Coroners and Justice Bill

We are certainly revisiting an old topic. I rather disagree with the Minister in her view about the behaviour in the other place the last time this matter came up for consideration. On the face of it, whatever the Government may have felt about the matter, they were prepared to accept the Lords amendment on that occasion. One can only conclude that, in their willingness to do so, they made the evaluation that Lord Waddington's amendment was innocuous. In my judgment, that is exactly what it was. The Minister has studiously avoided debating why the offence in question cannot be successfully prosecuted under Lord Waddington's amendment, because she has no case to make about that. If there were a problem, the Government could at least have allowed the offence to be tested. If it had then turned out that it was causing problems when it got to court, they would have had a greater justification for asking the House to reconsider the matter.