Coroners and Justice Bill

I hope that I am not intervening at the wrong moment, but the Secretary of State may have noticed from the amendments that have been tabled that there appears to be an acceptance by those who have tabled amendments in lieu that the principle of the problem that he identifies about the use of intercept evidence may well be widely accepted across the House. The question then arises: what safeguards can the Government offer that the inquiry process will not be used in a way that would undermine the coronial process and be seen to be unfair? On that, may I simply remind him that in Committee, Lord Kingsland—before he died—provided a good steer as to the sort of protections that ought to be in the inquiry process to ensure that it would command confidence? The Government have not adopted all of those. The Secretary of State may comment about this in a moment, but I should say that they might go to the heart of being able to resolve this issue. At the moment, the problem we face is that the situation remains unsatisfactory and that confidence in the inquiry process as it appears in the Bill is not sufficient.