Judicial Review and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, in the mists of time I was articled to Maurice Evans, who was the coroner on the inquest of the 266 miners who lost their lives in the Gresford disaster. The mine owners were represented by Hartley Shawcross, later the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, Attorney-General in the Attlee Government and after that a very distinguished Member of this House. On the other side for the miners there appeared pro bono Sir Stafford Cripps, who later became the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Attlee Government. There was equality of arms there. That is what it means, that is what it is about and that is what these amendments are about Inquest has very helpfully set out a schedule to its briefing in which it outlines what representations have been made over time. In 1999, Lord Macpherson in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry said: "That consideration be given to the provision of Legal Aid to victims or the families of victims to cover representation at an Inquest in appropriate cases." That is 23 years ago. The Corston report and the review led by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, made similar recommendations. His Honour Judge Sir Peter Thornton QC was the first Chief Coroner appointed and I knew him very well; he was in my chambers. He made his report in 2015-16 and said: "The Chief Coroner … recommends that the Lord Chancellor gives consideration to amending his Exceptional Funding Guidance … so as to provide exceptional funding for legal representation for the family where the state has agreed to provide separate representation for one or more interested persons." You could actually take that and make it the amendment we are seeking to put before the Government. Dame Elish Angiolini carried out an independent review of deaths and serious incidents in police custody in 2017 and put it this way: "For the state to fulfil its legal obligations of allowing effective participation of families in the process that is meaningful and not ‘empty and rhetorical’ there should be access for the immediate family to free, non-means tested legal advice, assistance and representation immediately following the death and throughout the Inquest hearing." The right reverend Bishop James Jones in the Hillsborough review said that: "Publicly funded legal representation should be made available to bereaved families at inquests at which a public authority is to be legally represented … the requirement for a means test and financial contribution from the family should also be waived in these cases. Where necessary, funding for pathology or other expert evidence should also be made available." I could go on because there are a large number of these quotes but, coming closer to the present time, the Joint Committee on Human Rights in 2019, considering the detention of young people with learning disabilities and autism, said that: "Families must be given non-means tested funding for legal representation at inquests where the state has separate representation for one or more interested persons." The Justice Select Committee, reporting last year in the other place, said: "Bereaved people should not be put through the difficult and time-consuming process of meeting the exceptional cases requirements and the means test for legal aid where public authorities are legally represented at public expense at the inquest into the death of their loved one. The Ministry of Justice should by 1 October 2021, for all inquests where public authorities are legally represented, make sure that non-means tested legal aid or other public funding for legal representation is also available for the people that have been bereaved." Your Lordships will see that this is not a single voice calling. Everybody who has looked at this particular problem realises that there is no equality of arms, as there was in the Gresford disaster inquest, and that families suffer as a result. They cannot put their case adequately. It is time that the Government should grasp this and not go back to talking about coroners being inquisitorial, therefore we cannot have proper legal representation and so on. It is just shutting your eyes to what is going to happen, and I am sure it is going to happen with the quality of advocacy of Inquest and other people. I hope it will happen through this Bill if we can get together and put the proper amendment forward.