I rise to support the Bill, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) on introducing it. I know—not from personal experience, but from speaking to colleagues who have been lucky in winning the private Members’ Bills raffle—that hon. Members are put under a lot of pressure by different organisations. My hon. Friend has wisely chosen to introduce a Bill that is at the heart of his experience and that will make a tangible difference to individuals’ lives. I hope it is deliverable, and I urge the Minister to support it.
Cases involving deaths are among the most harrowing that Members of Parliament deal with—they are the cases I felt least prepared to deal with as a new Member of Parliament in 2005. I have been asked to be involved in five cases when constituents have passed away, and surprisingly I have dealt with three cases of missing persons—all three went missing overseas.
I should like further debate in Committee—I am keen to serve on the Committee, and do not want to detain the House too long today—on deaths overseas and the role of the Foreign Office, and on what information local embassies need to trigger the certificate to allow the presumption of death to be dealt with exactly the same as it would be in the UK.
I asked my hon. Friend about Northern Ireland, and am grateful to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for clarifying the absence of information on revocations in Northern Ireland. I accept his word that there is no information because there are no revocations, which is most reassuring.
I am also reassured, as other hon. Members will be, by the involvement of Lord Boswell, previously of this place. Like my hon. Friend, he was admirable in the discharging of his duties for those less fortunate.
We need to clear up the patchwork of complexity that my hon. Friend has described—that has been pushed for by organisations such as Missing People. I have read more about Missing People over the past few days, but through my own inadequacies I have not linked up with it when dealing with cases. The more we can do to publicise its good work in helping people in their moment of need, the better. I was amazed when looking at the fact sheets on its website at the numbers involved, which have been mentioned by hon. Members. In addition, the numbers mentioned by the Serious Organised Crime Agency are horrific. When people are at their lowest ebb and hoping that their relative is missing and not dead, it is difficult for them to take responsibility within that patchwork of complexity. The Bill will tidy that up, so that when people are dealing the emotional strains of having a missing relative who has probably passed away, they will not also have to deal with the complexity of the law.
I urge hon. Members to keep the Bill focused. Like the hon. Member for Islington North, I would have liked it to deal with guardianship, but I recognise the wisdom of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury in keeping the Bill clean and clear-cut. Equally, I would have liked a Foreign and Commonwealth Office provision in the Bill—perhaps the Bill will be amended in Committee—but I would not want to include it if it held the Bill up.
I wish my hon. Friend well and congratulate him on his selection, and look forward to seeing the Bill in Committee and in practice.
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