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Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): I beg to move, on behalf of all the pensioners in Britain.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day?
Mr. Clive Efford (Eltham):
On behalf of the Member concerned, 5 November--if you can squeeze it in, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 29 October.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Not moved.
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [30 April].
Debate further adjourned till Friday 5 November.
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [12 March].
Debate further adjourned till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Not moved.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [23 April].
Debate further adjourned till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [12 March].
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Debate to be resumed what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Not moved.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Not moved.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 29 October.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.--[Queen's consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 29 October.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading, what day? No day named.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 November.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Second Reading what day? No day named.
Mr. Clive Efford (Eltham):
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you advise the House? A number of Bills have been moved by Members whose names do not appear alongside those Bills on the Order Paper. Have they checked with the appropriate Members whether they wanted those Bills to be moved this afternoon and did they have their permission to move them? Certain Members with Bills standing in their names were not present. If they have not said that they want other Members to move their Bills on their behalf, certain Members have been wasting the House's time.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that the way in which we have proceeded is entirely in order.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Hill.]
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East):
I regret to have to raise an individual case on the Floor of the House, but, as I shall reveal, there are lessons to be learned from it.
David Alan Cunliffe, the son of one of my constituents, died of an overdose of amphetamine on Wednesday 2 October 1996 in his flat in Higher Openshaw, Manchester, aged 29. He had lived there for two years. His correct name was known to his landlord and it was on a bottle of tablets and a probation service report found in the flat by the police. He was taken to the mortuary at Manchester royal infirmary, where a pathological examination was conducted and the cause of death established.
When the police searched David's flat, they could find no evidence that would lead them into direct contact with relatives. However, the probation service report, which was dated 11 July 1995, said that he had been involved with drugs and crime for a long time and that he was from the Bolton area. Significantly, the report also referred to the fact that he had suffered from mental illness and had been treated as an in-patient at Prestwich hospital.
David had long been involved with the police, in Bolton and in Manchester, and I have provided my hon. Friend the Minister with evidence that he was very well known to them, especially in Bolton. About three years before his death, he was arrested in Bolton and held at Bolton central police station in the cells, where a balloon containing illegal substances burst in his mouth, causing an overdose that resulted in collapse and transfer to what was then Bolton district hospital. His mother, who has lived in the same house in my constituency for the past 22 years, was contacted within two hours by the police.
Following David's death in Manchester, a police officer at Collyhurst police station contacted the Greater Manchester police press office on 10 October 1996 with a request to include the fatality on its press media line. Following that, the police received no inquiries. The police officer made no attempt to contact either the Bolton Evening News or the Manchester Evening News to establish whether they had carried the story. We have established that they did not.
As a result of complaints received from David's sister--Mrs. Rita Houghton, who is also one of my constituents--Greater Manchester police have changed their procedures. Officers are now asked to follow up press media line notices if they receive no inquiries and they specifically ask local newspapers to carry news of fatalities if they have not already done so in order that every effort is made to contact relatives. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister agrees that every police force should be rigorous in that respect and I hope that she will issue instructions following this sad episode.
David Cunliffe was buried at the expense of Manchester social services department on 4 December 1996 in a common grave in Gorton cemetery, where his body still lies in section L116. His relatives want the body to be exhumed and transferred to Bolton so that they can attend a proper funeral. The problem is that they cannot afford to exhume the body and transfer it to Bolton.
Even worse, a second body has been buried in the common grave on top of that of David. We obtained the permission of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to exhume both bodies and permission was obtained from the relatives of the second person to disturb the grave. Unfortunately, our exhumation certificate expired on 7 May, although we can have it renewed.
I suggested to Greater Manchester police that they had made little attempt to locate David's relatives and that they should meet the cost of exhumation and reburial as a matter of good will, but they declined. It appears that they contacted local hospitals, but I am not sure which ones. They may have contacted Bolton district hospital, given the Bolton connection. They allege, however, that the hospital, or hospitals, would not reveal the addresses of David's relatives, on grounds of confidentiality, which apparently is preserved even following death.
I took the matter up with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health, who confirmed that
The Greater Manchester police also claim to have contacted Bolton metropolitan borough council's housing department, the probation services and social services to make inquiries about relatives--surprisingly, without success. However, on or about 5 June 1997, an informal inquiry at Prestwich hospital revealed the address of David's mother, who was then informed by the police of his death, which had taken place nine months earlier. I remind my hon. Friend the Minister that Prestwich hospital was mentioned in the probation service report of 1995, which was found in David's flat on the day of his death.
At a recent meeting attended by the deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester police, I asked whether, if David Cunliffe had been found murdered rather than overdosed, the police would have been able to gain access to the addresses of relatives. After a pause, the police admitted that they had the ways and means so to do. Does my hon. Friend agree that hospitals need to be given clear guidelines if they are to help the police in all fatality cases, not merely murder cases?
Why does my hon. Friend think that Greater Manchester police appear not to have made inquiries of K division in Bolton, where David Cunliffe's criminal activities were well known? They have made the excuse that he used aliases, but I remind the House that the probation service report and the bottle of tablets found in David's flat were in his correct name. The landlord had also been given his correct name. There seems to have been a lack of care on the part of the police, but I cannot get them to accept that.
I remind my hon. Friend also that the police have changed their procedures following complaints from the family. I cannot believe that Greater Manchester police,
with all their training and resources, could not have found David Cunliffe's relatives and saved his family all that anguish if they had tried just that little bit harder.
At the meeting that I held with Great Manchester police, they claimed that the Data Protection Acts had made their inquiries more difficult in cases such as this, because they are not allowed to keep what they describe as "dangerous information" in computer files, however useful it might be to their present work or their future activities. It was suggested that a lot of useful information had been weeded out since the setting up of computer databases throughout the police force.
I have also corresponded with Councillor Stephen Murphy, the chairman of the Greater Manchester police authority, and Councillor Frank White, a former Member of Parliament who is now Bolton metropolitan borough's representative on the police committee. Both have been extremely helpful. They feel, as I do, that David's family have suffered unnecessarily and should be given as much help as possible at this stage for compassionate reasons.
Let me now turn to the role of the coroner for the Manchester city district, who dealt with the case. By the time of the inquest, relatives had been contacted. In a letter to me dated 19 May this year, the coroner admitted that he knew that a brother had been in court. In fact, David's brother and two sisters were in court on that day. The coroner also knew that Manchester's social services department had been involved with the burial, but he did not establish the reasons for that.
Manchester contains numerous people with no fixed abode, whose families are not local and who have very few belongings, which, when searched, give no information about relatives. In some cases, even when relatives can be contacted, some cannot, or will not bury their relatives' bodies. The cost then falls on the Manchester social services department.
Following my approach to the coroner about David Cunliffe's death, he has informed his staff that, when told that social services are involved in a case, they should ask the reasons why. If the answer is because relatives cannot be found, in future further questions will be asked. The fatality has caused the coroner to change his procedures, too.
The coroner has informed me that, at the time of David's death, there was a designated coroners officer who, if he had been approached in such a case, would have made appropriate investigations to trace relatives, or to ensure that the police made every effort to do so before releasing the body for burial. However, in the David Cunliffe case, the coroner does not know exactly what was done.
It is an extremely sad story. I am sure that many people like David Cunliffe die in similarly tragic circumstances without their relatives knowing. Somewhere, there are two of David Cunliffe's children from a former relationship. Surely, they have a right to know what happened to their father and where he is buried. His mother, brothers and sisters certainly have a right to know. Can it be that the lives of people who become the victims of the misuse of drugs are not regarded as quite as important as yours, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or mine? I hope that that is not the case.
(CYCLE PARKING) BILL [LORDS]
That, at the sitting on Monday 26th July, the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any Message from the Lords shall have been received.--[Mr. Hill.]
Hon. Members:
Object.
2.40 pm
"it would be in order for access to medical records to be refused where there was no consent from the next of kin".
In the same letter, however--dated 30 March this year--my right hon. Friend said:
"The Trust"--
Central Manchester Healthcare NHS trust--
"have confirmed that, where a patient dies in hospital and has no known next of kin, then the notes would be read and any names and addresses passed to the police to help them trace the next of kin".
Unfortunately, David did not die in Manchester royal infirmary.
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