Schedule
3Appointment
etc of senior coroners, area coroners and assistant
coroners
Mr.
Bellingham: I beg to move amendment 44, in
schedule 3, page 123, line 7, leave
out ‘relevant authority’ and insert ‘senior
coroner’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: amendment 46, in schedule 3, page 123,
line 10, leave out ‘relevant authority’ and
insert ‘senior
coroner’. Amendment
47, in
schedule 3, page 123, line 20, leave
out ‘70’ and insert ‘72’. Amendment 45, in
schedule 3, page 123, line 21, leave
out sub-sub-paragraph
(b). Amendment
33, in
schedule 3, page 125, line 3, leave
out ‘70’ and insert
‘72’. Amendment
127, in
schedule 7, page 134, line 17, leave
out ‘or as a Deputy Chief
Coroner’. Amendment
36, in
schedule 7, page 134, line 19, after
second ‘judge’, insert ‘or a senior
coroner’. Amendment
37, in
schedule 7, page 134, line 20, leave
out ‘70’ and insert
‘72’. Amendment
128, in
schedule 7, page 134, line 20, at
end insert— ‘(1A) To be
eligible for appointment as a Deputy Chief Coroner a person must
be (a) a judge of the High
Court or a Circuit Judge or a senior coroner,
and (b) under the age of
70.’. Amendment
38, in
schedule 7, page 134, line 24, leave
out ‘70th’ and insert
‘72nd’.
Mr.
Bellingham: I may be able to help you, Mr.
Gale. I am confident that with good will and a degree of conciseness,
we will be able to finish part 1 by 7.20 pm. Hopefully, we will not
have to come back after dinner. I will be brief, because most of the
amendments stand in my name and the names of my hon.
Friends. The
amendments relate to various matters to do with boundaries,
appointments and issues such as retirement age. They are important to
the coronial service. It is important to bear it in mind that the
office of coroner is one of the oldest in the country; I understand
that it dates back to 1420. [Interruption.] I am
happy to be corrected by the Minister, or by my hon. Friend, if he can
find an earlier or later
date.
Mr.
Gray: My hon. Friend is completely and utterly wrong. The
coroner was founded shortly after William the Conqueror in the 12th
century, rather than in the 15th century.
Mr.
Bellingham: My hon. Friend is quite right, but I
understand that the office as it is currently constituted dates from
1420. However, I do not want to get into a long, historical debate or I
will be ruled out of
order. The
point to bear in mind is that the office is ancient and should only be
tampered with lightly. It carries many onerous duties. Those of us who
heard what AndrĂ(c) Rebello had to say could only be impressed by
his hard work and his total commitment to the job. He made it clear
that he was on duty 24/7. He could be rung up at any hour of the day.
He said that he was under constant pressure, and pointed out that he
was persistently underfunded. He also made it clear that coroners live
in constant anticipation of some ghastly local disaster. The office
carries pretty poor pay and allowances and is not likely to appeal to
everyone. On the other hand, it carries power—the coroner has
the power to summon witnesses to an inquest to give a
statement—and a great deal of prestige in the local
community and among local professions. Many coroners have a civic role,
as well, attending the mayor and corporation at civic occasions. What
the office of coroner represents is the very best of localism. Many
coroners are third or fourth-generation coroners from a particular
family, and they take a huge pride in their work. I have spoken to many
county coroners and have been incredibly impressed with their total
dedication and professionalism. They really pride themselves on the
professional service that they can give to the
community. That
is why Conservative Members have always been very much in favour of
maintaining the best of localism. That is why we support the
Minister’s decision to put in place a national overarch, the
national coroner and the deputy national coroner, but with strong local
autonomy under it. However, it is important that the office of senior
coroner be truly independent, and the offices under it, the area and
assistant area coroners, must be totally independent. That is why our
amendments 44 and 46 strike out the provisions in the Bill to give the
power of appointment of the area and assistant area coroners to the
local authority. That would be a bad move. At the moment the county
coroner appoints his deputy and assistant deputy. I put it to the
Minister that, if we give the power of appointment of the more junior
ranks to the local authority, there may well be possible conflicts of
interest. What,
for example, would happen in the scenario—unlikely, I accept,
but possible—of a local authority falling out with the senior
coroner? It could be over resources, the senior coroner demanding
facilities or how he has handled a particular inquest. In any event, I
suggest that there could be a serious falling out between the local
authority—or perhaps the police authority—and the senior
coroner. Under the arrangements as envisaged in the Bill, the local
authority could say, “Right, we are going to appoint an area and
assistant area coroner under you whom we know full well you will not be
able to work with”, thus causing strife and probably leading to
the resignation of the
coroner. Our
amendments are taking an extreme case, but what the Bill as it stands
does is to take away an important task from the senior
coroner—the power to appoint his two key deputies. If we are to
have a coronial system that works smoothly and well, it is crucial that
the senior coroner and his deputies get on well together and work
together as a team. That is the essence of amendments 44 and
46. There
is also a need for the office to be properly independent. The Minister
mentioned a moment ago that the office, as it stands, contains proper
judicial independence. She mentioned that in future, the coroners will
be independent. On the other hand, the Bill states clearly that the
office of coroner will no longer be a freehold office. Freehold, which
I remember from my early days of law, implies a degree of independence.
It implies a degree of self-sufficiency and control over one’s
own destiny. It implies, in this context, judicial independence. To
remove the office’s status—the freehold status—and
move it over to being an office of the local authority would take away
that judicial independence. It would make the coroner a servant of
another agency, another authority. It would also imply that, rather
than being totally independent, he or she could be controlled by that
third party. That would be a very negative move.
Is it not also
important to have a proper career structure for coroners? Is it not
important that we try to attract the most able, capable people to the
post of senior coroner? The Minister has said on a number of occasions
that it is important to have the highest calibre men and women applying
for the posts. Surely it makes no sense at all for there to be a glass
ceiling on the career structure of senior coroners. Why should they not
be able to apply for the post of chief coroner or deputy chief coroner?
There is no reason why they should not apply for those posts. If they
have the necessary qualifications and experience, there is no reason
why they should not apply; hence we have tabled amendment 36. It is
important that senior coroners do not have a glass ceiling on their
career structure and that they are given the opportunity to apply for
the top jobs. That is the essence of amendment 36. It is also very
important that they retain their current retirement
age.
Bridget
Prentice: I cannot accept amendments 44 and 46—I
will manage to find the others in a moment. They run entirely contrary
to what we are aiming to achieve in the Bill, which is to create an
open, transparent and consistent system for appointing coroners. The
system at the moment is largely opaque. It is not uncommon—the
hon. Member for North-West Norfolk obliquely referred to
this—for a coroner to appoint as a deputy or an assistant deputy
someone from their own legal practice or someone who is otherwise known
to them. That, in turn, clearly causes disadvantage to anyone else who
might be interested in applying for the post when the senior coroner
position becomes vacant if they have not been in that law firm. It also
means that vacancies might never be made known to potential candidates
who might be better people to fill those vacancies. As well as creating
a lack of transparency, it has led in the past to a lack of diversity
among those in coroner
posts. It
is important that we do all that we can to enable diversity of coroners
to reflect the diversity of our society. Having the local authority
advertise vacancies, with an agreed and published set of criteria that
candidates must meet, is one of the fundamental measures that we take
in this part of the Bill. It will allow all potential qualified
candidates with an interest to apply and will allow the local authority
to select the best person for the
job. Mr.
George Howarth (Knowsley, North and Sefton, East) (Lab):
The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk made the point that some coroner
families are into the fourth generation. Does that not rather make my
hon. Friend the Minister’s point—or are some people just
genetically predisposed to being
coroners?
Bridget
Prentice: I am not sure that anyone is genetically
predisposed to being a coroner, but my right hon. Friend is right to
say that the hon. Gentleman did rather make my case for me. Under the
new, transparent system, there will be an additional check, in that the
chief coroner, who is responsible for ensuring consistent standards
throughout the system, and the Lord Chancellor will have to consent to
the appointment of all coroners. With that new scrutiny in place,
consistency and transparency will become much more apparent. In
addition, it will increase public confidence in the system and people
will see that the best candidates have been
recruited.
6.45
pm I
turn to amendments 47 and 33, which deal with increasing the retirement
age of coroners from 70 to 72 for which I see no justification.
Schedules 3 and 7 set out a new retirement age of 70 for coroners and
chief and deputy chief coroners. There is no retirement age at present:
the office of coroner is freehold. The introduction of a retirement age
will bring consistency with the rest of the judiciary and allow for
better succession planning.
Mr.
Gray: Is the Minister in favour of introducing a
retirement age for Members of
Parliament?
Bridget
Prentice: It is not entirely relevant, but I am sure that
I will retire from this place before the hon. Gentleman
does.
The
Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now out of order.
The question was out of order. I allowed the Minister, perhaps
unwisely, to half-answer it, and I would now like to get back to the
amendments before
us.
Mr.
Gray: I asked my question to introduce the matter of age
limits. The point that I was making in perhaps a frivolous way was that
the hon. Lady’s argument was that, because of the quasi-judicial
position of a coroner, it was therefore reasonable for them to retire
at the age of 70. I accept that my point was marginally out of order
and that I did not express it well, Mr. Gale, but I wanted
to draw attention to the fact that lots of other highly responsible
work is undertaken in this country that can be done until the ages of
80, 90 or older. If the hon. Lady is of the view that the work of a
coroner requires that the person should retire at the age of 70, why
should that not apply to
politicians?
Bridget
Prentice: To ensure that I stay within order,
Mr. Gale, I repeat that we are making the retirement age of
coroners consistent with that of the rest of the judiciary. In
practice, that will make very little difference at the moment because
we shall allow those coroners who are in post to continue for the time
being.
Mr.
Boswell: Will the Minister at least consider the
possibility of providing some flexibility or headroom for the future,
so that there is a presumed retirement age—she has selected the
age of 70 for consistency—but in particular circumstances and if
there was a reason for doing so, it would be possible to continue the
appointment for, say, up to a couple or three years? I can imagine
there being a local difficulty or a shortage of suitably qualified
legal persons for the post. It is exactly the sort of the problem that
the High Court had to deal with by drafting back, for example, retired
judges to carry out some
inquiries.
Bridget
Prentice: I do not object to retired judges being brought
back into the system for particular reasons on some occasions. There is
no reason why that could not continue in the coronial system, too.
Nevertheless,
most coroners retire voluntarily between the ages of 65 and 70, so it is
unnecessary and undesirable to increase the retirement age to
72. Under
the Bill, anyone under 70 who has been legally qualified for five years
would be eligible for appointment as a senior coroner, area coroner or
assistant coroner. Amendment 45 would remove the requirement for
coroners to be legally qualified. In other words, it would allow anyone
to be a coroner if they were under the age of 70, even if they had no
qualifications. I am sure that that is not what the hon. Member for
North-West Norfolk intended by the amendment, so I hope that he feels
able to withdraw it.
In future, it
will be increasingly important for coroners to be legally qualified.
Given the duty of investigations that satisfy article 2, legal
qualifications will become even more essential. They will also give the
coroners the skill to examine evidence and conduct investigations in
the most effective way.
At the
moment, a small number of coroners are both medically and legally
qualified, and about the same number are medically qualified only. The
Coroners’ Society tells me that there are about four of each.
Under the reformed system, it will not be necessary for the coroner to
be medically qualified, as the medical examiners will be on hand to
provide independent medical expertise. However, those who are currently
medically rather than legally qualified will retain their posts under
the reformed system and will simply be exempted from the legal
qualification requirement. They will already have picked up forensic
skills through experience and training, and that is not something that
we want to
lose. Amendment
36 deals specifically with eligibility for the appointment of chief
coroner and deputy chief coroner. Schedule 7 provides that to be
eligible for appointment as chief coroner or deputy chief coroner, the
person must be a judge of the High Court or a circuit judge. Amendment
36 would allow a senior coroner to be eligible for appointment as chief
coroner or deputy chief coroner. I understand the point made by the
hon. Member for North-West Norfolk about the glass ceiling, and I have
some sympathy with it. However, in my view, the scope of the job of
chief coroner probably requires someone with senior judicial status,
such as a High Court judge or a senior circuit judge. To be led by a
figure of that stature heightens the profile of the coroner service.
When determining complex appeals or negotiating for resources
nationally or locally, status can be quite important. I cannot agree
that a senior coroner should necessarily be eligible for appointment as
chief coroner.
I am more
open to the suggestion that a senior coroner should be allowed to
become a deputy chief coroner. It is important that we recognise that
there will be more than one deputy chief coroner. Amendments 127 and
128 would allow a senior coroner to apply for that role provided that
they are under the age of 70. As I said, given the experience of senior
coroners who have been working in the system for some time, it is
understandable that they might wish to apply for such an appointment
and I recognise that their skills should continue to be used in that
way. Although I cannot give a firm commitment at this stage to table an
amendment
on Report, I will certainly reflect carefully on that aspect of the hon.
Gentleman’s proposals. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw his
amendment. | 
