Member News
By Baroness Finlay of Llandaff - 14th December 2010
Ahead of her amendment to the Public Bodies Bill, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff claims there is no evidence that money will be saved by scrapping quangos.
The Public Bodies Bill puts Parliament in a bizarre position. Firstly, it effectively requires it to hand over sweeping powers to ministers to abolish a wide range of organisations, with only the affirmative instrument process, which does not allow amendment, to check on the way the responsibilities of each abolished body will be discharged.
Secondly, after extensive, nuanced debate, bodies that have been respected and acknowledged as needed are to be swept aside. Where is the evidence that money will be saved?
The Office of the Chief Coroner is a glaring example. The Coroners and Justice Act, brought in with cross-party support, has the potential to bring much-needed changes to the coronial system. This archaic system currently has no mechanism of central reporting, no national standards and training, no reporting of undue delays in holding inquests, lack of clarity over which deaths must be investigated, weak powers to prevent future deaths, no route for the bereaved to appeal, and no clarity over how a coroner is removed from office.
The Office of the Chief Coroner and Medical Advisor are to address these and other impediments to justice, which were identified in the Review of Death Certification (2003), The Shipman Inquiry Report (2003), pre-legislative scrutiny (2006) and changes following wide consultation (2008), culminating in the Coroners and Justice Act in 2009.
The British Legion, Action Against Medical Accidents and INQUEST see the Office of the Chief Coroner, with the associated medical advisor, as finally being able to secure better justice for the bereaved, with clear processes, judicial oversight, national standards of coroners' training, and monitoring of delays in holding inquests, the quality of post-mortems and inquest processes across England and Wales.
The families of those killed on active service must know that an inquest will be held by a coroner trained in military matters. Deaths in custody warrant full investigation. And those families bereaved through a sudden death, whether an adult or a child, must feel confident that a high-standard post-mortem has been conducted.
Currently, costly Judicial Review is the only recourse to families to appeal. The 2006 report on coroners' post-mortems revealed that over half are not satisfactory.
The chief coroner was appointed in February but, before taking up his duties, his post was withdrawn. Abolition of the office is on grounds of cost, yet the costing base of the decision is questionable. It does not recognise that a proper appeal system, providing a fair hearing, will bring justice, thereby decreasing recourse to judicial review and the ongoing costs to the NHS of those with complex grief, nor the cost of future lives lost because processes were inadequate.
Abolishing the Office of the Chief Coroner will waste more of the country's limited resources on coping with the distressed bereaved, who know that the current system has not served them well. It will not deliver economies in the long term.
Article Comments
Baroness Finlay puts a very cogent case.
The Public Bodies Bill is a complete disaster. One major complaint in Wales is the power it gives the Government to abolish the Welsh language broadcaster S4C - which was established with the support of the both Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers in Wales in the early 1980s after a long campaign of civil disobedience.
The government is showing complete ignorance of history and the need for an independent media by trying to force this bill through the Westminster Parliament.
David Thomas
15th Dec 2010 at 12:58 pm
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