My Lords, I am very glad to welcome Amendments 189 and 54. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, has said, there are parallels with my earlier Amendment 23 about the effective use of data. I think he and the noble Baronesses, Lady Burt, Lady Bertin and Lady Wilcox, eloquently described the way in which information needs to be used by the commissioner. I was particularly taken with the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, about taking the lessons from domestic homicide reviews, and in relation to people with mental illness and the importance of the NHS linking to it.
8.30 pm
On Amendment 51, it is clearly right that specified public bodies must have a duty to co-operate with the commissioner, and the organisations listed are all to be welcomed. It is very puzzling why the Independent Office for Police Conduct, HM Prison Service, the National Probation Service, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman and the Chief Coroner are missing from the list in Clause 15. I hope we will get an explanation from Ministers as to why that is so. After all, as I said earlier, the Bill specifies in Clause 7(1)(b) that:
“The Commissioner must encourage good practice”
in the prevention, detection and prosecution of offences including domestic abuse. All the officeholders and organisations that have been excluded and which are part of this amendment have a contribution to make to that. I would have thought one would want them to have a duty to co-operate.
The same arguments apply to the Chief Coroner. The Chief Coroner has several important roles including providing support, leadership and guidance for coroners and the setting of national standards. They also have to monitor the system where recommendations from inquests are reported to the appropriate authorities to prevent further deaths. Surely this is applicable and relevant to domestic abuse fatalities, and I think it will be important for the commissioner to co-operate with the domestic abuse commissioner.
If there is a sensitivity about the Chief Coroner being covered by this clause because of his judicial role, at the very least I would have thought an amendment could be made to Section 36 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Currently, this specifies that:
“The Chief Coroner must give the Lord Chancellor a report for each calendar year”
on
“matters that the Chief Coroner wishes to bring to the attention of the Lord Chancellor”.
I would have thought it could be specified, at the least, that the Chief Coroner could report to the Secretary of State and the commissioner on matters the Chief Coroner wishes to bring to their attention.