My Lords, there is one aspect of this amendment to which I think I should draw attention. It arises because of its scope. The amendment applies to every violent or unnatural death of every person subject to service law within the United Kingdom. The coronial system does not apply in Scotland. I do not know whether it is the intention that we should extend the coronial system to Scotland in the case of every violent or unnatural death, but the system which applies in Scotland is very simply this: every death of that kind is reported to the procurator fiscal of the area in which the event occurred. There is then an exercise of discretion because it does not follow that every death is subject to an inquiry. It is a matter for the procurator fiscal, possibly with the advice of a law officer or his counsel, to decide whether it is in the public interest that there should be an inquiry. If there is such an inquiry, it goes not to a coroner but to a sheriff, who does indeed determine by what means and in what circumstances the death occurred. It is there that the public interest is served because if there is something to learn from the event, the opportunity is taken through the accident inquiry to determine the circumstances and in some way to improve practice or inform the public about how events of that kind could be avoided in future.
As I listened to the debate I wondered whether that system applied in the case of persons subject to service law. I think I am right in saying that when one reflects on the tragic events on the Mull of Kintyre, when a Chinook helicopter flying from Northern Ireland to Scotland with a number of very senior people on board crashed and everybody was killed, that event was dealt with under the Scottish procedure. I would have thought that that procedure is perfectly adequate to cope with all that one would expect from events of this kind and the need for the circumstances to be inquired into.
There are two features that need to be stressed. First, not every death of this kind is the subject of an inquiry because it is only if the public interest requires it. On the other hand, where the inquiry is resorted to, it is a full inquiry, with the results that I think the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, is looking for; that is, the lessons to be learned from the evidence that is laid. I wonder whether he really does intend that every death—even a road accident, for example—occurring north of the border should be subject to this system; or, to take another example, whether training exercises in the Highlands, where unfortunately deaths do occur due to the very severe weather on mountains, should be subject to the coronial system. I think the
Scottish prosecutors—the procurators fiscal, I should say—would rather that they retained control of these events and dealt with them under the Scottish procedure, which they would believe is perfectly adequate to provide the lessons that people need to avoid these events occurring again.