My Lords, in 2006 I moved an amendment in these terms to the 2006 Bill with the support of my noble friend the late Lord Garden. At that time, inquests involving the services were very much a controversial area. There were long delays and lots of families were very concerned about the fact that these inquests took such a long time and seemed to be so unsatisfactory. At the same time, coroners were making some very trenchant criticisms. Lord Garden and I thought it would be right to have a statutory duty making it quite clear that the coroner should have jurisdiction in this area and that cases should be reported to him by commanding officers, in the terms of the amendment that I put forward.
That amendment was not accepted, but after that the Army itself became concerned and set up Project Ajax, and in 2008 the Defence Inquests Unit was
formed. It is interesting to note that Mr Mike Venables, the head of that unit, said that,
“the MOD was struggling with how we handled inquests because there was no focus … The families were dissatisfied by the service they were getting and by the way that inquests were working. Many didn’t understand why we were having them or what they were for”.
The unit went to work. It seemed to have a number of aims. On the first aim, Mr Venables said:
“Our role is to support bereaved families”.
Its next role was to train coroners and explain the particular circumstances in which a death had taken place, to identify and locate military witnesses, to furnish reports and information to the coroners and to organise a familiarisation event—annually, as it turned out—so that coroners would know what vehicles and kit were used on operations and what mine clearance drills were, and could experience the weight of packs that troops carried, and so on.
Case officers under the unit read through the Royal Military Police reports, Special Investigations Branch reports and witness statements before handing them to the coroner. Colonel Newell, who was in charge, said:
“We read through everything first and redact them for security—which is something that they do worry about so we explain that … We point them”—
the coroners—
“to what we see as the salient information and suggest who we see as the key witnesses who should be called to the inquest. We provide them with a Rolls-Royce service”.
The next function was to provide support to witnesses. Mr Venables said:
“It can be a hugely difficult experience for some witnesses … we don’t…coach them. All we say is, ‘you’ve got nothing to fear from this, all you have to do is tell the truth’”.
So the unit seems to have various conflicting aims.
The purpose of my tabling this probing amendment today—in identical terms to the one we tabled in 2006—was to inquire into how the system is working and whether it is satisfactory. Case officers under the unit appear at inquests for the Ministry of Defence, so not only are they training and advising coroners, and redacting witnesses’ reports; they are actually appearing for the Ministry of Defence at inquests. That must cause concern to families who wonder whether their purpose is to protect the Ministry of Defence from the sort of trenchant criticisms that, as I indicated, were very much abroad in 2006 when we first approached this problem.
I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response. I may not have expressed quite clearly the full scope of my intention in tabling this amendment—I apologise for that—but I commend it to the Committee.