The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Chairmen:
Frank
Cook, †
Mr.
Roger Gale
†
Bellingham,
Mr. Henry
(North-West Norfolk)
(Con)
†
Boswell,
Mr. Tim
(Daventry)
(Con)
†
Brown,
Mr. Russell
(Dumfries and Galloway)
(Lab)
†
Eagle,
Maria
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Justice)†
Garnier,
Mr. Edward
(Harborough)
(Con)
†
Gray,
Mr. James
(North Wiltshire)
(Con)
†
Hesford,
Stephen
(Wirral, West)
(Lab)
†
Howarth,
David
(Cambridge)
(LD)
†
Howarth,
Mr. George
(Knowsley, North and Sefton, East)
(Lab)
†
Iddon,
Dr. Brian
(Bolton, South-East)
(Lab)
†
Kidney,
Mr. David
(Stafford)
(Lab)
†
Lucas,
Ian
(Wrexham) (Lab)
†
Michael,
Alun
(Cardiff, South and Penarth)
(Lab/Co-op)
†
Moon,
Mrs. Madeleine
(Bridgend)
(Lab)
†
Prentice,
Bridget
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Justice)Robertson,
Angus
(Moray) (SNP)
†
Willott,
Jenny
(Cardiff, Central)
(LD)
†
Wright,
Jeremy
(Rugby and Kenilworth)
(Con)
Alan Sandall, Committee
Clerk
† attended the
Committee
Witnesses
André
Rebello, Honorary Secretary, Coroners Society of England and
Wales
Deborah Coles, Co-director,
Inquest
Helen Shaw, Co-director,
Inquest
Professor Peter Furness,
President, Royal College of
Pathologists
Alison Cox, Chief
Executive, Cardiac Risk in the
Young
Anita Coles, Policy Officer,
Liberty
Isabella Sankey, Director of
Policy, Liberty
Barbara Esam, Public
Policy Lawyer, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children
Martin Narey, Chief Executive,
Barnardo’s
Peter Robbins, Chief
Executive, Internet Watch Foundation
Public
Bill Committee
Tuesday
3 February
2009
(Afternoon)
[Mr.
Roger Gale in the
Chair]
CJ01 Professor
Jeremy Horder
CJ02 Information
Commissioner
CJ03 Local
Government Association
CJ04
Liberty
CJ05 Liberty (additional
evidence)
CJ06 Law
Society
CJ07 Coroners Society of
England and
Wales
4
pm
The
Committee deliberated in private.
4.7
pm
On
resuming—
The
Chairman: On behalf of the Committee, I welcome the
witnesses for this afternoon’s first evidence session. They are
André Rebello, honorary secretary of the Coroners Society of
England and Wales; Deborah Coles and Helen Shaw, co-directors of
Inquest; Alison Cox, chief executive of Cardiac Risk in the Young; and
Professor Peter Furness, president of the Royal College of
Pathologists. Thank you all for joining
us.
Q
83Mr.
Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con): I have four
quick questions regarding appointments and directed mainly at
André Rebello and the Coroners’ Society. First, does the
Coroners’ Society feel that the posts of senior, area and
assistant coroner should remain freehold? Secondly, does it concern you
that the Bill makes provision for the area and assistant coroners to be
appointed by the local authority, rather than by the senior coroner?
For example, if a local authority had an agenda because it did not have
much confidence in the senior coroner, could not there be potential
problems of conflict if it decided that it wanted to put its stamp on
the appointment of the area and assistant
coroners?
Thirdly,
do you feel that it is right that medically qualified professionals
will be precluded from applying for those posts? Fourthly, does it
concern you that senior coroners, who effectively are very experienced
members of the judiciary, will be precluded from applying for the post
of deputy chief coroner, as those are all based on appointment? Those
questions run
together.
The
Chairman: Mr. Rebello, I ask you to respond to
those questions first, then the other witnesses may indicate if they
wish to come in afterwards.
André
Rebello: With regard to freehold coroners, clearly
the title “freehold” will give added independence, make
it clear that coroners are not employed and, I am sure, give the public
more confidence with the coronial office. Local authorities perhaps
have too much control of the budget they provide to coroners and things
of that nature, which will affect the coronial service. Having the
office as a freehold office—whatever that means—might
give the public greater
confidence.
It
is right for coroners to be appointed by the local authority, or the
local authority in conjunction with someone from the chief
coroner’s office, or even—for the senior
coroner—the Judicial Appointments Commission. Thereafter, it is
very difficult for someone to be parachuted in to work with the senior
coroner. They have to work as a team: when the senior coroner is not
there, the assistant coroners must be available. In any event, area
coroners would be full-time judicial office holders—very similar
to the senior coroner.
Given that
there are no national terms and conditions for coroners, the danger is
that someone who happens to be on the books of the local authority
legal department might be told, “You are the new assistant
coroner, go along and help the coroner.” That would be
outrageous. It is essential for the coroner to be involved in the
appointment of assistant coroners.
I would be
very uncomfortable about someone being appointed to work with me, to
the standards that I set within my jurisdiction, if I had no control
regarding whether that person had the specifications and particular
abilities to carry out coronial office to the standards I want. We
cannot have an assistant coroner coming in and working to different
standards. It may be that the chief coroner sets the tone for the whole
country, but I do not know whether that will happen overnight. I would
definitely expect certain standards in my jurisdiction of Liverpool,
and I would be very uncomfortable with any assistant coroner coming in.
I would want to have some
control.
Medically
qualified coroners have provided an excellent service over the years,
and many—if not all—are also legally qualified. The
difficulty is that, as a lawyer, one is trained to have a sense of
natural justice. A lawyer can always call a doctor to give technical
evidence on medical matters. It is exactly the same as a High Court
judge who does not have to be a doctor when dealing with a matter of
medical negligence. The difficulty arises if someone is medically
qualified but not au fait with natural justice. They cannot call
someone to give evidence with regard to fairness and things of that
nature while they are hearing a
case.
It
makes some sense to have only lawyers as coroners. Nevertheless, doctor
coroners have provided an excellent service and fortunately, because of
the transitional arrangements, all doctor coroners will be able to
continue in office. We could have a provision whereby doctors took some
kind of qualification or went on a course relating to judgecraft and
things of that nature. In the future, doctors may well be capable of
carrying out coronial office—that is a possibility. However, in
the main, the society’s view is that it should probably be
predominantly a lawyer
post.
The
society believes that the chief coroner should be a High Court judge,
not a circuit judge. If a circuit judge is capable of carrying out that
office, they should be promoted to High Court judge. It will require
quite a
bit of clout to get things moving as chief coroner, and only a High
Court judge will have
that.
Regarding
the deputy chief coroner, I am concerned about schedule 7 because most
High Court judges—leaving aside those who are involved as
designated care judges in the family division—come from an
adversarial background. They are not au fait with an inquisitorial
jurisdiction and would not necessarily have a feeling for the coronial
process. Furthermore, it is outrageous in this day and age to have an
apparent discrimination against senior coroners and a glass ceiling
that means that they can never become more than a coroner. A tribunal
chairman can eventually end up as Lord Chief Justice. Why should
coroners stay as coroners for their whole career?
The chief
coroner will have a responsibility to keep coroners informed about
changes in law and things of that nature. Those are matters that the
Coroners’ Society currently deals with. The chief coroner will
also have a responsibility for the training and development of
coroners, which the Coroners’ Society is also involved with. In
fact, the Coroners’ Society delivers training to coroners. If
the chief coroner is going to be responsible for that, senior coroners
will still be involved in those things. We may need one deputy chief
coroner responsible for training, one for keeping coroners up to date
and so
on.
If
you look at clause 30, on appeals, the first six items are about
whether there has been a post mortem, whether a determination is
correct, whether evidence has not been heard that should have been
heard and things of that nature. Any senior coroner of 10 years’
standing or more is capable of turning those round very
quickly.
My
concern is that the chief coroners office will be staffed by civil
servants and that some of those appellate judicial functions will be
delegated to non-lawyers working to a script and rejecting or allowing
appeals based upon pro formas. Part-time assistant deputy chief
coroners working to clear backlogs would be far better, would give the
chief coroner the capacity to deal with lots of things in lots ways and
would keep
flexibility.
It
does not seem right that a glass ceiling will imposed by legislation in
2009. This country does not approve of glass ceilings in any other area
and coroners are quite distressed by it—not because it affects
our career development, but because the service would be better if
coronial experience were used to help and develop the
service.
The
Chairman: Would anyone else on the panel like to come in
on those specific questions?
Helen
Shaw: On the question of the deputy chief coroner, in
a sense, we agree with the Coroners’ Society about the chief
coroner being a High Court judge. We think that that is an important
and welcome element of judicial oversight in the system. We understand
that, if someone is to deputise for the chief coroner, they have to
have the same standing, but we also understand that there is the
possibility in the Bill of a number of deputy chief coroners. We are
concerned about some of the very good work that is being done in the
existing coroners system and the need for that to be fed into the new
structure. We very much support any changes that could be made to allow
existing coroners of, as André says, 10 years’ standing
or more to apply for one of those
posts.
Alison
Cox: I would endorse that view very
strongly.
Q
84Mr.
Tim Boswell (Daventry) (Con): My first question,
Mr. Rebello, is, do you envisage that the chief coroner or
somebody else will mediate or adjudicate, as it were, if a dispute
arises between a local authority and its
coroner?
André
Rebello: This is regarding how the chief coroner will
influence local authorities to comply with, I think, clause
23—the duty on the local authority to provide the
infrastructure, accommodation and staffing that the coroner needs to
carry out coronial administrative and investigative duties. One
difficulty is, of course, that power is devolved to local government
and local governments have to set their budgets. As well as being
responsible for the coronial system, they are also responsible for
children’s services, services for the elderly and lots of other
essential things. From the media, we know about the tragic cases of
essential services falling short. One can see that local authorities
have a difficult
job.
I
cannot see a chief coroner turning round to a local authorities and
saying, “That coroner needs a court to hear this inquest and a
room for the jury. The jury need separate toilet facilities. There are
12 properly interested persons and each has a solicitor or barrister
who needs conference rooms, and the witnesses need privacy and
bereavement rooms. You will have to provide those.” If the local
authority turned round and said, “Sorry, we can’t afford
it,” I do not see what the chief coroner could do. Presumably,
the chief coroner could apply for judicial review. It would be very
strange legislation that had built into it a safeguard giving the chief
coroner the power to enforce a sanction by judicial review. One would
have thought that if Parliament was considering that, it would put some
sanctions in to allow the chief coroner to deal with the situation. I
cannot think of any method whereby the chief coroner could control a
local authority budget. It is an invidious
position.
In
my submission notes, I say that there is a danger of the chief coroner
being made a scapegoat because we will not have a national service even
with this Bill. We have a national tone to the service and national
leadership, but we still have 110 or so separate legal jurisdictions
serving their own local infrastructure. Of course, every coronial
jurisdiction is different. Some have prisons, some have special
hospitals and some have large teaching hospitals. The infrastructure
and services required in each are
different.
Professor
Furness: From the perspective of the Royal College of
Pathologists, may I pick up on a point that Mr. Rebello
made? We are a little concerned that the Bill seems to put the emphasis
for the office of the chief coroner on the resolution of disputes and
appeals. That is clearly important, but our concern is the variation in
practice in coroner’s courts around the country, which
Mr. Rebello touched on. We hoped that the coroner’s
office would bring a degree of harmonisation. We, too, are concerned
that we cannot see the teeth or the drive in the Bill to produce that
harmonisation.
