My Lords, I agree with many of the points my noble friend has made. He made a particularly forceful point about addressing the jury at an inquest. It seems an absurdity that the law is in that state; I will come back to the encrusted historical nature of the law on coroners in a second.
I will add to what my noble friend said, although it might seem a slightly conflicting point. It is simply that the circumstances can be very different in so many of these cases. From my experience of inquests and dealing with families going to inquests, I have often come across the circumstances so vividly described by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, of those who do have any equality of arms and are dealing with a major public sector body or a private organisation with great resources. There are other families for whom an inquest is just another liability they do not want at a time of maximum grief. If there are no grounds for holding an inquest or drawing them into that procedure, we do not want to make life more difficult for them at a time of very real grief.
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If you want to know how encrusted with history the law is, you need look only to Clause 42 of this Bill. Would you believe it? It is not apparent from the clause, but it sets up a procedure so that a local authority can reorganise coroners’ areas within its own area, and can do so partially if there is a coroner who does not agree, who can stay until he retires. That
is a product of history and the judicial nature of the coroner’s office, which makes this area difficult to deal with. I strongly support what my noble friend said but also want consideration to be given to not imposing unnecessary processes on a family where there is no doubt as to how the death was caused, as the family simply wants to be left to cope with it.