To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the policing of the London demonstration on 3 February.

I am happy to make the statement requested by my hon. Friend. I am pleased that the response in Britain to publication of the Danish cartoons has, in general, been respectful and restrained. That is in the best traditions of British tolerance, and I hope and expect that it will continue.

Decisions on the arrest and prosecution of any participant in demonstrations, including those last Friday and over the past few days, are properly matters for the police and prosecuting authorities, who are undertaking rigorous assessments of the appropriate way to proceed in individual cases. If the police conclude that there have been breaches of the law and decide to take any action, we shall, of course, support them. The House will understand that I am not in a position to give any further details at this stage.

The Government stand in full solidarity with the Danish Government in resisting violence. We believe that they have done everything possible to handle a difficult situation. Nothing can justify the violence aimed at European embassies or at Denmark. We understand the offence caused by the cartoons depicting the Prophet, but freedom of expression must be exercised with respect for the views of others, including their religious beliefs. Such attacks on the citizens of Denmark and the people of other European countries are completely unacceptable.

I agree with my right hon. Friend. I am against the cartoons, but is it not entirely unacceptable for a bunch of hooligans and thugs in London to demand that people be beheaded and to glorify the atrocities of 7 July and call for further such atrocities to be committed in Britain? Is that not a clear case of incitement to murder? Indeed, it is a deep insult to those who lost their loved ones in the July atrocities and to the others who survived, but who will suffer the consequences of their serious injuries for the rest of their lives.

Have not mainstream Muslim organisations made it perfectly clear that those hooligans are not representative of members of the Muslim faith and that they dissociate themselves from them? They have made it clear, as I do, and as I hope most people do, that legal action should be taken. Should not a message go out from the House that we should never again on British soil see the kind of slogans and incitement to murder that disgraced this country last Friday?

I very much agree with my hon. Friend's remarks. The actions that he described were unacceptable. Decisions on arrest and prosecution are properly matters for the police and prosecuting authorities, and that is the way it should be.

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the way in which the many organisations within the Muslim communities have condemned this action in the strongest and most explicit terms. That is in part what I described earlier as the best tradition of British tolerance. I hope that that will continue.

The incident illustrates the merits of having all the necessary legislation on the statute book, which includes the offences created by the Terrorism Bill, including the proposed new offences of encouragement and glorification of terrorism, which I hope will now have the support of the whole House.

May I start by saying that I did not much like the decision of various European newspapers to publish cartoons that are seen as offensive by Muslims. However, like many things of which I disapprove, it is not illegal, nor should it be. It would be entirely proper for those offended by the cartoons to mount a peaceful demonstration against their publication. The right to demonstrate is an extremely important part of the rights of British citizens. It is, however, a right with clear limits. That does not include a right to incite violence, which is outside the law.

Let us be clear: placards carrying slogans calling for people who insult Islam to be beheaded, massacred or annihilated are direct incitements to violence. It is less than a year since the terrorist atrocities last July at King's Cross.

Unlike the press, I do not criticise the police for not making immediate arrests at the demonstration. Public order decisions are difficult and should not be second-guessed on a minute-by-minute basis. However, I expect that action should be taken, and taken soon, against those who clearly incited violence. It is vital that we make it clear that incitement to violence has no place in our political life.

I am by no means the only one who believes that. Inayat Bunglawala, the spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said:

"The placards were quite disgraceful and seemed to constitute a clear incitement to violence, even murder."

He added that

"Most Muslims will feel enormous distress and anguish at what has occurred. There will be no sympathy for the extremists when they are charged by the police."

I was glad to hear the Home Secretary agree that our laws, both common and statute, before any recent changes, provide a range of offences that appeared to be either committed or infringed at the demonstration on Friday. If action is not taken, there will be a number of consequences, all of them bad. First, the perpetrators of these outrages will see that we are willing to tolerate anything, and as a result the next demonstration will be even more outrageous.

Secondly, especially after the prosecution and conviction of Maya Evans, the lady who held a memorial ceremony at the Cenotaph, many people will conclude that the law is inconsistent and unjust if real offenders against public order go free and unchallenged.

Thirdly, it will be difficult for moderate Muslim leaders to give a clear lead to their community if the Government refuse to give a clear lead.

I welcome the Home Secretary's announcement that an investigation or assessment of last Friday's events will take place. The right hon. Gentleman has properly been unwilling to be drawn into questions of individual prosecutions. I understand that, but I reiterate that the stance taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions has serious public policy implications for both community relations and public safety in this country. The right hon. Gentleman should be sure that he is made aware of that. As I have said before to him, I do not envy the difficult balance that he has to strike in this area. For all the decades that we have known each other it has been conventional wisdom and, I think, our shared view that the route to good community relations is a mix of generosity, tolerance and respect. It has been clear in the past few days that the two most generous and tolerant nations in the world, looking only at Europe, are Holland and Denmark, yet they are both in different ways going through agonies with community relations. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we must continue our traditions of generosity, tolerance and respect while drawing a line about what is acceptable civilised behaviour, given that that line was emphatically crossed at the demonstration last Friday?

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has decided not to join the criticism of the police that some parts of the media have made. There have been many occasions, including May day and football protests, when arrests have been made not immediately but subsequently. As I said, the police and prosecuting authorities are entirely right to examine the evidence in detail before deciding how best to proceed. Of course, I accept what he says about the importance of the implications of decisions taken on the matter. I assure him and the House that I am keeping in close contact with the situation.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to pay attention to the question of incitement to violence—and also, I would say, incitement to hatred. Freedom of speech has conventionally been proscribed in such areas for good reason, and that is why it is important to illustrate the merit of having the necessary legislation on the statute book, including the Terrorism Bill and its proposed new offence of the encouragement and glorification of terrorism. I draw hon. Members' attention to the fact that the Bill returns to the House on 15 February. Given the public position that the right hon. Gentleman has taken, I hope that Conservative Members will think long and hard about whether they need to revise their attitude to the offences in the Bill and support the Government's aim of getting it on to the statute book as quickly as possible.

More generally, it is important to reinforce the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about the need to build a tolerant society and to stand firmly and strongly against incitement to violence and hatred, so I hope that the whole House will do just that.

I welcome what my right hon. Friend and others said about the need to prosecute clear breaches of the law. Does he agree that the whole sorry episode illustrates the deep and worrying confusion in our society about the boundaries of what causes offence, the ways in which free speech needs to be responsibly exercised, and the ways in which different cultures can have very different takes on apparently similar issues? Does he accept that we need the Government to take the lead on issues of integration so that everyone in this country understands the common rules of engagement and civic behaviour? This is not simply a policing matter, and most of the issues will be dealt with in other ways.

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend, especially on the question of addressing integration in the way he suggests. I say again—it is important to be clear about this—that this country realises not only that freedom of speech and expression are absolutely essential to our national life, but that judgment, taste, courtesy, circumstance and respect means that there is no obligation to say or do something that gratuitously offends or provokes simply because there is a right to do so. One of the strengths of our society is the fact that most people, in general, weigh up the consequences of what they do before they act. However, beyond those matters, the House has consistently acknowledged that, in certain circumstances, it is appropriate to place legal restrictions on absolute freedom of expression. That is the case for incitement to violence, as has been said, and for certain aspects of incitement to hatred. I think that it is also the case for the incitement or glorification of terrorism. Those circumstances are the bounds beyond which absolute freedom of speech cannot be expressed. Parliament must address those matters, so my right hon. Friend's suggestions are helpful.

I accept what the Home Secretary says about the operational nature of many decisions taken about Friday's demonstration, but does he accept that the House deserves to be told, in the fullness of time, the reasons for those decisions and the level at which they were taken? Were they taken as a result of a policy decision, or taken at ground level by the senior officer in charge of policing the demonstration? Will the Home Secretary undertake to inform the House of those matters at the earliest available opportunity?

It is accepted that many of those who were quick to criticise the police for making no arrests at the weekend would doubtless have been even to quicker to criticise if arrests had been made that inflamed a highly volatile situation. Does the Home Secretary accept that it is essential that there is a full inquiry and that prosecutions follow, provided there is sufficient evidence to justify them and that the CPS and, perhaps, the Attorney-General feel that that is in the public interest?

Finally, do not these events illustrate the wisdom of the position taken by this House last week on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill? The decision by these newspapers to publish the cartoons was almost certainly unwise, but it should never have been made illegal.

On the final point, the decision whether to publish the cartoons would not, in my view, have been affected by the Bill. The issue to which the hon. Gentleman refers is one of blasphemy, not of incitement to hatred, which is addressed in that Bill.

I am certainly ready to give the fullest information I can to the House, and I will operate on that basis.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that some Muslim extremists are poisoning the atmosphere in this country, in what has been a great multicultural society? There has been a great achievement by the Asian community, with Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims working with the rest of the community. What these extremists are doing is destroying the fundamental fabric of what has been achieved. Will the Home Secretary call in moderate Muslims and ask them to demonstrate publicly in the same spirit as those other people were demonstrating, to show that they have nothing to do with what those people were doing on Friday? The grotesque, inflammatory language that they used was not part and parcel of this society.

I agree. Perhaps I should reinforce the point that I made earlier: the leadership of all parts of the Muslim community has expressed exactly the sentiments set out by my hon. Friend. I do not need to call in the leaders of the Muslim community to make that point because they have been doing so, and I am confident that they will continue to do so very strongly.

Perhaps I can make one other point in response to the question. My hon. Friend is right to identify the fact that there are forces in this country, including within the Muslim community, who seek to weaken and damage the democratic fabric of our society. That is why the Terrorism Bill that is now before Parliament contains proposals on proscription of certain organisations that set out to do that. We are widening the criteria for proscription precisely to address the point that my hon. Friend makes, and I hope that those considerations, too, will have the support of the House when we come to look at the Terrorism Bill in the round.

The behaviour of the police in the next few weeks will help us to define whether our tolerance has slipped to become licence for a small minority, and we will watch very carefully to see how they proceed.

Has the Home Secretary had any conversations with his colleagues in the Foreign Office? It is absolutely clear from all events that the behaviour of some middle eastern Governments in fomenting, stirring up and creating even worse elements of hatred over the last three or four days should be approached and dealt with publicly. After all, those Governments have been the sponsors of some of the worst cartoons, showing Israelis in absolutely the worst light, with Jewish flags flying from concentration camp photographs. That was quite outrageous, but nothing was ever done. Will the Home Secretary please now urge his colleagues to make very strong representations, and public ones at that?

It is for that reason that I made remarks in my initial statement supporting the Danish Government against the attacks that they are experiencing from a number of countries. Yes, I have talked about the matter with colleagues in the Foreign Office, and yes, I can give the House the assurance that strong representations are being made in the direction to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

Does the Home Secretary agree that if sections of the Muslim community had sought to demonstrate peacefully against the war in Iraq or what I believe to be the excesses of the so-called war on terror, some of us in the House would have supported them, and the entire House would accept that they had an absolute right to do it? But to stage a demonstration that is a clear incitement to violence in an attempt to impose censorship on others is quite a different thing. Difficult as it may be, the test of a society's commitment to freedom of speech, which I think is particularly important in the multicultural society that we have today, is not just our willingness to defend people who say things that we agree with, but our willingness to defend those who say things with which we profoundly disagree.

I agree with that statement. That is an important aspect of everything that we have said on these matters. But I say again that incitement to violence, to hatred and to terrorism is, in my opinion, a step beyond the absolute freedom of speech and needs legislation if it is to be addressed properly.

In the past, the Home Office has extolled the virtues of the stop forms that now have to be completed when officers stop people in the street. On Friday, however, on the one recent occasion when the information collated from such forms might just have been of value, it would appear that they were not being issued. Why? If the answer is that it would have been unsafe to do so, will the Home Secretary now consider abandoning them?

As I said earlier, these are operational matters for the police to consider, and that was the judgment that they made. I will look at the matter in the round when the whole situation is analysed, but it would be a mistake for any Home Secretary to cut across the operational decisions made by the police in these circumstances.

Does the Home Secretary accept that, in the multi-faith, multicultural society of modern Britain, we should obviously condemn the ludicrous and obscene language that was used last week? Does he also accept that we should ask those with power in the media and elsewhere not to turn this into a condemnation of Islam as a whole, thus further damaging community relations in this country? Should they not instead extol the virtues of a free society in which everyone is free to practise whatever religion they choose?

I agree with my hon. Friend. However, I shall now say something that is very rare for me: a word of defence for the media in these circumstances. Their coverage of these matters has generally not been a critique of Islam or the Muslim world as a whole. In fact, even some of the most vociferous newspapers have quoted prominently the position of Muslim leaders who oppose these actions. I agree with my hon. Friend, but I am not sure that the media have gone out of line with his views on this occasion.

Is it not significant that the very people who were behaving in the way that has so outraged the House are also the very people who would have supported the original atrocities that led to the ill-considered cartoons in the first place? Is not the one good thing to come out of all this the fact that the leaders of the moderate Muslim majority have passed with flying colours the test that so many people set when they asked them to come out and condemn the extremists? Let us hope that they will continue to do that.

I am not going to make judgments about what the individuals at those demonstrations would or would not have done on any particular occasion. I have never doubted—and I do not think that most hon. Members have doubted—that the leadership of the Muslim community across the whole country would deplore acts of this kind, and that they would come out and state that. That is indeed what they have done.

The Home Secretary keeps referring to the fact that the police have certain duties and that he has certain duties, and that ne'er the twain shall meet. Why is there one set of rules for those who engage in a holy war, while there is quite another for those who engage in a class war, such as the miners' strike of 1984–85? That highly volatile situation lasted for a whole year and 7,000 miners were arrested, some only for shouting, "Scab!" Why do the police have one set of rules for them, and another set for others? During that period, not one Tory Minister condemned the police for their actions.

I hope that policing has moved on since those days, when, as I know my hon. Friend recalls, a Conservative Government were in place. It is important to emphasise that my hon. Friend is right to say that it is appropriate for policing decisions to be taken on policing grounds, and for politics to be done on political grounds. The question of what happened during the miners' strike remains a matter of debate.

Does the Home Secretary agree that the restraint and objectivity that the media have shown in dealing with the publication of the cartoons, and with the events that have followed, have greatly assisted the police in their tasks over the past few days? Would it not be a good idea if that restraint continued? Does not this also show that the British media are not institutionally racist?

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the British media in this case, which is why I said "the response in Britain to publication of the Danish cartoons has, in general, been respectful and restrained". I think that that is correct. I also said, and meant, "I hope and expect that it will continue."

Did not this weekend's events show not so much the real face of Islam but a hideous distortion of Islam, effectively undermined by the fundamentalism that can affect any religion in the world and is not by any means the sole prerogative of Islam? Does my right hon. Friend accept that Sir Iqbal Sacranie had every right to say whatever he wanted about homosexuality on the "Today" programme, without the police having to visit him afterwards? Does he think that we need to ensure that people understand fully, and the police understand fully, their responsibilities as well as people's rights in regard to freedom of expression?

I do agree that in this flurry of different and difficult circumstances, the more clarity can be provided about how freedom of speech is operated in particular circumstances the better, and I am considering how better to achieve that.

The conduct of most, of many, of the demonstrators was pretty atrocious, but should we not be very careful about invoking criminal law? After all, most of the relevant offences, particularly incitement, require specific intent. That is different in kind from hot-headed and unpleasant rhetoric. The truth is, surely, that in a democracy we have to put up with a great deal that we dislike and of which we disapprove, and in general we should not invoke the criminal law. Failed prosecutions, after all, tend to be extremely counter-productive.

It is because I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we must be very careful when dealing with the criminal law in these areas that I believe the best people to make those judgments are the police and the prosecuting authorities.

Does the Secretary of State agree that if we are to build a just and tolerant society we must also have a better understanding of the hurt that was caused in the Islamic world by the original cartoons? Had that incident not already shown, before the demonstration took place, that we should all recognise the need to engage in a much better and deeper dialogue with the world of Islam? Do not all of us, as Members of Parliament, have a responsibility to work out how we can better understand the world of Islam if we are to live peacefully in the 21st century?

I agree, which is why I supported what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. He said that we should view integration in that way. As a matter of fact, I think that various discussions that were held within the Muslim world and community after 7 July have been beneficial in achieving some of those understandings and addressing some of the issues, and I hope that that will continue.

I want to praise the police for the way in which they handled the demonstration on the day. It is very good that they did not take action that would have provoked violent or criminal damage. However, I think that many of my constituents and others will want a reassurance, which I hope the Home Secretary can give, that the police were at the same time collecting names, addresses and evidence in relation to the small minority in the demonstration whose behaviour clearly went well beyond the normal conduct of peaceful demonstrations. Can the right hon. Gentleman give that reassurance?

I can say that the police have indeed been collecting evidence and information. That is the basis on which they will make the decisions to which I referred earlier.

With permission, I shall make a statement on reform of the coroner service.

The coroners system is of great importance. When someone dies a violent or sudden death, when the cause of death is not certain or when the identity of a body is not known, there must, in the public interest, be a proper inquiry, and the bereaved relatives need to know what happened and why.

Coroners, and the officers who support them, deal with cases that are always sad and often tragic. That was exemplified most recently in the work of the three coroners and their staff who dealt so sensitively and expeditiously with co-ordination of the identification process in the tragic aftermath of the 7 July London bombings. I pay tribute to coroners and their staff, and acknowledge the difficult and important work that they do.

The service contains many coroners and staff who are dedicated and committed, but I think we all believe that the system within which they do their work could be much, much better.

There has been long-standing interest in and concern about the coroner service in this House, because all Members have constituents who involved them in cases that ended up in the coroner's court. I am sure that we all want a coroner service that enables committed coroners and their officers to ensure that the public interest is served in all inquests in every part of the country, and which enables bereaved relatives to have their answers; that is not the case at the moment.

Under the current coroner service, families frequently get overlooked during the inquest process. There is nowhere for them to turn when they think that something is going wrong; there is no complaints system. The system is fragmented, with no national leadership, and it is not accountable. We have no overview of the system as a whole, or of individual cases. Moreover, the system is not properly accountable to this House, which it should be. Standards are not uniformly good; everything rests too much on the personal qualities and abilities of individuals within the system. The legal framework is downright archaic. For most coroners, this is not even their principal occupation; it is a secondary one, added on to their main work as solicitors in private practice. Most coroner's officers have to learn on the job as they handle the most technically complex and personally difficult cases, with no systematic training. That is not fair on relatives or on the coroner's officers themselves.

The coroner service must serve the public interest and meet bereaved families' concerns in a way that, frankly, it currently does not. That is what these proposals aim to achieve and through them, we will do three things. First, we will put a proper focus on bereaved families and give them a clear legal standing in the system. We will set out the way in which the system should deal with families. We will give them the right to ask the coroner for a second opinion on a death, and to challenge coroners' rulings on how the investigation and inquest is run, and we will establish a complaints system.

Secondly, we will strengthen coroners' work. There will be a proper system for appointing coroners, and all will have to be legally qualified. Moreover, the role of coroner will have to be their only job. They will have a clear power to investigate a death, even where a certificate has been issued, and they will have additional powers to obtain evidence for their investigations. Dedicated medical advice will be available to them, and there will be an end to archaic boundary restrictions, which cause unnecessary difficulties when major incidents occur or when specialised examinations need carrying out.

Thirdly, we will establish a national framework for coroners' work. For the first time, there will be a chief coroner, who will give leadership to coroners in the same way as the Lord Chief Justice does to judges. There will be a coronial advisory council, a system of inspection and a national training system for coroners and their officers.

The question of a second certification of a death was a key issue in the third report of Dame Janet Smith into the Shipman murders. The Government have continued to examine the proposal that every death in England and Wales—some 500,000 a year—should have additional medical scrutiny by the coroner service. The coroner reforms that I am announcing to the House today do not stand alone. They will be complemented by further work being taken forward in the Department of Health, which is aimed at improving patient safety and promoting quality in the NHS.

We need a system that can identify and investigate suspicious deaths, but which allows families to proceed quickly with funeral arrangements where there is no cause for concern. We are not sure that the proposal to have all deaths referred to coroners achieves that, but we will continue to look at this issue and we are not ruling out the possibility of further reform.

I should like to thank both Dame Janet Smith and Tom Luce for their work, and to thank the voluntary organisations that have advised me from the viewpoint of bereaved families. I have placed a background note in the House of Commons Vote Office and in the Libraries of both Houses. It gives more detail on the measures that I have announced today and it shows how we have built on the work of Dame Janet and Mr. Luce. We intend to proceed by way of a draft coroners Bill this spring to enable pre-legislative scrutiny, probably by the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee. In parallel with such scrutiny, I intend to arrange a separate strand of pre-legislative scrutiny that will greatly help to inform the House. This will consist of pre-legislative scrutiny by families who have recent experience of the coroner service. I commend these proposals to the House.

Coroners' courts are, as the Minister said, undoubtedly a very important issue. In the context of Harold Shipman, the Hatfield rail crash and the more recent example, which she mentioned, of the July bombings, effective coroners' courts and the investigation of death are highly sensitive issues. Alongside the registration of deaths, coroners' courts should provide a reliable system for collecting data on deaths and monitoring trends in deaths. They should provide appropriate investigation into suspicious deaths in order to uncover wrongdoing and offer a thorough and sensitive service for relatives of those who die suddenly and unexpectedly.

However, they also need to provide for large cases, in relation to which capacity has been an issue. Will the Minister explain how the proposed system would have helped the investigation of the deaths of Harold Shipman's patients and those who suffered in Hatfield, the types of inquest where picking up patterns of behaviour is needed and capacity has been a problem?

Reform of the coroner and death certification service has been under consideration for some time and it is about time that an effective system was put in place by the Government. The Luce report concluded that the system was not fit for purpose in modern society. The Government's position paper, published in March 2004 following the review by Tom Luce and the Shipman inquiry in the summer of 2003, has left us waiting for some form of Government action for nearly two years. The Government have acknowledged the need to avoid long delays to inquests into deaths in custody and the need for reform in general. Although today's statement is welcome, what, may I ask, has been happening all this time when the Government have been saying for years that legislation is on its way, if not imminent?

I make no judgment, as the Minister did not, on the 120 or so coroners, their support staff and investigators. I would point out, however, that the statutory powers and procedures under which they work were established in a different era. The Shipman inquiry described a situation in which coroners work from home, where there is virtually no training, and any training that is available is not compulsory.

The Government's position paper published in March last year made some good recommendations, which were reflected in the Minister's statement; a system based on full-time coroners with legal qualifications, closely supported by appropriate medical expertise, together with tighter rules for death certification, notification of all deaths to coroners and stronger support for scrutinising cases and investigation where necessary. However, will the proposed new system allow for judges to sit as coroners when required, as recommended by the Hatfield inquest?

Dealing with death will always be, and should always be, a sensitive issue that requires and deserves efficiency, speed of process and accuracy. The reform of the coroner's court system to deliver those objectives is long outstanding. To that extent, the Government's proposals are generally welcome, although there is a clear need for careful review of the proposals, which are light on detail so far. We welcome the Government's offer and suggestion of pre-legislative scrutiny. Will that take place in the spring? I think that is what the Minister implied.

Finally, I note that parallel scrutiny is proposed by families who are experienced in the process. That is welcome, but will it take place before parliamentary scrutiny so that the House can have the benefit of its findings?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response and I agree with much of what he said. I agree with his critique of the system and we share the view that he put forward. I also agree that it has taken too long for us to reform the coroners system. Indeed, when I was legal officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties, working alongside its general secretary—now my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health—we argued that these changes should happen, and that was some 30 years ago. Of course, as people will be well aware, the Broderick report of the 1970s has yet to be implemented. We have a system that still looks pretty much as it did in the 18th century.

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that instructions have gone to parliamentary counsel. The Bill is just about drafted and it will be with the House in draft form in April to May. We expect to have the Bill proper in November or December, so that we will have enough time for parliamentary scrutiny. We shall actually get on with it this time; it is long overdue.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman made a point about capacity, which is very important. We want a local system of coroners because most inquests can be dealt with best at local level by qualified legal coroners who are professionally supported. However, there will be some cases where that is not the right approach. Instead of making relatives and everybody involved go through a local coroner first before, inevitably, ending up in the High Court, we envisage a situation in which coroners themselves can say, "I would like a High Court judge to take this case in the first instance", or the chief coroner can say, "I shall take the case in the first instance" or "I shall appoint a High Court judge to take the case in the first instance", or the relatives can say, "We think this will end up in the High Court so why don't we start with a High Court judge?"

Thirdly, the hon. Gentleman asked about investigation. As well as the 200,000-plus families involved in the coroners system every year, we have special thoughts about how to be absolutely sure that we avoid the situation that befell so many of Harold Shipman's patients. That is about investigation. People are well aware that if a doctor recommends a serious operation or radical treatment, it is not a hostile act against the doctor to ask for a second opinion; it is normal. But there has been no possibility for people to challenge a death certificate without the implicit accusation that the GP has been responsible for murder or malpractice. It is important that there is a light-touch ability so that relatives can say, "Can we have a second look at that?" That will be an important contributor towards ensuring that we do not have situations where people have concerns but there is no way in which they can call in a coroner to take a second look at the case.

The Lord Chancellor is strongly concerned that we get a move on and reform the system. It is well overdue for modernisation, which is what our proposals will achieve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents and also those of the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell).

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State and welcome her historic proposals, which will for the first time provide a national framework for the work of coroners and, most important, will empower bereaved relatives so that they have a legal right to challenge a coroner's ruling or to ask for a second opinion. The changes will be welcomed by any family whose relatives have died suddenly or violently, but especially by our constituents whose relatives were the victims of Harold Shipman.

Will my right hon. and learned Friend clarify the time scale for the introduction of the reforms on the ground? Will bereaved families have a right to see cremation forms? Will she implement the suggestion made by families that a simple leaflet be provided for bereaved families so that they know what their rights are? Will the families of Shipman's victims be able to join the family scrutiny panel and, lastly, will the Government make a wider statement on the progress of the inquiry's recommendations as a whole?

I thank my hon. Friend for her welcome for the proposals. I, too, acknowledge the concern felt by the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, our hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins). I have held a number of discussions with them and they have urged me and the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), to meet the relatives of those who suffered at the hands of Harold Shipman to ensure that they play a part, by looking at the proposals and giving us the benefit of their too terrible experience.

My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty) made a proposal about cremation forms. I see no reason at all why relatives, or anybody with a justified interest, should not see cremation forms. That is a practical proposal. A simple leaflet, which could be a summary of the family charter, would be extremely worthwhile, and we shall ensure that every family involved has not only the benefit of the rights of the new charter for families, but a summary of it.

My hon. Friend talked about empowerment for bereaved relatives. One of the problems has been that there is nothing that relatives can do when the system goes wrong except wait until the end of the process and go to the High Court to ask for the inquest to be overturned. They cannot challenge whether an inquest should be held, whether a jury should be empanelled or which witnesses should be called. In the Bill, we will put in place the opportunity for relatives to ask the chief coroner to review the case so that it can be remitted back to the coroner with an instruction from the chief coroner. We do not want to leave it until the end of the process, when things might have gone wrong, to require people to go to the High Court. Early intervention is needed to make it possible for relatives to have their say at an earlier stage.

I am grateful to the Minister of State for early sight of her statement. May I gently tell her, as she recognises the delay, that the March 2004 paper said:

"We do not intend to conduct a further period of public consultation, which could lead to unnecessary delay to this process of reform."?

That, in itself, was two years ago, so there is a need for some expedition, but the reforms that she announces are entirely welcome. I am particularly pleased to see the focus on the bereaved, which is right. May I ask her a number of questions?

First, will the right hon. and learned Lady retain the local jurisdiction of coroners? I think that she implied that she would do so in answer to an earlier question, but it is important that coroners' courts be accessible to people, particularly in the circumstances of the death of a loved one. If that is the case, will there be a special arrangement—again, she implied this—for national disasters, such as the sort of thing that we saw on 7 July or previously with the Marchioness disaster, which allows not only a specialist coroner but the ancillary technical and scientific support to enable those matters to be investigated with expedition?

The right hon. and learned Lady mentioned archaic boundary restrictions. Can anything be done to stop difficulties when crossing national boundaries, both in the United Kingdom and in our relations with overseas jurisdictions? The proposal that all coroners should now have legal training is welcome, but does she recognise that they need to have at least an understanding of the vocabulary of science and to understand some quite technical matters? It is not good enough simply to be a lawyer nowadays; to an extent one must be a polymath.

Is there still a dearth of pathologists, particularly paediatric pathologists, in forensic work? If so, what is being done to address that? Will coroners' juries be retained? Will coroners' guidance be binding on public authorities? At the moment, coroners often make statements to public authorities, but there is no requirement for them to consider those recommendations. Will there be such a requirement in future?

Lastly—this is perhaps a minor matter—but what used to be known as treasure trove is an historical remnant of coroners' jurisdictions. Would it not be better to place that—though perhaps within a judicial process—in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport? I look forward to swift progress on the proposals, and the right hon. and learned Lady will have every support from Liberal Democrat Members in making swift progress.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making a number of important points. First, treasure trove is an ancient jurisdiction of coroners. Sometimes, such cases can take two to three years to resolve, because treasure trove is always put at the back of the queue and dealt with locally. That does not make sense. We will make one coroner nationally responsible for treasure trove and get that dealt with effectively.

The hon. Gentleman asks whether public authorities will take notice of coroners when they make a statement about what lessons they think should be learned after a death. The higher public profile and higher national standing of the coroner service that Dame Janet Smith thought so important—we certainly agree—will ensure that public authorities are not able perhaps to leave on one side proposals made by a much better respected coroners system. Yes, there will still be coroners' juries. In addition to the mandatory cases where coroners' juries are required, coroners will have the discretion to use juries.

The hon. Gentleman asks whether coroners will have training, particularly in medicine and health issues. They will be qualified lawyers. All of them will have training, including medical training. In addition, they will have their own dedicated health advice, which they do not have at the moment. That will be part of a central budget which will be given to each and every coroner so that they have dedicated health support for medical issues. There is a dearth of pathologists, which also concerns colleagues in the Department of Health and the Home Office.

On foreign deaths, it is particularly distressing for bereaved relatives who have involved themselves in a full inquest in, say, France or Spain, to come back to this country and go through the process all over again. We plan to end that. If there has been a satisfactory inquest, albeit abroad, it does not have to be repeated.

Coroners will have a local jurisdiction and will be accessible. There will be fewer coroners, however, because they will be full-time. It will be their dedicated job and they will be professional coroners, so there will be fewer of them.

As far as national disasters are concerned, it is ridiculous to expect a fragmented local general service to deal with major national emergencies or disasters. It is not fair on the coroners' officers, the coroners and, above all, the relatives. Our proposals will enable that to be handled effectively.

I can only agree with the hon. Gentleman on timing. I have perhaps waited longer than most other hon. Members for this to happen because I first went on record as complaining about the problem 30 years ago. We have all waited a long time. Let me explain the timing because I was possibly not clear about that in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty). We expect to put the draft Bill before the House in April or May. We expect to have the Bill proper available for the scrutiny of the House in November or December.

I perhaps did not answer the question of the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) about family scrutiny. I expect that to take place in the House so that colleagues who intend to involve themselves in the debate on Second Reading and in Committee can see a moderated discussion by people who have practical and recent experience. It will make for a much more sensible debate if we have that running alongside the Select Committee's important work.

rose—

Order. I remind the House that Back Benchers should ask only one supplementary question.

I unreservedly welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. I speak on behalf of the family of my constituent, Sean Hutchinson, whose body was left in a coroner's morgue for more than two years while the coroner's officers failed to discover his identity, leaving the family in a state of great distress, not knowing whether he was alive or dead. In subsequent conversations with coroners, I have come to the view that they are one of the remaining unreformed relics of feudalism—unaccountable, unmanaged and often arrogant. Will she press ahead with absolute urgency to bring comfort to families in the future?

We will press ahead with that. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work on behalf of his constituents. He has tabled many questions to which most of my answers have been, "I don't have this information. Sorry, I can't tell you. I don't know." He has exposed that that is not good enough, especially when it comes to accountability to the House. The Bill will sort that out.

In welcoming the statement, I assure the Minister that the Select Committee will start work tomorrow by taking evidence from Dame Janet Smith on the proposals. However, does the Minister accept that if she is not careful the removal of part-time coroners might lead to a situation in which bereaved relatives in small communities in remote areas do not have access to a coroner locally? What will it cost, bearing in mind the amount of cross-subsidy of counsel and the Court Service in the current system?

It will cost—this is a rough estimate—something in the region of £5 million extra a year. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether changing to dedicated full-time coroners will mean that people have to wait longer—

Travel further.

And travel further. One thing that has made families wait longer is that solicitors in private practice who are also coroners sometimes adjourn an inquest to deal with something in their private practice. There is no reason why coroners should not travel to the families. We will ensure that Her Majesty's Court Service buildings, county courts and magistrates courts are available for the coroners to exercise their jurisdiction locally, so that they can work around the families and circumstances, rather than expect the families to work around them or their private practice as solicitors.

Although I very much congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on her proposals, will she ensure that in the most contentious cases jurisdiction is always placed in the hands of a group of the most senior coroners, who have full knowledge of human rights implications; that excessive delays of sometimes up to three years between death and a coroner's hearing are not allowed to happen in future; and that there is an obligation to provide information at the outset to families about their legal rights, as well as access to legal aid, as of right without a means test?

As my right hon. Friend will know, Lord Carter is reviewing legal aid in the Department for Constitutional Affairs. I totally agree about information being made available at the outset as a matter of routine. I agree that excessive delays are not acceptable. Sometimes one sees a report of an inquest and on looking further down one realises that the death was two or three years previously. My right hon. Friend makes an important point about the seniority of coroners dealing with difficult or complex cases. Perhaps he is the one person who has spoken today who has been complaining about coroners services even longer than I have.

I commend to the Minister the work of the Surrey coroner, Mr. Michael Burgess, and his excellent deputy Mr. Nick Benger. Their problems over the past few years have been essentially practical—shortage of staff, IT problems, shortage of coroners offices and difficulty in finding a place fit for a jury where an inquest can be held. Will the Minister ensure that her reforms address some of the practical problems faced by that excellent coroner and his deputy?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments about the Surrey coroner and his deputy. He has described the problems of a service that has been affected by blight. Everyone has been so expecting something to change that it has been very difficult for coroners and officers to have any certainty for the future. I hope that, as from this statement, there will be an end to the blight and that we can support much better the work of the many dedicated coroners officers. I pay tribute to the Coroners Officers Association, which throughout the years of blight has tried to improve professionalism with precious little support. I hope that those things will be sorted out.

I warmly welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. For seven of my eight years in this House I have asked for reform of the coroner's office, because on Teesside we have waited years and years for a coroner's report. When a 12-year-old girl dies in an accident while playing with a swing, that is a tragedy; when her mother has to wait two years and three months to find out the cause, that is desperately bad for all of us. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend's reforms will change it. I seek reassurance that the national framework will ensure that coroners have the power to fill gaps in the service so that we all benefit from a professional service.

The chief coroner will be able to issue practice directions and to set out what is expected of coroners. It is nowhere set out nationally that timeliness matters. We have to be sure, and we will be, that the situation that my hon. Friend described cannot occur.

The right hon. and learned Lady will be aware that the Oxfordshire coroner is responsible for inquests into the deaths of our servicemen who are returned from Afghanistan and Iraq via RAF Brize Norton. She will also be aware that there is a huge backlog of those inquests and that that is causing wholly unnecessary suffering to the families. Will she assure me that that situation is under control and further outline how her changes will prevent it from happening in future?

The hon. Gentleman has raised this on a number of occasions and it is of great concern. When we get rid of the boundary restrictions—coroners cannot sit outside their jurisdiction and are prevented from working where there is a backlog—that problem will be easily solved, but I do not expect people in the circumstances that he described to wait until we have legislated on that. We must address ourselves anew to do what we can within the current creaking system to sort out that situation.

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on her excellent statement, but may I press her on the issue of qualifications and training? Surely, it is not enough just to say that qualified solicitors should be employed and to give coroners a pot of money so that they can seek training themselves. Will she look at the possibility of an additional qualification or, at the very least, a course of training for coroners organised by the new Commission for Judicial Appointments?

We will certainly look into the point that my hon. Friend has made about training and qualifications.

In framing her proposals, will the right hon. and learned Lady look at the Potter's Bar rail crash, as it is expected that the inquiry will take the form of a coroner's inquest, even though the families wanted a full public inquest and the Hertfordshire coroner had concerns about the holding of an inquest? Almost three years after the crash, it has just been announced that a judge is to be released to hold the inquiry. Three years is too long to wait for an inquiry into such a major incident involving many families.

As the hon. Gentleman rightly points out, what we lack is the capacity for leadership and certainty, which would enable the right inquiries to be made at the earliest possible opportunity. I agree that it is unfair that an inquiry has taken so long. The national leadership of the chief coroner means that there will be someone at a national level to liaise with the relevant parties and ensure that what the hon. Gentleman says does not happen in future.

May I strongly welcome the proposals for proper appointments, training and discipline for coroners? The people of Teesside have long suffered under a part-time coroner, now aged 76, who has never seen the need to acquire any administrative skills or management experience, and has often had a backlog of 200 or 300 cases over six months old. All the MPs in the area have witnessed people crying at their surgeries because they are quite unable to grieve while waiting two, three or four years for an inquest to understand what happened to their loved ones. Can my right hon. and learned Friend give me an absolute assurance that the proposals will guarantee that my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), who has mentioned the problem, will never suffer again under what is, after all, a public service?

My hon. and learned Friend's persistence on behalf of her constituents is one of the driving forces behind the proposals. Hon. Members have tabled parliamentary questions, and many have written letters that include anguished stories. We are determined to make absolutely sure that people have a proper, effective and humane service. Everyone who goes to a coroner faces a sad and often tragic situation, so the current system is not acceptable. My hon. and learned Friend's complaints have been well understood, and the legislation will deal with them.

Following the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), why is it not possible to re-allocate some of the work from the Oxfordshire coroners to county coroners nearer the homes of the relatives? After the reforms, does the Minister intend to have at least one coroner in each county town?

We expect that there will be more than one coroner in cities. There will be at least one coroner in every county, and usually more than one, depending on the population. I cannot give a specific answer, but I accept the point that the hon. Gentleman has made. Coroners have mediaeval jurisdictions, which they control—no one else is allowed to sit there, and they are not allowed to sit in anyone else's jurisdiction—so it is impossible to do something simple and straightforward such as reallocating a coroner to another jurisdiction to deal with a backlog. That is the problem with the statutory legal framework, and it is a simple but important thing that we will change.

Like my right hon. and learned Friend, I compliment Tom Luce and Dame Janet Smith on their influence on the reforms. As for the family charter that my right hon. and learned Friend promised, must it wait for the legislation or can a first edition be published now?

The family charter does not have to wait. I have had meetings with family organisations of the bereaved, which have been incredibly helpful and are very clear about what they want. The problem is that it is not enforceable, so we cannot ensure that it is given to relatives or that coroners abide by it. We will certainly give the family charter extra momentum, but it is not until we legislate that we will be certain that we can apply those standards. There will also be an inspection system, and one of the things the inspectors will do is look at whether each coroner is properly implementing the family charter. I endorse my hon. Friend's remarks about Tom Luce and Dame Janet Smith.

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on her statement and fully endorse the changes that she proposes. If one of the new, more professionalised coroners were to make a specific recommendation, such as that a death or an incident should be the subject of a full-scale public inquiry, what weight would be given by her Department to such a recommendation?

A recommendation about lessons that need to be learned from a highly professionalised coroners service that has considered all the evidence appropriately will carry much more weight than it does at present.

I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement, particularly on behalf of the Mullane family from my constituency, the family of Julia Pemberton and her son William, tragically murdered by her husband Alan in November 2003. Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure me that her proposals will bring an end to the type of disgraceful treatment that the Mullane family experienced from two coroners? The first declined to stand down initially, despite his strong link to Alan Pemberton, and the second treated the family with hostility and failed to investigate conflicting evidence under article 2 of the European convention on human rights. Will she assure me that her proposals will mean that coroners will never be allowed to behave like that again?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the case. It was a tragic case of a woman and her son being killed and then the husband, who had killed them both, committing suicide. One of the most tragic aspects was that the family, whom I had the opportunity to meet because Refuge, the organisation, brought them to see me, said, "We know this is supposed to be an inquisitorial system, but we felt it was an adversarial system, and we felt that it was against us." Any system that makes bereaved relatives feel that the whole system is weighted against them is totally unsatisfactory. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that case to my attention and also for the support that she is giving the relatives in such unacceptable circumstances. In the House we have recently legislated for homicide reviews in domestic violence cases, but, arguably, if the coroners system were working properly, we would not need homicide reviews, as all the relevant information would be brought to the coroner and proper lessons would be learned. The reviews have sprung up because the coroner system has not been dealing appropriately with these cases.

For some years I have been involved with Grimsby resident Shanie Parkin over the tragic death of her son Bradley. Shanie's experiences are similar to others that have been aired in the House today. She has been campaigning for change, and I am sure she will welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement, particularly in relation to family involvement, which is what Shanie felt was most lacking, and on how to get a second opinion if there are any doubts. Can my right hon. and learned Friend give us a few more details about that? She will be meeting Shanie later this week, and I hope she will accept from her a petition calling for changes to the coroners system.