Coroners and Justice Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), but I wish to bring my speech to a close. I certainly do not wish to see circumstances in which the House provides an excuse for men to kill women simply because they perceive that the women have been unfaithful to them—or, for that matter, vice versa: I do want to see women killing men. On that I am sure we can all agree. That, however, does not justify the remarkable step that the Government will take if they decide that this is one of the components that can be entirely disregarded by a jury when it comes to consider the plea of provocation and the partial defence. I simply do not understand the logic. History suggests—certainly, the cases that I have seen suggest—that although on occasion the defence may be advanced as a mere cover for the violence of one party to another, sexual infidelity is sometimes an important and relevant component of the cocktail of events that combine to make a reasonable person snap. For those reasons, I think it is very dangerous for this House to deprive juries of the opportunity to use their good sense to evaluate that evidence, but I am afraid that that is what the Government have chosen to try to do, and I do not understand the rationale behind that. I am very wary of legislating in a symbolic fashion. Juries are entitled to consider these points and, in my experience, if we allow them to do so, they will come up with the right answers. For those reasons, the Lords amendment deserves to be supported.