I thank the right hon. Lady for her remarks. Yes, we agree, and amendment 135 therefore removes the automatic requirement for a coroner’s investigation in such cases. There will be a continued duty on a coroner to investigate any death where there is a suspicion that it might have resulted from violence or unnatural causes or where the cause of death is unknown.
Last, but certainly not least, and importantly, Lords amendments 124 to 132 would right the wrongs suffered by gay and bisexual men who were for centuries persecuted under homophobic laws for conduct that society now regards as normal activity. These amendments will confer an automatic pardon on deceased individuals convicted of certain consensual gay sexual offences that would not be offences today, and on those persons still living who have a conviction for such an offence that has been disregarded under the terms of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.
The amendments will also enable the disregard scheme to be extended, by regulations, to cover other abolished offences used to target homosexual activity, including the offence of solicitation by men under section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. These provisions will extend to Northern Ireland as well as to England and Wales, with the Scottish Government having separately announced its intention to bring forward legislation in the Scottish Parliament.
At this point, I want to take the opportunity to apologise unreservedly, on behalf of the Government, to all those men who will receive a pardon. The legislation under which they were convicted and cautioned was discriminatory and homophobic. I want to make sure that all who were criminalised in this way and had to suffer society’s opprobrium, and the many more who lived in fear of being so criminalised because they were being treated in a very different way from heterosexual couples, actually understand that we offer this full apology. Their treatment was entirely unfair. What happened to these men is a matter of the greatest regret, and it should be so to all of us. I am sure it is to Members across the House. For this, we are today deeply sorry.
This is a historic and momentous step, one of which we can all be justly proud. I pay particular tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who is the Minister responsible for prisons and probation, for the work he has done in government to make this happen. For his campaigning from the Back Benches, I would particularly like to mention, among others, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson).
These Lords amendments improve and enhance the Bill, so I wholeheartedly commend them all to the House.