I am grateful for that clarification, but the same point would apply. If the only people who are interested—I am using that word in the technical sense—in the inquest can participate only by audio link, the coroner would have to either not hold the inquest and adjourn it or hold it, so to speak, in a room, despite those interested people not being able to be there. I will consider again whether what the noble Baroness has said resolves my concerns, but I do not think that it does. Certainly, we are concerned to make sure that an inquest can still go ahead when, for some reason, everyone relevant can participate only by way of audio.
I assure the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that what underpins this and Parliament giving coroners these powers is concern for families. We want people to be able to participate, and we are conscious that some people may only be able to participate through technical means or audio only.
Amendment 45 seeks to ensure that remote inquest hearings and pre-inquest hearings are heard in a manner that is accessible to the public. In this regard, Clause 40 is designed to complement Clause 166 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is currently in the other place. Clause 166 provides for wider remote participation in court proceedings, under the direction of the court, and it covers a number of courts, including coroners’ courts. So, Clause 166 will ensure that justice remains accessible to the public, regardless of how the hearing is conducted. Again, the Chief Coroner will provide additional guidance on the use of remote hearings to ensure that coroners’ inquest hearings remain accessible to the public, as set out in Rule 11 of the Coroners (Inquests) Rules 2013.
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Amendment 53 would require the Government to review and consult on the potential impact of remote hearings before the provision is implemented. I can assure the Committee that the Coroners (Inquests) Rules 2013 would need to be revised to set out the detail of how remote hearings will operate in practice, and we will consult with key stakeholders to take their views into consideration as we do that.
Let me now turn to Amendment 50, which seeks to repeal Rule 27 of the Coroners (Inquests) Rules 2013. I respectfully empathise with the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, gave for questioning the rationale for the provision. I understand, if I may put it this way, where the noble Lord is coming from. It brings me back to my earlier point: inquests are designed to be inquisitorial, so that the coroner and any jury start without preconceptions and can elicit the true facts about a person’s death. Interested persons are entitled to participate fully in inquests. They have a statutory right to examine witnesses and they can give evidence themselves if required by the coroner. A bereaved family may also be permitted to provide pen-portrait evidence about their loved one which speaks to who the deceased was and helps to humanise—if I can put it that way—the deceased person in the inquest process. Allowing interested persons, however, to make submissions on the facts, rather than limiting them to providing and examining evidence, would, I suggest, make the inquest adversarial. I repeat: the Chief Coroner has time and again said publicly that one of his key objectives is to protect the inquisitorial nature of the inquest process. As I have set out, the Government are keen to support him in that.
I was going to turn next to the Government amendments, but let me set out what I was going to say in response to the amendments proposed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, and I will take them as formally moved, so to speak. He tabled two amendments relating to death by suicide. I thank him in his absence for his tireless commitment on this issue; over the last couple of years, he has put down a number of related questions and Private Member’s Bills. We recognise the need to collect quality information on the circumstances that lead to a suicide in order to help prevent future deaths and support better outcomes. We do not think that these amendments would lead to the desired effect. Section 5 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 sets out the scope of the coroner’s role, which, as I said earlier, is to determine who died and how, when and where they died.
During the investigation, the coroner may be made aware of factors as to why a person may have taken their own life, but it is not within the coroner’s remit to look deeper or investigate further, as this could lead to seeking to attribute liability, which is more properly the preserve of other legal jurisdictions. In addition, the coroner may gain information from a wide range of sources—family, partner, friends or the police—who might mention different risk factors as issues when understanding the circumstances of a death. This would lead to data being incomplete or inconsistent in quality, which would not then be useful in delivering better outcomes or interventions.
The Government remain committed to understanding the circumstances which lead to self-harm and suicide, including gambling addictions. In March last year we published the fifth progress report on the national suicide prevention strategy, and this included a refreshed cross-government suicide prevention workplan that included factors such as gambling. There has also been an increase in funding for suicide prevention through the NHS long-term plan, with an additional £57 million by financial year 2023-24 to support local suicide prevention plans and develop suicide bereavement services in every area of the country.
On gambling specifically, which I understand to be the right reverend Prelate’s particular focus from his previous interventions, the NHS long-term plan commits to expanding the geographical coverage of NHS services for people with serious gambling problems. In addition to the existing National Problem Gambling Clinic in London, the NHS has committed to opening an additional 14 new problem gambling clinics in 2023-24. I was going to invite the right reverend Prelate not to move his amendments; I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to do so on his behalf.
I turn to the government amendments, which are quite technical but none the less important. I am grateful to those Members of the Committee who have engaged with me on the detail of this. The current position is that there are provisions that enable a coroner to authorise the disposal of a body so that families may hold a funeral prior to any formal death registration being completed. These provisions are successful in avoiding unnecessary delays. They reduce the stress on the bereaved when the coroner is involved. The problem is that, admittedly in a small number of cases, these provisions seem to have the unintended consequence of taking away the incentive for the death to be registered as it may be perceived, often by the family, that nothing further needs to be done once the funeral has taken place. I understand why people take that approach; it is incorrect, but I understand why they do.
The problem is that, unless the coroner undertakes a full investigation or an investigation is suspended, those deaths can be registered only if an informant qualified to do so by legislation provides the registrar with information relating to the deceased. The qualified informants are primarily family members. That is the problem. The death can be registered only after the coroner has considered whether a full investigation should be carried out or discontinued, by which time a funeral may already have taken place and family members may no longer be interested. As I said, I am not blaming anybody; it is just human nature: the funeral has taken place so they regard the matter as concluded.