice Bill

This group of amendments concerns an extremely important issue. It relates to the question of whether an investigation into the cause of death can take place within the coroners system, and in compliance with article 2 of the European convention on human rights, in circumstances involving highly sensitive information, such as intercept material, which cannot be made public. It is only in a very small number of inquests—fewer than 2 per cent. of all inquests—that the coroner has to sit with a jury. Those are often the most controversial cases, where someone has died potentially at the hands of the state. Of that 2 per cent., there are only a tiny number where article 2 is engaged and there is sensitive material that should not be publicly disclosed. I should say right at the beginning that every effort is made by this Government—and will be by any Government and by law enforcement agencies—to push for the standard coronial system with a jury in this kind of case to ensure that, if humanly possible, it is a normal coroner's inquest with a jury that holds the investigation. There was some suggestion with the de Menezes case that it would not be possible, because of the sensitive material, to hold such an inquest, but in the event it was, as ways round the problems were found. That was to the general approbation of everybody—not least and above all to the families and the community concerned. There is no intention whatever—by the agencies, by the police, by the Government, by the Law Officers—that any provisions in this Bill should ever be used as an alternative to a normal inquest where such a normal inquest can, by stretching the envelope as far as possible, be used. Where intercepted evidence is available, every effort is made to gist that material and if the coroner is satisfied that the gist provides a fair summary of the evidence, that is regarded as satisfactory.