Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of Peers for Gambling Reform.

I am glad to bring before the House the Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill, now in its third iteration. This latest version is significantly different from the previous two; it has taken on board many of His Majesty’s Government’s criticisms and attempted to resolve them. Indeed, the Minister who dealt with the Bill in the previous Session, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, had hoped to speak today from the Back Benches but has to be in court. He has, however, given his permission to say that he supports the aims of the Bill. Because we have tried to respond to the points made by the Government, I will listen attentively to the Minister as he outlines their response, given that I believe their concerns have largely been dealt with.

The genesis of the Bill is the frustration that many of us in your Lordships’ House have felt when we have tried to bring in sensible reforms to the Wild West of online gambling, which is causing untold suffering in communities across our nation. More than a third of a million adults in our country are now diagnosed with a gambling addiction. More than 62,000 teenagers, who in law are not even allowed to gamble, have been diagnosed with a gambling problem. With an estimated more than 400,000 suicides every year due to problem gambling, we need to address this problem in a sensible way. On a number of occasions when I and other noble Lords have raised the issue in the House, the Government have resisted our attempts to bring some order to this sector, simply claiming, “We don’t understand the size of the problem.” The Bill is a proposal for one way of obtaining more data.

Although the first two versions of the Bill included explicit references to gambling, those have now been removed and replaced with a means to record a wide range of causative factors in suicides. Previously there were concerns that the recording of such factors would interfere with the traditional remit of the coroner and the inquest process. Noble Lords will be aware that for centuries coroners have been given the task of answering the questions “Who?”, “What?”, “When?” and “How?” but not “Why?”. That is a criticism that I have taken seriously. I have endeavoured to ensure that the recording of causative factors explicitly occurs following the conclusion of an inquest and will therefore have no impact on the official death certificate or, indeed, the inquest process.

I point out in passing that many coroners, either informally or through the use of a prevention of future deaths report, already comment on the causes of many suicides. For example, Mr Andrew Walker, a senior coroner from north London, has spoken publicly on many occasions recently following the death of Molly Russell, who took her life by suicide. I quote from his statement:

“Molly subscribed to a number of online sites … some of these sites were not safe as they allowed access to adult content that should not have been available for a 14-year-old child to see … Molly had access to images, video clips and text concerning … self-harm, suicide or that were otherwise negative or depressing”.


Even on the train this morning I read another comment by a coroner talking about the question of “Why?” This is something which is happening, and coroners seem to be doing it fairly regularly.

The Bill requires the Secretary of State to draw up guidance on what factors the coroner must consider and the form in which these factors should be recorded. Furthermore, citing fears from coroners that the Bill would oblige them to record a factor or factors in instances where they feel insufficiently able to make that determination, provisions are included to require an option of “no discernible factor” to be included in the guidance.

Obviously, I would expect and hope that gambling-related harm is included as a factor in the Secretary of State’s guidance. Still, the purpose of having the guidance and collection method drawn up by the Secretary of State is to enable a system of generalised data collection which could be streamlined across different coronial jurisdictions. This is crucial, as under Clause 1(6) of the Bill the Office for National Statistics will be required to collect the opinions recorded on the factors causative to suicides in the UK in order to publish them on an annual basis. This information will prove crucial in informing the Government’s suicide prevention programme, alongside the research and work performed by charities and other organisations.

Additionally, new provisions are outlined in Clause 1(7) which prevent information relating to risk factors being released in any way that could lead to the identification of the deceased. Clause 1(8) prevents risk factors collected being used as evidence in any court proceedings. These provisions, though unusual, stem from concerns that the Government had about whether the recording of risk could later be used to attribute civil liability to either individuals or businesses. By preventing the disclosures of identities or the use of risk factors as evidence, this concern would be clearly mitigated.

On the technical aspects of the Bill, these updated provisions create a strong framework to enable the recording of factors causative in a death by suicide without interfering with the coronial process, placing undue responsibilities on the coroner or creating judicial difficulties. I hope that this updated version of the Coroners (Determination of Suicide) Bill will commend itself to His Majesty’s Government and that they too will recognise the importance of collecting information on the risk factors that cause suicide in the UK.

Suicide prevention cannot simply be about interventions to prevent suicide, though I do not discount the importance of this. People rarely commit suicide without reason. In fact, there is nearly always a reason, known in coronial circles as the “causative factor”. It is only by addressing these causative factors that we can have an effective suicide prevention strategy. This necessarily requires accurate knowledge of the main, leading factors driving suicides in the UK today.

A number of Members of your Lordships’ House who are part of Peers for Gambling Reform have argued that one cannot reduce the estimated 409 annual gambling-related suicides—that estimate is by Public Health England—without a comprehensive package of better treatment for those suffering and better regulations to curb the excessive harms caused by online gambling.

In 2020 there were 5,224 suicides in the UK. Aside from age, gender, location and method, we know virtually nothing about the causes, which limits our capability to devise strategies to reduce the number of suicides—something which His Majesty’s Government have committed to doing. This Bill, in a modest way, would enable the accurate recording of risk factors across various coronal jurisdictions in a safe and secure manner, without compromising the identity of the individual or the inquest process.

I recognise that the ability of the coroner to not record anything might limit the accuracy of the data but I am hesitant to place an unfair burden on coroners, and recognise the importance of taking this forward with their support rather than against their will. Nevertheless, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, and I believe the framework presented in this Bill will provide a good framework for the collection of this information. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I thank noble Lords for their speeches. I will not go into them in detail, because we hope to come back to this at a later stage, when we can explore them further. I shall just respond to the Minister though, because it seems to me that there is a potential inconsistency in the reasons he has given.

For example, the Minister said that it is very difficult for the coroner to determine “why”. Yet, he conceded in his third point that they are already able to issue the precise reasons why under the prevention of future deaths report, which could not be made unless some sort of view was taken on what had caused the deaths. I totally take the point a number of noble Lords have made, that this is a very inexact way forward; it is certainly not perfect. The Bill has got to its third iteration because at every stage, when people have told me, “I wouldn’t do it like that”, I have asked them how they would do it. I can see all the problems, but I hope that with the help of noble Lords, not least those noble and learned Lords who have brought their considerable legal expertise—I am delighted to have such eminent judges, people who really understand the law, commenting on this—we can improve it.

Our system of taking Bills through Parliament is one of improving them together. I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas: let us look at the issue. Is it the Secretary of State or is it the Chief Coroner? Perhaps he could bring us an amendment on that. Let us sort out these problems. These are areas where I have no experience at all; I am just a jobbing Bishop from the sticks. We have these legal experts here who can help us, so I thank them very much and hope they will enable us to improve the Bill as we bring it back.

I want to go back to the basic facts. There are more than 400 suicides a year. We heard stories in the Select Committee of families who have been rent apart and will never be the same. Take the story of Jack Ritchie. His parents have been in this place several times and are now campaigners. Their whole lives have been destroyed, as they watched their son get destroyed. They could see that it was going to happen but felt powerless to do anything. We have to do something. The Bill may not be perfect but, please, let us see what we can do to improve it so that we can get the data to allow us to inform His Majesty’s Government’s suicide prevention strategy—not just on problem gambling but on other forms of addiction and other areas. This could be a significant way forward if your Lordships could help me forge it into something better. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.