Coroners and Justice Bill

I agree, and as the right hon. Gentleman will know, we have today been invited by the Home Secretary to extend the remit of the advisory committee to look at the possibility of admitting intercept evidence in coroners' inquests. I cannot speak for the right hon. Gentleman, but I would happily agree to the remit of the committee being widened in that way. I have listened with great care and interest to the arguments on the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). The Secretary of State put a reasonable question to the hon. Gentleman, which he was not entirely capable of answering, but on balance I shall support the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends in the Lobby, if only because it will provide another week for the Secretary of State to take the opportunity to answer the question that he posed to the hon. Gentleman and to come forward with a satisfactory regime that would deal with some of the mischiefs that were identified so eloquently by many of the contributors to this debate, not least the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews).