My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to Amendment 28 standing in my name. I would be grateful if the House would indulge me just for a few minutes. As I explained last week when I was presenting my Private Member’s Bill, Public Health England pointed out that, in just one year, there were 409 suicides related to problem gambling. Your Lordships will be aware that the largest lobby group here in the House is Peers for Gambling Reform. Whenever we have tried to deal with this, one thing we keep hearing back is that we simply do not have the statistics or the data on the various causes of suicide. For some while, I have been trying in every way I can to get at least some data to help us with this so that we can devise strategies to reduce the terrible burden on families who have lost a young person.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is right that most of those who have taken their lives are young men, but it is now becoming clear that this is quite a significant problem also among younger women. It is partly because the ubiquitous gambling adverts are now spreading into women’s magazines and so on—it is just all over the place.
I shall be brief, because the Minister addressed some of the concerns in responding to my Private Member’s Bill, the Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill, last Friday, but there are some important differences in this amendment, which is my attempt to respond to points that the Minister made. Unlike my Bill, the amendment would permit, but not require, coroners to record factors relevant in a death by suicide. Other differences between the amendment and the original Bill include provisions to ensure that the jury would no longer have any say in the consideration and recording of relevant factors and that the consideration and recording of factors by the coroner would now occur outside the inquest process and not disrupt the traditional remit of an inquest to determine how, what, when and where in relation to an unexplained death.
Finally, the amendment would require the Secretary of State to issue guidance on which factors relevant in a death by suicide could be considered and the form in which they would be recorded by a coroner. Strict data protection provisions are included to prevent the identity of the deceased being disclosed or deduced in any way.
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The purpose of this amendment is to allow factors relevant in a death by suicide to be recorded in a standardised and safe way, looking at the comorbidities,
for the purpose of collecting data that will contribute to a much better understanding of the factors that are driving suicides here in the UK.
It is interesting that, despite the reluctance of the Government to give way on anything on this matter, some coroners, locally, are already recording this data. I have here the sheet that they use, with all the different factors written down. I received this from one of the coroners in my diocese. They are already able to do this. The point is that it is already permitted—or at least there is no provision stopping it—but because it is just done locally, and at the choice of the coroner, there is a lack of central oversight on how and what is being recorded, and a lack of a central database to securely record the factors that underly death by suicide.
This amendment would enshrine in law what is already technically permitted, while providing a sensible framework to securely record these factors in a co-ordinated and standardised manner across separate coronial jurisdictions, and to allow for this data to be centrally recorded and then published for research purposes without compromising the identity of any of the deceased. Personally, I think this is a sensible approach. It does not compel coroners to record these factors and it occurs outside of the inquest process, with no input for the jury.
I know that the Minister has concerns about mandating coroners and interfering with the inquest process. However, since the amendment does neither of those things, I hope that he will address the points I have just made to see whether this amendment really does create a simple framework for something that is already allowable.
What matters—I am sure that the Minister will agree—is that we find mechanisms to produce good-quality data on the factors driving suicides so that we can try to devise strategies to reduce the number of suicides. This amendment contributes to that goal. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.